Blogs from Don Det, South, Laos, Asia - page 13

Hiya everyone, (Rob, Bis and Danielle - Don't read this blog entry cos I sent you all letters last week telling you about this bit!) I know it's been forever since I wrote on here but I'm going to try to catch you all up with what I've been upto. The last few weeks have been the best yet and I'll write a few entries now for each place. So, from Luang Prabang Dury and I caught the bus to Vientiane which is the capital of Laos. The city doesn't have too much to it - it's pretty lazy and even in the centre it's not very busy. The tuk-tuk drivers all sleep in their hammocks in the middle of the day and don't really bother you too much. We stayed in a crummy place the ... read more

Well - we just love it here. We've spent the last 3 days cycling round Don Det (island where we are staying) and Don Khon which is the one connected by the old railway line. Our bikes are fairly Retro with handy baskets on front - picture Maria Von Trapp cycling round the streets of Salzburg and you've got a clear picture. Don Det is mainly farmland - yesterday we cycled around the whole island - our side is well developed compared to the other! All we passed were paddy fields, Water Buffalo, pigs, chickens (I nearly killed one - silly animals don't move out of the way of oncoming bikes), cats, lizards and farmers. We've seen a couple of people who have monkeys for pets too - lucky folk. The views are fantastic and the ... read more

We arrived at Savannakhet at 2am slightly concerned that we'd be kipping in the bus station til sunrise, however, we decided to take our chances and walk the 300 metres into town to try and find a guesthouse. Thankfully there was one almost directly across from the bus station and luckily there was a late footie match on so the Laos dudes were still up. Our room was the nicest one we'd had for a long while with a hot shower and cable tv!!! Bonza. So we took full advantage and watched the american spelling bee channel(!). Savannakhet was pretty chilled out and none-eventful but there were elements of it to enjoy - I guess its like that everywhere though, sometimes you just have to look harder to find things you like, or a particular experience ... read more

Today we left Kratie to head North into Laos. We knew it would be an interesting journey but what occurred was very fun. Early morning start at 6.30 am to be downstairs for the bus which would pick us up at 7.30. By 8.10 we started to wonder but a pick up truck did arrive and Mark and I threw our bags into the back and hopped in. One minute later we stopped and were shown out of the truck and into another little minibus. With our bags on the roof we piled into some tiny seats and within 30 minutes were off. We thought that the bus was full but how wrong we were. After stopping a few times to collect people, petrol and many massive bags of rambutans there were eventually 26 people inside ... read more

Day 28 The journey to Don Det Leaving it just a little too late to comfortably get breaky in as usual, we had it thrown into plastic bags as we jumped on a tuk tuk(15k) heading to the ferry, only to wait there for another 15minutes before it left. We got the ferry across as it started bucketing down rain, our tuktuk then dropped us off at the local bus stop which provided some shelter as we waited ... for the local bus (40k) (an experience in itself). Filled with local's and what ever they need to transport with them, one man took his hesion bag off the bus only to pull out a large rooster and then proceed to pat it, others had bags off fruit, loose pineapples, 25kg bags of wheat, crates of beer, ... read more