Siem Reap airport is quite possibly the nicest one we have seen. It looks more like an expensive resort on a tropical island than the tourist hub that it is. We made it through immigration (after Scott chose the slowest line yet again) and caught a taxi out the front to take us to the hotel which had been recommended by Michael from Vang Vieng. The hotel turned out to be great, nice clean bright rooms and only 3months old plus it included free breakfast which is always nice. Our first 2 days were spent exploring Siem Reap and waiting for Kat to arrive from Phnom Penh. There’s not a whole lot to Siem Reap, it’s a small town that has grown quickly to support the 2 million tourists a year that pour through the temples, ... read more

The drive to Vang Vieng was really beautiful. Had the road been straight the trip probably would have taken about an hour. The scenery was really nice, the beautiful hills, the little villages with their AusAID/UNICEF water tanks and the truck which had crashed into the side of the mountain squashing the entire cabin... Vang Vieng is quite possibly the weirdest place we have visited so far. The main street is lined with restaurants with couches and cushions rather than seats so that you are nice and comfortable while watching countless episodes of Friends/Family Guy/The Simpson's and smoking/eating pretty much whatever drug you want from their happy menu. The day that we arrived it was pretty cold and foggy so we didn't really do anything. You couldn't even see the beautiful limestone mountains which surround the ... read more

Somehow we managed to choose the one day of the dry season that it rained to catch a boat 6hours down the Mekong River....and it didn't just rain, it poured. We were woken up at about 4am by rain bucketing down and it still hadn't subsided when we boarded at 10am...and it continued ALL day. The slow boat is one of the 'must do' trips in Laos. It’s basically a 2 day ride down the Mekong River from Huay Xai (on the Thai border) to Luang Prabang in Northern/Central Laos. We had read many horror stories about the trip as the boats tend to be packed full of tourists until they practically overflow - there’s no guarantee of getting a seat, and all the available space is used, including inside the engine room. In order to ... read more

Chiang Mai was an effort to get to. An early morning flight from Yangon to Bangkok, a few hours waiting and then another flight to Chiang Mai with Bianca suffering from food poisoning the whole way - not fun. Unfortunately the hotel we intended on staying in was full, so we settled for the first one we came across and that was it for day 1. The following day we moved hotel to a cheaper, but nicer place with a soft bed (first time in a long time). Bianca was still exhausted from being sick so we didn't do a lot except for go to the night market that evening. The night market was very much tourist orientated - it sold tonnes of touristy t-shirts and other junk and we cruised around till it was time ... read more

We arrived in Inle Lake via Heho Airport which was amazingly high-tech. The baggage carousel was the best we've seen so far and consisted of a group of guys ferrying the bags directly from the plane and plonking them on the arrivals hall floor. After collecting our bags we had about an hour long taxi ride through the mountains before we arrived in Nyuang Shwe which is where most tourists base themselves in the area. The first day we took it pretty easy and explored the town a bit which took all of about two minutes. We had lunch at a little Indian place with the cutest friendliest cat we have seen so far! It jumped up on knee and made itself comfortable which made Bianca’s day. After lunch we booked in for a horse-trek for ... read more