Initially we planned a long holiday to South-east Asia, but the weather across the region defeated us. If it was a good time to travel in the north (cooler, dry) then it was terrible in the south (storms and too hot).
In the end we decided to just do a seven week trip to northern Thailand, northern Laos and northern Vietnam. Along the way we stopped off in Indonesia - Bali as we headed north, and Jakarta on our way home.
The weather was determined to mess us up whatever we did. Several weeks before we left a huge typhoon hit northern Vietnam, killing prople, destroying homes, and blocking roads with landslides. Then, just before we set off, northern Thailand had severe floods. People were evacuated from Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai, and the train to Chiang Mai (the one we were booked to take) wasn't running there - it stopped well short because of the flooding. We started to think about "Plan B", in case we were unable to travel in the areas we initially wanted to see.
I've divided the trip into sections:
Each section has its own story and slideshows.
We didn't have the best of starts, and both of us were sick for quite some time in Thailand, but we really like the places we visited, and are sorry we didn't get to see more of northern Vietnam, in particular.