It's been a long while since an update, but a month on the move and lots to see makes it surprisingly difficult to take a spare moment to write a blog. I'll apologise now for the few emails you may receive, I wanted to split up the blogs for my past month or so's travels.

So it started off in Laos, totally different to my original plans. After a crazy few days in Bangkok for Sangkran (Thai New Year - basically a massive water festival) my original plans of going down south had changed. I met 2 girls that were great fun and were heading up north to Laos so I thought I may as well go off with them and so I did! One of the great things about travelling with time, you have no fixed plans and can do whatever you want!

A pretty hurrendous overnight train journey later (due to the immense humidity and no air-con), we arrived in Laos. Vientianne, the capital, didn't have a great deal to offer, other than the fact that they were still celebrating new year here and I ended up going to probably the biggest foam party I've ever seen in the middle of the square. Certainly made the most of the ridiculously cheap beer - about 40p for a large bottle of BeerLao, which was a pretty nice beer! I also experienced my first monsoon thunderstorm during the night, with crashing thunder and lightning, eventually leading to the electricity being cut off and a hurrendously hot room due to no fans!

We then headed up to Vang Vieng, the place Laos is best known for by travellers due to it's 'tubing'. For those that have never heard of this you basically rent out a tube (or not in our case, we just swam) and float down a river and stop off at bars on the way. Each bar has zip wires and rope swings into the river and with free shots at every bar you can imagine this is a health and safety nightmare! Nevertheless extremely fun! We met up with 2 guys who were at uni with the 2 girls I'd come up to Laos with and they were a good laugh. It happened to be James's 22nd whilst tubing and he certainly made the most of it with free buckets of alcohol at each bar - probably one of the best days travelling yet! After 3 days tubing the 5 of us had had enough! Ben had to leave to head home, however James stayed and as a group of 4 we headed up north to Luang Prabang.

Not before one of the worst 8 hours travelling yet, in a small mini-bus on the most treacherous roads through the mountains. The mini-bus did have air-con, however as soon as we headed up the mountains it was turned off so the engine didn't get too hot. To add to this, I didn't even have a head rest behind the seat, not that I would have been able to sleep anyway due to the extremely bumpy roads. We did infact pass some pretty amazing scenery that I certainly did not imagine of Laos, as well as small hillside villages with houses made of bamboo.

Luang Prabang was totally different to Vang Vieng with a lot of French architectural influence, amazing cuisine and a chilled out vibe - probably just what we needed! The town has lots of temples and you see hundreds of monks everywhere. One temple was high above the town on a hill and going up there for sunset was magic, looking accross the city with the Mekong River behind it and the mountain ranges in the background. One of the main attractions there is the waterfalls and they were certainly worth a visit. Probably the most picturesque set of waterfalls I've ever seen with sky blue water that was so refreshing to swim in. Thoroughly enjoyed my time in Laos, with really friendly people and such cheap prices, making it somewhere I would strongly recommend people to visit! Next stop, Vietnam!