This Aint News

where abouts are you?  forgot to give you a write up over places to hit is s.e.asia.

whatever, try and get to laos... you can skip the capital vientiane but def head up to vang vien.  i'd also google 'the gibbon experience' and try get on the three day experience... we didn't do it cos the mrs is terrified of heights but next time i'm in the area i'm doing it anyway!

i'm there in chaing mai wherer the gibbon exp is, i've done zip lines before, they're ok. i'm going to do a river trip from angkor wat to saigon, then see how much time i've left and wing it from there.

cool... from chang mai you want to head north into the northern provinces of laos... can't remember where is is exactly but it's not just zip lines... it's a hotel, suspended 100m in the tallest trees they can find.  they have running water and bars up in the tree tops, send you cooked food from the ground whenever you want it (via pulleys) and to get to different tree lodges/platforms you do the zip lines.  i think thay have one that's like a kilometer long 100m up in the air!!  i can't remember exactly what this thai dude was telling me but when i checked the site on my bberry it looked amazing.

river trip from siem reap on to vietnam will be amazing although you'll end up missing out on a lot of fun stuff.

my advice, head from chan mai up over into laos and head for vang vien... i can give you a good hotel which was luxury at less that $10/night (if ur there for 2-3 days it's worth it) but there are backpackers there from a few $/night.  laos is seriously cheap.  be careful if you get a local bus from the border to vang vien tho, they're so fucking slow.  if you can try and jump on a touristy mini bus after the border (don't do tourist bus before the border cos if it's thai run they will scam the fuck out of you) so get from chang mai to there public transport.

don't let anyone tell you that you need to change $ to laos kip, you don't... people will even accept thai baht.  kip is good to have for small items but get from a canadia cash point in laos (they don't charge commission).

in vang vien you can go tubing on the mekong (think apocalypse now river scenes only with bars instead of vc foxholes and no spear being chucked at you just ropes trying to pull you into their bar as you float past on an innertube).

you can also see some pretty interesting caves n shit, i'd recommend the blue lagoon (the one that's 7k out of v.vien, not the shitty close one).  there you have caves, an amazing lagoon with swings n shit and a little bar and lots of fish (that you can actually get up so close you can touch).

another reason for checking laos, especially vang vien, is the scenery... absolutely stunning.  plus you can get on the mekong, travel down to the 4000 island (google) and then travel onto siem reap (ankor wat - see the temples etc) and then on to vietnam. 

my only mistake was not starting the trip heading north out of thailand and working east, looping back to bangkok (bangkok, chang mai, luang prabang, vang vien, vientiane (vieng chan), siem reap, trat, koh chang, koh kood, koh samui, koh phan gnan, koh tao, bangkok).

very jealous... wish i'd fucked off for a year!!