Laurenloz

20 November - 21 December Nong Khai From the bus station in Vientiane, we took a bus over the natural border of the Mekong River, to the humble town of Nong Khai. The crossing was relatively smooth and happily it was free. Apparently South East Asian immigration officials have not yet caught on to the trend of charging extortionate and ambiguous fees to defenseless tourists like their Latin American counterparts do so proficiently. We used our ‘saved’ baht to buy ourselves two delicious Pad Thai’s and a rather disappointing Singha beer. We spent the remainder of the afternoon walking the considerable length of Thailand’s version of the Mekong promenade, unsurprisingly more impressive, and checking out Nong Khai’s market. It turned out our guest house was situated in the middle of nowhere, and thus, a long search ... read more

23rd October - 11th November Ho Chi Min City aka Saigon Our Vietnam experience began dramatically as our plane came in to land in a thunderstorm. All we could see through the windows was the white light of lightning reflected against the surrounding cloud. Our hearts started beating considerably faster as the plane touched down for a second before taking off again. We were left in the dark, or rather flashing light, as to why for the proceeding twenty minutes or so. Dad later explained that this is the pilots ‘code’ as it were; ‘aviate, navigate, then communicate’. I won’t pretend that thoughts of hijack were not consuming my mind during that period. The entire plane erupted in applause when we eventually landed. It took an hour or so to get visas and soon we were ... read more

1st Septembet - 1st October The first leg: Sydney to Airlie Beach Australia, the expansive country that surpassed all expectations with its diversity and natural beauty, enthralled us. The adventure started in Sydney on a double decker train which took us from the airport to our delightful hostel-come-student accommodation in a pleasant leafy suburb. We spent three days sightseeing Sydney on travel cards that enabled us to travel by double decker train, bus and ferry. As well as the Opera House, Sydney Harbour Bridge and Bondi Beach (in the rain) we also took in some of the Sydney nightlife in a local pub with some friends of Miles’ (James’ brother) and discussed the delights of Asia from where they had recently come and which we are soon to uncover. The following day we had a rude ... read more

We arrived in Santiago around 8am and took the metro to Republica where our guide book suggested some cheaper hostels. These were not to be found, either having closed down or apparently never having existed. After about half an hour of walking with heavy bags we gave up at a ‘residencial’ in the style of a typical English old fashioned B+B. This cost us about $45 a night and didn’t even come with the latter ‘b’. We spent the remainder of the day scouting out ways to get to El Colorado, a nearby ski resort where we would spend my birthday. El Colorado At 8am the next morning we were collected by a minibus which took us to our hotel in El Fallerones near El Colorado. It was a nice hotel, quaint and a bit dated ... read more

Copacabana y Isla del Sol We arrived in pleasant but touristy Copacabana in the early afternoon and found a great hostel with a beautiful lake facing room for under $10 before treating ourselves to a decent meal and a delicious glass of vino tinto to celebrate our arrival into wine country at long last. We were awoken with a knock at the door the following day and it wasn’t until we’d leisurely got ourselves up and ready for breakfast that we discovered that Bolivia is an hour ahead of Peru and thus we were about to miss our boat to Isla del Sol. Hurriedly we shoved our belongings into various bags leaving most at the hostel, only taking our disorganised day packs with us to the island for our overnight stay, and ran to the dock ... read more