A breakfast beer and omelette woke us up the next morning, the famous Vang Vieng tubing was the plan for the day. Swimming attire donned and tube in hand we jumped on a tuk tuk and headed for the river. We managed a full 30 seconds before the first rope was thrown and we were pulled towards the a bar. A gang of revellers dressed in animal onesies greeted us and we joined in with the beer pong tournament and exchanged stories, back in the tubes for another 30 sec...

After the culmination of a sleeper train from Sapa, a taxi from Hanoi, a flight to Vietiane and a long visa queue, we arrived in Laos not so fresh faced but with two new Aussie mates. Some mild tourism and lunch in the town and we were back on a bus for the 5 hour journey to Vang Vieng. Laos reviled itself to be a country distinctly different from others we have visited, although initially not obviously different from Vietnam, Thailand or Cambodia the mood ...

The many became the few as we slipped and sled ever onwards to our goal, we were now joined by 2 Austrians, 1 German and our ever talkative Scotsman friend. We settled in for lunch when the onslaught began, wave after wave hit us relentlessly as the parents rested the children were sent in. The intentions of our trekking companions were now clear as they had reached their destination - sell sell sell!!!! Scarfs followed bags, followed bracelets, followed hats, th...

Oh Sapa, exactly what the doctor ordered! A heavily interrupted but not completely dreamless sleep on our favourite mode of transport the sleeper train we were ferried via minibus to Sapa Sumit hotel. Greeted by a characteristically chatty Scottish lad from our cancelled Halong Bay excursion and a collection of ethnically dressed Vietnamese tribal ladies we donned Wellies, walking boots and ponchos and headed off down the mist covered mountains. The sounds ...

We were greeted us was a concouphony of characters, a bunch of mis-fits if we did ever see one. Two Dutch male divorcées, two young American teachers, 6 Argentinian blokes, one elderly Indian bloke (soon to be known as Mr India), one elderly Chinese woman, two Aussie blokes and us. We sat there sharing stories and surveying the damage with the two Aussies who sensibly enough were there just for the trip to Cat Ba island and would unfortunately miss the end...