Travel

"My mother liked him very much," she says. "He was very funny, very smart, very charming. And he was very, very handsome."

Koh Yao Noi is such a praiseworthy and adjective-iable island that James Austin Farrell finds it hard to avoid constituencies of cliché.

Pakse is a small city, lacking the charm of some of Laos's more northern cities and towns, but with a number of decent hotels, a few casual restaurants and not much

The Nam Wa River is supposed to be one of the best white water rafting venues according to the head of the TAT, Phrae Province office.

Going over many more rapids you will cover 60 kilometres of river the first day, and then do the remaining 20 kilometres on the second day.

The same goes for the opium poppies growing in abundance in the hills above Gangnani - locals produce the plants but do not process or consume opium.