Day 127. Vientiane, Laos. Here's to the happy couple...

We must start with a good luck message to our friends Luke and Catherine who are getting married today back in Britain. The theme to the wedding is Black & White so we dressed appropriately this morning and pranced about the bedroom looking ridiculous in their honour.

Congratulations kids! We're gutted to be missing your big day but will raise a glass and toast the happy couple as we watch the sun go down over the Mekong this evening.

Vientiane might not be the most picturesque town in Southeast Asia, and it'll never rank as one of the world's most exciting cities, but it's languid, laid-back vibe provides the perfect antidote to the hustle and bustle* of barmy Bangkok.

We hired bicycles today, which for 60p, turned out to be a cheap and fun way to explore the compact City centre and take in a few sights. Actually, 'few' is the operative word here, because there aren't a heck of a lot of sights to see. There's an imitation Arc d'Triomphe that looks canny from a distance but decidedly shoddy close up. Then there's Pha That Luang, a dazzling golden Buddhist temple sitting proudly at the crossroads of four of the town's major roads. But to be honest, that's about it as far as anything historically significant goes.

The real star of the neighbourhood is the river, which dominates the entire western side of town. It's just massive man. Huge. Enormous. Mighty.

Mighty's good, we'll settle for mighty.

Yes, I think it's safe to say the mighty Mekong will be figuring pretty largely in more sense than one throughout our fortnight in Laos.

*Question: Is it ever possible to have bustle without first having hustle?

Day 126. Vientiane, Laos. Sleepless and fractious.

Boarding our sleeper train from Bangkok to Laos last night I couldn't help smiling as vivid memories of my dear old brother Ken came flooding back.

Unusually for siblings, we seldom fell out, no matter what the discussion; be it football, music or politics we were pretty much always in tune. Turn the clock back 40 years however, and there's one subject we could never, ever agree on.

Who got to sleep in the top bunk.

Far more exciting to kip on the top, where you were master of your domain, king of the bedroom and - most importantly - 4ft higher than your snotty nosed brother. Being older and bigger, Ken would usually have the honour, only relenting on special occasions like my birthday or if I'd feigned some kind of illness and he didn't want my germs floating up to infect him.

Well, last night it was my turn to pull rank. When I saw the bunks I immediately threw Wend's bag downstairs and climbed the aluminium ladder to bunk nirvana.

Or at least that's what I thought.

The train departs and Wend draws the blackout curtains, snuggling down to a lovely 8 hours of uninterrupted slumber. Not too hot, not too cold, the rhythmic chug of the engine nicely muffled by the thick curtain.

Pure bliss.

I, on the other hand, stare up at a fluorescent strip light 6 inches from my nose that, to quote Morrissey 'never goes out'. Every movement and jolt of the train is accentuated on my lofty perch, the air-conditioning vent for the whole carriage is positioned next to my spleen and the little Scottish bloke sleeping across the aisle keeps farting.

Pure hell.

Which was the perfect preparation for the 3 hours spent fannying about at the border, filling in pointless pieces of paper and waiting in line to hand them - along with lots of U.S. dollars - to unsmiling officials with a penchant for gold teeth and lots of medals.

Not happy. Let's hope Laos is worth the effort.

Day 125. On a train, somewhere in northern Thailand. A few more ticks and we'll be in Laos.

Visas for Vietnam and India...(tick)

U.S. Dollars for spending in Laos...(tick)

Change flights back from Bombay...(tick)


Everything ticking along nicely as we look forward to jumping on the overnight sleeper up to the Laos border.

Day 124. Bangkok, Thailand. Topsy Turvy Tickets

Fairly insignificant day as we headed slowly back to the capital to sort ourselves out before pushing on to Laos.

Idly flicking through our various bits of paperwork Wend happened to notice that our flight from Bombay actually precede our flights to Bombay by 3 days.

Quite significant that, when you think about it.

Day 123. Kanchanaburi, Thailand. Easy tiger.

Some Aussie Doris we'd been speaking to last night told us one of the best things to do near Kanchanaburi was visit the Tiger temple. An extraordinary place, she reckoned, where Buddhist monks hang out with a pack of orphaned Tigers.

Sounded good, if perhaps a bit dangerous, so we paid the local mini-bus driver our fifteen quid (a lot of wedge over here) and off we went.

I think 'underwhelmed' would sum the experience up nicely. There was no temple, one monk - having a fag, and about a dozen heavily sedated Tigers.

Ok, so they still looked pretty scary, especially from 6 inches, and when one of the larger males growled it did get the old goose bumps going, but the poor things were so dozy and forlorn that the more cynical members of our party were soon muttering to each other about being ripped-off.

Good photo's though - just don't say anything to the RSPCA.

Far more impressive was the snail with the shell the size of a Greggs' pasty who we found outside our hut later.

An equally good photo opportunity, and no snail was harmed during its taking.

Day 122. Kanchanaburi, Thailand. Woeful Winston.

Escaping the pollution and confusion of Bangkok for a couple of days brings us 2 hours west to the pretty riverside town of Kanchanaburi.

Our 2 quid digs are superb, comprising a floating thatched bamboo hut strapped to four empty oil drums. It's a tad wobbly whenever one of the larger river boats speeds by, but this is more of a novelty than an annoyance, and after the last hectic few days the tranquility of the place is just what we needed.

Strange then, that if we look 600 metres upstream from our idyll, we see the infamous bridge over the river Kwae, which accounted for so many lives during the second world war (not the original, obviously, Alec Guinness and his stiff upper lip put paid to that back in 1945).

It's thought that 14,000 POW's and as many as 90,000 Chinese, Thai and Burmese labourers perished at the hands of the Japanese taskmasters as they toiled on the ill-fated rail link from Rangoon to northern Thailand.

Sobering stuff.

There's a museum near the site of the original bridge, but to be honest it's a pretty shabby affair. The curator, in his infinite wisdom has decided against sticking to the story of the railway - which let's face it, is quite a big one - and opted to chronicle every significant world event between 1939 and 1945, be it in Europe, northern Africa or the far East. All within a gallery the size of a tennis court.

Life sized plastercast models of Hitler, De Gaul and Stalin stand guard at the entrance and provide some amusement. Winston Churchill is particularly poor, looking worryingly like Parker, the Thunderbirds chauffeur.

Of course, Thailand didn't have a Hitler or a Churchill 60 years ago, but with a nod to local sensibilities, someone has painted a truly awful portrait of the current leader of the Thai armed forces. The thick rimmed glasses and sly smile making us think for a minute we were staring at Sgt. Bilko.

Our mood was lifted in the afternoon when we went on an Elephant safari.

This was great. Despite only having a solitary tusk, our mount BooPar, was a majestic beast. A huge, lolloping, lump of thing who was wily enough to know exactly what he had to do to earn a bonus banana.

His mahout (driver) told us he was a stately 55 years of age, which if my maths is correct makes him one of the few living creatures on earth who is old enough to remember Newcastle United winning a trophy - they never forget you know.

Highlight was the hosedown in the river at the end of the safari where we got to give the big fella a scrub behind his sizable ears.

Day 121. Bangkok, Thailand. Nice Buddah, great result.

So, after 3 days in Bangkok, we finally get to see some of it's famous sights. A quick stroll down Khao San Rd to stock up on 2 quid t-shirts and some rather dandy his 'n' hers leather flip flops was followed by a blink and you'd miss it visit to the Royal Palace and a saunter across Sanam Luang where Wend was tempted into buying a 100 Baht dragon kite (she's weak folks, and we all know it).

In the afternoon we visited the completely fab Wat Pho to check out Thailand's largest reclining Buddah. Measuring a whopping 46 metres from gilded head to shiny gold toe, he's been loafing in his purpose built temple for over 200 years.

He's great. Bringing to mind our good friend Steve, who often adopts a similar pose on his Finsbury Park sofa while smoking an exotic cigarette.


Rounded a good day off back on the Khao San Rd watching a live broadcast of the magnificent magpies putting a lack-lustre Liverpool side to the sword.

Howay me bonny laaaaaaads.

Day 120. Bangkok, Thailand. Hopelessly lost.

Right, that's it, we're not going to Burma. This comes as a bitter disappointment as we'd done a lot of research and had even planned a loose itinerary. But as it stands, the cost of the airfare is just too prohibitive and we simply haven't time to commit to an overland trip.

A shame, especially after such a glowing report of the country from our friend Reiner who we met in the Philippines. Something to come back for though I suppose.

We chose the area of Bangkok we're staying in, Siam Square, ostensibly because it's where most of the foreign embassies are located. The other big attraction - if you're that way inclined - is the shopping. There are four or five mega Malls a short walk from our hotel that make any of the big shopping centres in Singapore seem like something Arkwright and Granville would run.

So, still reeling from being refused entry to Bar Swank last night, Wend went off, credit card in hand this morning to do that shoe shopping thing that girls do so well. I off course, opted out and we agreed to meet at an Internet cafe at lunchtime.

We then proceeded to find out exactly how big these bloody Malls really are. They all have 5 or 6 floors the size of Wembley, they're all home to at least 3 Internet cafes and - most tellingly - they all look exactly the sodding same.

Four hellish hours later we finally found each other, inside the right Mall but outside the wrong Internet cafe.

Maybe it's as well we're not going to Burma, we'd only get lost.