Once the notorious party town of Laos, it drew swarms of young travellers from all over to lose their self in3 tubing, drinking, drugs and whatever else the town had to offer. It finally reached its peak in 2012, before the government shut everything down following a number of accidents and deaths involving travellers. With nothing else to keep the tourists coming, numbers dwindled and many guesthouses and bars were forced to close. With it beautiful scenary, huge karst mountains surrounding the river that run through this town it is understandable why people keep coming. Jumping to 2015, we arrive after a hairy ride on some thin foggy roads from Luang Prabang, in the underwhelming ghost town of Vang vieng. Even though there was a mix of western and Chinese tourists milling around, the town ... read more

Muang Ngoi: Another riverside location but more of a smaller village, made up of dirt paths extending only a couple of streets back from the riverside. Unlike Nong Khiaw there was a less developed feel here, possibly owing to its small size and lack of any real road infrastructure and so fortunately (for us) this place had no motorised vechiles. This village could only be acessed by boat. Unlike Nong Khiaw with its sleepy, almost ghost town atmosphere; Muang Ngoi, although smaller felt more alive. We could not put our finger on why it did (as afterall it was still a small riverside village with amazing scenery). Later it dawned on us why these two riverside locations were so different..m With Nong Khiaw (previous village) split into 2 by the river, this created somewhat of an ... read more

Once again we say goodbye to one country and hello to another. See you again China. Crossing the border into Laos was fairly straight forward as the trip went. The time it took to leave Chinese immegration took much longer for us than the other travellers and locals crossing the border. We had the whole bus waiting for us getting irritable due to the extra processes needed to check whether our passports were genuine. Many people were being let through and we were told to stand aside like we had done something wrong. After waiting patiently for 10 minutes after we should have been let through we asked the duty manager if something was wrong with our passports (calmly may I add) and got shouted at agressively and told to step back. Chris told P to ... read more

How was our 60+ hour journey you ask. From Beijing to Kunming (one side of the country to the other) took 44hrs with a 5hr stopover before hopping onto another train for a further 9 hours to reach Lijiang. After all we had been through on the great wall, this journey was surprisingly relaxing. Arriving in Lijiang train station at 6am still blurry eyed we made our way to the bus stop. The sun slowly rising, many people already stood at the bus stop waiting for a bus that seemed like it was never going to come at all. Eventually after nearly an hour, our bus pulled up. We had to brace ourselves and get in position. Everybody wanted to board the bus complete with backpacks, pull alongs and large sacks of food. Everybody squeezed, nudged ... read more

2600ft above sea level. Clinging onto a rock with a steep drop below us and the worlds longest man-made structure right in front of us. Chris already with a badly swollen knee, P in survival mode and a Chinese lad (we should really know the name of) completely terrified. Anxiety levels sky high, adrenaline pumping and all wondering how in the world did we get ourselves in such a predicament. Visiting the Great Wall of China should be a joyous and momentous occasion for any visitor. To physically stand on history and be in awe of its enormity. Somehow in our pursuit for that we ended up almost at the complete opposite end of that spectrum. However lets start at the beginning: Beijing - home to 30million people and 6 UNESCO world heritage sites (Egypt has ... read more