4,000 Islands to Cambodia

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Since we last wrote, we headed for Si Phan Don (4,000 islands).
We spent a couple of days on Don Det, where we hired bicycles out to explore the island. It was an old-school bicyle; Hannah looked like Miss Marble, Ben looked like a plonker!
10 of us clubbed together and bought ourselves a pig!
The son of one of the river-hut owners was given a water bottle full of Lao Lao (pretty much moonshine!) and told to go and kill it. Consequently he was hammered from 10am onwards!- The rest of the family weren't far behind!
They put the pig on at 10am, and we ate at 7pm, - a fantastic feast! Lots of crackling, stickyrice, the works! It was amazing!
Much of the time we just relaxed. On Don Det there's no electricity, which is nice, but definately with its drawbacks, - not having a fan in the evening was a killer. We could only handle 3 nights there of waking up totally dehydrated each morning! Temperatures into the 40s every day. Ouch. Having said that the hut was great.... well simplistic. At 1$ we got 4 "walls" a roof and a mozzie net and thats about it!
After a few days we decided to head to check out the bigger island of Don Kong for Hannah's birthday. They had electricity, so a much appreciated fan!
Found one guesthouse with amazing food and that pretty much dictated where we spent most of our time. Hannah's birthday cake was a sorry looking banana and chocolate pancake. Better make it worthwhile when we get to Vietnam!

On the 10th we headed to Cambodia. A long journey, with a few hiccups. We were almost riding ontop of slabs of ice at one point. Hannah's face quickly sorted that one out!- as we got into the air-con minibus we actually paid for!
Cambodian immigration officials on the make were also quickly put in their place with bit of badge number-taking! They were not happy! But reluctantly let us through without the extra,extra charges!
Our final destination in Cambodia was Ban Lung in Rattanakiri where we spent the next day visiting some local villages, managing to catch the only day so far that it rained constantly throughout the day! We saw all sorts of villages, - Toumpon, Laos, Chinese, Khmer, and a very strange cemetary.
Later on in the afternoon we went for a swim in Yak Loum crater lake, - crystal clear water, but more importantly first bath in over a month!
We had a barbeque in the evening, cooked on the table in front of us. It was delicious!- but found all our clothes soaked from a hole in the roof when we got back! Bugga.

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Comments

[Niki]

Literature lesson
Hi chaps Think you'll find it's Miss Marple not Marble. But I agree Hannah is riding the bike just like her and looks like she's lost a few at that.!!!!! Call me padantic or what. Love ya Niki xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx