Dan's Adventure

Before Bangkok the most backpacker centric place that I had been was Vang Vieng in Laos. It was filled with bars and cafes, companies offering activities and a lot of drunk tourists. That wasn’t a patch on Khao San Road.
Along the length of Khao San Road are stalls selling fake name brand clothing, sunglasses and flip flops, everything that a tourist may need. In between are small food stalls selling everything from banana pancakes to pad thai, and people selling beers from cooler boxes for less than the surrounding bars …

When we stopped for lunch on the first day of the Nam Ha trek this butterfly came to join us.

When travelling for a long time there are certain tasks that need to be done once in a while that break you out of the tourist zone as you need to rely on local services to accomplish them. Although simple, sometimes they can prove to be a challenge, whether its going for a hair cut, buying new clothes or getting laundry done, its often more difficult than it should be.
Hair cuts
After almost 6 months, I’ve not managed to get the dreadlocked traveller look, I’ve been for a few haircuts along …

Chiang Mai surprised me at how big it actually was. It was the busiest city I had been in since Phnom Penh a month earlier. Theres something about it though, one of those places that its very easy to spend a long time in due to the all the activities on offer and the draws of the city itself.
History

The old city was once surrounded by a wall, the only remains of which are gates on each side and the corners, the rest of the wall is gone, but the moat …

As soon as I crossed the border into Thailand from Laos I jumped into a tuk tuk and then a bus to Chiang Rai. Like Udomxai in Laos, I had heard that it was one of the best places to go trekking in northern Thailand. After a few hours walking around the tour agencies in Chiang Rai my hopes had been dashed and I was already planning an early start the following morning to go to Chiang Mai. Every tour agency in Chiang Rai offers treks lasting from 1 to …

Trekking in Laos promised beautiful landscapes, untouched forests, remote villages, an abundance of wildlife and very few other tourists. I arrived in Udomxai from Luang Prabang hoping to set out on a trek from there as it had been touted on several websites as being a great place to start from due to its proximity to hills and hill tribes. Udomxai is one of those places that most people just pass through so it is very rare for the treks organised by the tourist office to actually take place. When …

Rivaling the sun bears for being the most dangerous at Tat Kuang Si, these children were being kept safely behind bars whilst their mother sold grilled bananas at the stall between them and the bears.

Luang Prabang is a fantastic city, its pretty small and has an incredibly relaxed feel about it. I spent a couple of days just wandering around and could have stayed for a few more.
Temples

Temples and stupas are found on almost every corner in Luang Prabang, most of which are very ornate. The city is home to the largest number of monks in Laos and every morning they can be seen walking the streets collecting alms.
Markets

Every night the main street through Luang Prabang is filled with stalls as the night market …