Hi Everyone Well here I am in Sapa, North West Vietnam, in what is definately a little piece of heaven......... and I"m glad to say the temperature is just "very warm" ..... as opposed to VERY HOT. A pleasant reprieve at long last!!! I got the Over-Night train up here on Thursday which left Hanoi at 9pm. I was in a sleeper cabin, which has 4 bunk style beds ... i.e 2 on each side of the cabin. I had a bottom bunk, which I think is the best, as I always feel like the trains movement will make me fall off the top. As I had been up VERY late the night before, I fell onto my bunk and pretty much went to sleep straight away. I didn"t really even have the time to get ... read more

Hi Everyone Am now back in Vientiene after spending some time in the South of Laos...... more on that later, but thought I might fill you in on some trivia (real and imagined) and facts about Laos. It's yet again very hot, and after spending the morning being a dutiful tourist, the airconditioned comfort of the the hotel ( which provides free internet) is a welcome respite. So here goes...... The vast majority of Laos is Buddist, and as you probably know the teachings of the Lord Buddha determine every aspect of day to day life... health, prosperity, family and even the weather !! So when we commented to our tour guide Tui (who is Lao & Buddist), that given it is the rainy season we'd been very lucky with the weather (We've had virtually no ... read more

Hello Again The last blog left off in Chang Rai, and so we continue the journey..... We left Thailand by crossing the Mekong River in a very small boat, over to the Laos border town of Huay Xai. Like all border towns it was pretty grimy, but there was plenty of little boys more than willing to carry our luggage up the hill, and over to the larger boat that would take us down the Mekong to Luang Prabang. It took 2 days cruising slowly down the river to get to Luang Prabang. Our boat was very spacious, with our own personal cook to whip up a fantastic lunch. We stopped off at a couple of villages on the banks of the river, and spent the night is a small town called Pak Beng. A very ... read more

Hello everyone Here I am in Bangkok and my travels have begun........... Bangkok is just as polluted, congested and noisy as I remembered. Not my favourite city I'm afraid. The flight yesterday left on time and was less than 50% full, so lots of spare seats. I had a whole middle row to myself so was able to stretch out. So after lunch at about 11am and a couple of glasses of wine, I had 3 hours sleep........ Bingo the flight was half over. The movie selection was not that great, but I amused myself with some of the games. A little boy ( about 8) in the seat across the aisle showed me how to play them. Sad isn't it!! When the flight arrived in Bangkok it was pouring with rain, but by the time ... read more