We've just made it to vientiane, and are just checking emails. Sorry if I don't reply to you quickly: we're both really tired, so this is just to catch up with things a little. Rev it sounds like a great party!

I'll try and do a major email session in Vietnam, which we should reach in about 4 days....

The roads weren't bad at all, though the bus, clearly designed for some sort of body that would never reach such excessive heights as 6 foot, had tiny seats. Bah! At least there was air-con, and we caught it. Why is that a bonus? Because we almost missed it completely, thinking that the bus left at 7.30 in the morning. In reality, it left at 7. Quite what I was doing up at that time is one of the great mysteries of traveling!

The bus journey delivered us to Vang Viang after following a route through the mountains and low flying clouds. Lovely, and only hair-raising is you made the mistake of sitting on the wrong side of the bus and looking down. Vang Viang sits on a plain, near a river who's name I don't have to hand (because I'm useless like that) and surrounded by mountains that suddenly burst from the plain, ascending ludirously quickly and then plunging back down again. The best simile would be to compare them with incisors and molars, covered in a thick layer of foresty plaque. Mountains like teeth.

Vang Viang is a dope-head's dream, possibly because the of the utter lack of anything resembling Lao culture (except for a tiny Wat) If sitting around smoking didn't take your fancy, the other activities seem to centre on riding large inner tubes down the river through spectacular scenery being hailed by random people on the shore who are keen to sell you large bottles of Beer Lao (a fine beverage) At one place we clambered off our rings (one of us plunging up to her chest in the water, and one of us getting his knees slightly damp)(no pun intended) and made our way into water filled caves.

The highlight of the cave trip was the clay "slides" that we had to scoot down to reach parts of it, and the miniscule exit, which appeared to be only 3 foot long by about a foot and a half high. Fortunately, this appearance was deceptive. It was at least 2 foot high. We all made it out safely.

Evenings in Vang Viang seem to consist of watching videos. It's a relaxing place, but after a day or two, I was ready to leave....

Luang Prabang is lovely. I did have a massive blog entry about waterfalls, tigers, herring-bone patterned pavements, temples and all the things that we've done, but I just lost that after the slow Net connection here failed utterly and IE 6 decided not to allow me to hit the "back" button to get to the entry. This is a lesson in both using this vile excuse of a browser, and in the general lack of quality in Loatian communications technology. Suffice it to say that we're still having a whale of a time, and have seen some amazing sights. And a tiger.

Tomorrow, we head off to Vang Viang, and a day later to Vientiane. It's time to find out just how bad the roads in Laos really are....

The trip from Thailand to Luang Prabang, our first real stop in Laos, was a two stage journey, firstly by bus to Chiang Khong, where the guest house was run by a lovely ex-ladyboy who insisted on calling everyone "Chickadee", and slow boat for a two day journey, stopping at Pak Beng on the way.

The first part of the journey was uneventful, though we did get to chat to people and started to formulate our own plans for getting around SE Asia a little more. The slow boat journey started with a terrifically long wait, folled by a nice little scam for "insurance money" on the boat itself. Of the 20-30 people on the boat, only one other person other than Holly and I refused to pay for it. Talking to other people here, it would seem as though we're the norm, though.

The overnight stop was at a place called Pak Beng. This "charming" village only has electricity for part of the day, so the fan in our room was utterly useless, as was the light bulb! What we did have, though, was rats, scuttling up and down the corridor outside, and through our bags in the room. Come the morning, our food had been eaten, or torn into, and Holly's water bottle had been consumed. Wow! Hungry buggers....

The trip down the Mekong was lovely --- the scenery is stunning, and the river itself, depsite being a murky brown colour is amazing. Right now, it doesn't appear to be massively deep, so there are lots of eddies in the river, sometimes meaning that parts of it flowed in the opposite direction to the main body of the river. Because it's such a major route through Northern Laos, it hardly comes as a surprise to find out that we were also picking up and dropping off other passengers and cargo. What was a surprise though was when we picked up a live pig, trussed to a long bamboo pole, from one of the villages. Above the roar of the amazingly loud engines, our trip was gently punctuated with squeals of discomfort from this animal.

Finally, after 3 days travel, we arrived in Luang Prabang.

Armed with visas, a plan so cunning you could say that we'd made it up one day in a bid to find something to do and a pocketful of Thai Baht (and some US dollars) Holly and I are now ready to depart for Laos. This is a Good Thing, because we're catching a bus at 10 tomorrow morning to head there.

We're still not quite sure what to expect. Holly's "Rough Guide" promises us a fabulous time being held at gun point by bandits on some of the worst roads known to man. My "Lonely Planet" on the other hand, is far more gung-ho about the whole affair. It'll probably be somewhere in between, though I have no doubt that with the rainy season upon us the roads will be dire.

In other news, I've trimmed my packing down so that everything I own, including my rucksack, can be squeezed into my main back-pack. Of course, it then becomes a trifle hard to lift, but this is only a minor problem! For the record, Holly still has a little way to go but might also be able to do the same. Given the amazing amount of stuff that she had planned to bring, this is nothing short of a miracle.