Thailand to Laos (28 - 30 March)

Travelled across far north of Thailand in pick up trucks to the Laos border. These converted pickups are meant to have one passenger in the front and perhaps 8-10 in the back on 2 benches. It seemed quite normal to squeeze at least 20 in, plus sacks of rice, babies, watermelons and about 5 men clinging on to the railings at the back.

Next day crossed to Laos & caught the slow 2 day boat to Luang Prabang. The most rickety boat in town was comically overloaded with backpackers and locals who brought along kittens, a large bagload of local currency and 2 chickens in a bag amongst other things. Scenery was brilliant great: beautiful winding river (though sadly no ox-bow lakes) surrounded by hills, random local tribespeople popping up on the river banks now and then.

Problems started late on the first day when, after first making everyone get out and walk a mile down the river to make the boat lighter, it turned out that it was too dangerous to pass the river because it was too low. This meant spending a night camped out by the river and hoping someone would rescue us the next day (no phones here!). This looked ok: everyone got set for a night under the stars on the beachy bank of the river and we collected wood and made camp fires. Only a few worries: we were really miles from nowhere - there was only one village on the map 100km either way - and what sounded like weird gunshots occasionally from the hills. Things got more scary when a thunderstorm brewed up out of nowhere and we scrambled our stuff back onto the boat and got set for a very dark, windy, rainy, very cramped night. We had not seen a drop of rain for a month, and now of all nights!

Luckily the next day a boat was sent up from the halfway village and we walked past the low bit of the river to meet it. The river was still fairly interesting - a few close misses with rocky outcrops: once scraping the bottom of the boat and once nearly capsizing the boat sideways. The only problem now was that we had to make Luang Prabang before sunset or end up spending another night camped out or, as happened, chugging slowly along in near darkness, with only light from the riverbanks helping us avoid the rocks and sandbanks as we approached the town by night.

The star of the show was a Buddhist monk who happened to be on the boat and who could translate between the crew and us backpackers. Without him things would have got nasty but he gave us the bad news and nobody would shout at a monk would they? He was also on hand to give out advice on meditation and sleep ('only when you free your mid of worries can it truly rest') and diet (eat once a day at breakfast only!)

Thailand - Mae Salong (26 - 27 March)

The smallest town we have been to yet. We ventured out for tea at 8.30 to find that our guest house was the only place open for dinner, and that no, nowhere would be showing the football (relieved Caz). During the day we explored on a motorbike, mainly driving through tiny villages. There are lots of tea plantations, and by one we found an enormous teapot that you could go inside where the lady kept making us different types of tea to try. Felt like it was designed for tourists but there are hardly any in town (just the 6ish people at our guest house we think) so we had it all to ourselves.

Thailand - That Tom (25 March)

This is a small town in north Thailand, which we weren't going to stay at, but turned out to be an interesting place - a steep walk up the hill passed lots of Buddhist statues and had good views. The highlight was getting pancakes in the shape of a cat (Caz) and Pikachu (Rory) on the riverbank with the local kids (their parents were having grown up kebabs). Unfortunately something this day gave Caz food poisoning as well, which meant an enjoyable 1 hour ride on the back of a pick up the next day wasn't the most enjoyable journey.

Thailand - Chang Mai (23 - 24 March)

Back here as a pit stop before heading to the north of Thailand. It is our 6th year anniversary so we decided to celebrate in style with an expensive Italian meal (15 pounds compared with the usual 4 pound meal). Following this we played free pool at a bar where we were challenged to a game by two Thai women. Unfortunately we lost three games to two - we blame it on the wine and the slopey table. Unfortunately the food / wine / beer didn't go down well with Rory so a nasty bout of food poisoning kept us here for an extra day.

Thailand - Mae Hong Son (21 - 23 March)

Another town surrounded by hills. We hired a motorbike again, and armed with a handwritten map given to us by the guesthouse owner (who had three gorgeous kittens), we set off to explore.
- First stop, Fish Cave, a large underwater cave full of blind fish, except we are pretty sure they are not blind, but they were a pretty blue colour and they liked the lettuce that we fed them.
- Next, more waterfalls, lack of water due to the hot season, but we were able to climb right up to it
- Next, the Palace, except we didn't see the actual palace as we took too many wrong turnings that we thought were short cuts, but saw the horses in the stables and a Zoo with a leopard and huge pheasants
- Finally, we went to a Chinese village a mountain range away from Burma. Rory just wanted Chinese tea, but we were given this for free so felt obliged to eat some food and buy a bottle of local wine that tastes like sherry (the owner kept giving us free tastes of the different wine so they all blended into one)

Thailand - Pai (18 - 20 March)

The land of hippies, apparently, so very chilled out. We found a hill to climb to a temple and were stalked by a small local man with a dagger strapped to his waste. We bypassed all the touts trying to sell us expensive tours and hired a motorbike / scooter to explore the local sights. We decided to follow what we thought would be an easy route to a cave, over a few well paved roads (as described by the rough guide). Since then there have been floods that have washed the roads and bridges away so a third of the 45K journey was through sand, gravel, building sites and tinpot bridges. We made it though, and the caves were huge.

Thailand - Chiang Mai (13 - 17 March)

Ah, Chiang Mai, Caz has been looking forward to it after a few hot tips from RBA folk
Dossed around in the garden of our guesthouse, going out eating random food, snooping round a few Buddhist temples, went to a Thai cookery school.
- Caz had a bone-crunching Thai massage and survived, thought she has since shrunk by about eight inches, walks only on her heels and appears to have lost the ability to look.
- Went to a big temple on top of a hill and pretended that we were artists or something by sketching it. Drew a fair bit of interest from passing tourists, locals and, er monks. Some hid their dismay very well, others lied very well and praised our artistic efforts.
- Rory ate his first (and perhaps last) cream horn in Thailand. It was slightly thinner than the English version, and topped with hundreds and thousands, but has a superior taste and cream content to those found in supermarkets back home. Mmmm.....
After a long wait, we have both succumbed to a bit of food poisoning. Don't know whether it was the street food stalls, our own cooking at the cooking school or (god forbid!) the cream horns.

Thailand - Ayuttaya (11-12 March)

A quiet town in an island of 3 rivers, loads of ruined Thai temples dotted around the town, hired bikes to see them (more ropey than last time). The best was a 55m high wonky white one that we climbed up. There was a monks temple next door playing jingly-jangly music and a huge statue of some king surrounded by loads of large black, gold and red cockerels (dead ones).
- Saw a bunch of elephants being herded onto a truck and another suspiciously large lizard (5-6 feet or something) skulking down a tree into a murky green river.
- Went to a bar where the owner was obsessed by the Corrs (remember them?) and sat through most of their hits, even a DVD of the Queen's golden jubilee which they performed at.

Thailand - Bangkok (8-10 March)

Hot, sweaty and smoggy. Stayed near backpacker central Kao San Road - a chaotic neon street selling fake CDs, clothes, watches. Hundreds of dodgy tourist disinformation centres & touts ('the temple is closed today' / 'there is no train there, why don't you take our tour instead') stalls selling stolen backpapckers stuff and er... loads of tailor's shops.

The river was great (esp. to escape the traffic & heat) went up & down it on little local boats to see the sights. Just remeber: the monks go at the back. Oh and you can't touch one if you are a girl.

Went to the big park in the middle of the city to chill out but our peace was disturbed by obscenely large lizards climbing trees nearby. Later on, one of them ate one of his freinds: we could see him chomping away trying to swallow his mate whole, with the tail waggling out of his mouth. He finished with an evil stare and a wicked lick of the lips which said 'watch it, punk, or you'll be next...'

There's some big protests going on trying to get rid of the prime minister. He promised to eradicate drugs in Thailand in 6 months, solve Bangkok's transport problems in 3 and promised 1million farmers a cow each. Oh and he sold shares in a company of his that benefitted from his own policies, tax free for a few billion quid. We left before the real big protests kicked in but would have been interesting to stick around and see him toppled.

Thailand - Kanchanaburi (4-7 March)

(Trundling night train from Penang to Bangkok & on to Kanchanaburi)
Saw (in)famous 'Bridge on the River Kwai' and saw some museums and war cemetaries about the building of the railway by the Japanese using POW and slave labour. Pretty grim stuff.
Cycled around on bikes with girly baskets on the front, out in the countryside we got chased by crazy dogs (pass the rabies vaccine, nurse)
Went to 2 great waterfalls and swam in them with the scary fish!

Malayisa - Penang / Georgetown (27 Feb - 3 March)

(Flew from Manchester to Kuala Lumpur, then to Penang island in northwest Malaysia.)
- Had a ride on a weird trishaw things (felt like we were floating)
- Went to a deserted beach in a half-closed resort and had a lovely warming curry before sunbathing. Rory thinks he was nipped by a jellyfish, a bit later some random old man picked a dead jellyfish out of the water and stabbed it to death with a stick.
- Saw lots of temples. Went up Penang hill by cable train.
- Locals were dead friendly (alomst too friendly...), especially when we looked lost at street food stalls, they often took pity on us and gave us nice food. Except when we got a plate of oyster foo yung (omlette?) on our first night - still makes me gag thinking about it.