Blogs from Si Phan Don, South, Laos, Asia - page 6

We hired bikes and dodged tuktuks all over Vientiane. It was fantastic - the best way to see this extremely bike-friendly city. We pedalled out to Tha Luang which was in the middle of the End of Year festivities, and crowded with markets, monks, tourists in rented Laos skirts to cover their modesty, and everywhere people carrying elaborate woven offerings of pandanus and flowers. After renting a modest Lao skirt we sat with old ladies in the shade watching them thread jasmin and chrysanthemum flowers onto skewers and poke them into the leaf-cones for offering. Our bus ride to Sevannakhet was frought with waiting. We were up before six for our tuktuk delivery to the bus station, which didn't come until 8am. Assured that we would still make the bus, it seemed that our tourist coach ... read more

Once accross the border we were met by 3 guys in a new minivan with A/C, we guessed from the start we were gonna like Loas. We travelled the 45 mins along a very bumpy track to the small boat port which serves the islands and all packed onto a small narrow boat and headed to our home for the next few days, the island of Don Det. Don Det is one of the few inhabited islands of the group named the 4 thousand islands, so named because during the rainy season the river gets so high it engulfs the land forming many many islands. Once on dry land we headed out to find a room for the night. The only accomodation on the island is a bunch of family run bungallows basically built on stilts ... read more

An Internet cafe chewed up and spat out my photo CD containing pictures of our amazing South Laos adventure from Vientiane to Kong Lor cave and Ban Natan village in central Laos. Which is a shame, because the place was amazing. We went through Green Discovery which gives proceeds back to the communities who take part and aim to use as many different local organisations as possible to spread the wealth. It was just Nilam and I and our guide, the equipment (kayaks, mountain bikes) was loaded onto a jeep and we were driven to the local bus station. We then had to get all of this onto a local bus already packed with furniture, sacks of food and the like. In the pouring rain. We unloaded in the village of Ban Na Hin, where we ... read more

So i arrived at Don Det in the afternoon with Tim and we decided to head away from the main port ( i call it a port but it is just where the boat stops to let you jump off!) to try and find accomodation as it is bound to be cheaper! We must have only walked about 100 yards and someone shouts 'oi' i look up and it is Steve sitting in the entrance to his guest house- he had beat me by 10 mins it turned out- what a weird coinsidence that he would end up on the same island as me! Tim and I finally found a little bungalow on the other side of the island and decided that as i had a mosquito net we could save some money by sharing and ... read more

Hi Blog, I'm back in Bangkok, and after a horrendous bus journey leaving Cambodia (I will never take tarmac for granted again) I arrived exhausted back on the Khao San road. Its peeing it down now so found quite a swanky internet place to escape from the rain. So now I've left Cambodia, I'm up to my last few days in Laos. Even though I was there for so long, it feels like ages ago now. Alex and I headed down to the Four Thousand Islands, an area where the Mekong becomes 14km wide and is dotted with...four thousand islands. Getting there from Champasack involved a short cramped moto ride to the ferry, a quick jaunt accross the river on the scariest looking ferry I have ever seen...completely delapidated and overcrowded, another tuk tuk ride to ... read more