It was still dark at 5.30am when we got dropped off at Pakse in Laos. We had been quite settled on the Sleeper Coach and hadn't expected to be hauled off half-asleep :-( While we were waiting at the bus station, a hippy girl was handing out slices of Dragon Fruit, which is a really unusual fruit with a white middle with black seeds, and it's texture I think is a lot like Watermelon. We had done loads of research for Thailand but had fallen a little behind with the other countries so we made it our mission to research Cambodia as soon as we arrived at our hotel late-afternoon. To be fair we'd always planned for Laos to be a chilled out boozy trip, but I think if we'd done some research before we arrived, ... read more

The day following the Mushroom episode was fairly short. Tried to sleep as much as much as possible so the effects would wear off, but felt a little spaced out all day. El and I went for a fruit salad in a quiet restaurant mid afternoon (was craving vitamins), then read our books in our room not wanting to face the sun or the public. The day after, we were up early and out doing errands by 10am. We booked our VIP coach to Cambodia - cost us 40quid... just when we'd got used to paying 10 for long journeys! At least we're confident it will be a nice coach! We also handed over our passports (so he could arrange our Cambodian VISA's) and he told us we'd need to collect them from Vientiane (along the ... read more

We were woken up by the driver at 3am who said we'd arrived at our destination and must leave the coach. We were sleepy and confused, as we weren't meant to arrive until 4.30am. This meant there were no coach connections to the boarder, so we had to team up with a softly spoken German girl called Leah to get a taxi. She was lovely and sat with us when we arrived at the boarder and had to wait 2 hours for it to open. It wasn't half as bad as it sounds, we were all quite happy sharing travelling stories and writing up our journals. Eventually the boarder opened at 6am so we walked to the passport office, signed our Thai deparure cards and boarded a coach across the Thai-Laos friendship bridge to the Laos ... read more

Woke up at 8.30 to the sounds of the lads next door getting in from their night out. Yesterday one of El's bikini's had gone missing, so I marched out (still a bit tipsy from the night before) and stuck a grumpy face out to speak to them. They promissed they hadn't taken it, then one of them kept knocking until we agreed to go for a drink with them... so at 8.30 we slung on some clothes and went out in last nights make up. The Scouser was called Mark, the Welsh lad called Tom and Alex was French Canadian. No bars were open so we picked up some take outs from a shop nearby. El has wanted another tattoo ever since we arrived in Thailand, and since it was our last day (or supposed ... read more

Our minibus collected us for our daytrip at 8.30am. There were 6 other people in our group: an Italian couple Massimo & Savanna; a French Canadian called Lisa; Susanna from Slovakia; and a Chinese couple Lu-Lu and Luó jié... aka Roger. Everyone spoke English and told us about their home towns and their jobs. Lu-Lu & Roger (both Art tachers in China) told us about an Explosion that was due to happen in Shanghai and London in 2010. He looked at our confused, panicked faces, then laughed and corrected his mistake. He'd meant Exhibition. First stop was a Butterfly & Orchid farm. The Butterflies must be so used to people taking photos as they didn't fly away or hide. Next we went to a Hill-Tribe village to meet the Long-Necked women, with heavy coils around their ... read more