Well, plans have changed. We woke up one day in Vientiane and decided that, although we were both enjoying the place, it was time to go. And our new destination would be New Zealand.

Having a whole new plan was really exciting yet at the same time leaving Vientiane so suddenly (or so it felt; all those things we’d meant to do! Squeezing all the shopping into two weeks… and we still didn’t get any of the iconic BeerLao umbrellas. Oh and that reminds me, there are three parcels on their way to you in Hill Head, thanks!) did feel a bit sad. Its blase attitude, informal approach to official opening hours and fine sunsets had become quite familiar. The final moments were saved from nostalgia by the travel agency forgetting to arrange our transport to the border and train tickets to Bangkok. All was well in the end however. As the owner of our guesthouse reminded us, “Lao PDR” stands for “Lao - Please Don’t Rush!”

We hadn’t really experienced the change when crossing to border from Thailand to Laos but on the way back it felt like everything suddenly speeded up. The tuk-tuk drivers positively sprang out of their vehicles to offer services whereas in Vientiane they rarely seemed to move from their hammocks hung at the back of the tuk-tuk.

Well, plans changed again when we looked up the air fare, so instead of flying BA to Auckland it’s AirAsia to Kota Kinabalu (KK). KK is the capital of Sabah - one of the two provinces that make up the Malaysian half of Borneo. We’ll be spending three or four weeks in Borneo, mostly snorkelling, stroking Orangutans and climbing Mt Kinabalu (about which Eppu is very excited). Hopefully we’ll then fly to Singapore for a few days and take the train up through Peninsular Malaysia back to Thailand.

We’re in Bangkok now for our flight tomorrow, and we’ve stocked up on woolly jumpers for the mountain (we’ve already got a couple of saffron coloured woolly hats - as modelled below - which were all we could find in Laos. Buddhist beanies; suppose we’ll go mindfully).

Hope you’re all well!