Kel: Pure luxury ... especially after years on a bus. Our jaws hit the floor when we got to Halong Bay. It's absolutely stunning. There are around 3000 limestone islands scattered around a bay and the Vietnamese are dying to see it named as one of the 7 natural wonders of the world. Deservedly so - it's absolutely beautiful. We boarded our 'voyage dreams' boat, our home for the next 24 hours and took off at a leisurely pace. The weather was warm but not sunbathin...

MATT: So we left Laos, saying goodbye to our generous hosts at the homestay village and heading off for a long bus journey to a late night stopover in Ninh Bihn. There is not much to say about Ninh Bihn itself...we got there really late after about 11 hours on the bus, had dinner, went to bed and got up to travel on to our next destinantion. The journey, however, is worth talking about. We drove to the border for about 2 hours through the mountains and jungles o...

Kel: All I can say is WOW. We've just had the most amazing experience staying with a local Laos village for the night. It's a small community of about 40 families, lots of smiling children, randy roosters and very shy but welcoming people. We got to the village early evening after a long bus journey from Vientiene and started playing with the kids (prob about 30-40 5-10 year olds) straight away . They were so excited. We were the first village stay for them this ...

Matt: This is the first time i have had to sit down at a half decent PC since leaving Japan...so quite a bit has happened. We are now in Luang Prabang in Laos and have covered a fair bit of ground in the last week or so. I think that this is now day 17 of our trip and day 7 of our tour of Indochina. The tour is going relly well and the group is definitely bonding - and chilling out...or getting into "Laos Time". But first to catch up a bit...Japan was ...

Kel: Bangkok - eek! It's quite intimidating, hard to trust anyone, really dirty but will some smiley faces in between. So far we've met our tour group - a mix of nationalities but mostly twenty something girls, lucky Matthew - and have experienced a lovely river trip and a visit to Wat Po temple today. Off to get some food now and then off on an overnight train to Chaing Mai tonight. We're both looking forward to getting out of the city and into the country (but ...