Hello Everyone! We crossed into Laos after a morning bus ride from Krati in Cambodia. It is quite the ordeal crossing the border, you have to line up at about 3 different places while they stamp your passport and process your visa (which is $45 for Canadians) and finally walk over the border and board a new bus. Every country has a different fee and of course Canada is the most expensive! No computers at this border, just pens, paper and stamps. It's all very official! Our first night was spent on the island of Don Khong on the Mekong River. It's a sleepy little village with the hotel and restuarant overlooking the river. Very beautiful! Great food and service. We went for a boat ride in the evening which was lovely. The next morning we ... read more

Our next stop in Cambodia was the capital city of Phenom Penh population 2 million. This is the city that our son's girlfriend Rachel bases her clothing business in. Here is also where her primary store is located and where she lives for about 3 months of the year. Again she showed us around Phenom Penh and took us to the most amazing restaurants! Although we enjoyed the bustling streets and super nice people of Phenom Penh our tours of the Killing Fields and Prison were educational, disturbing and conjured feelings of disbelief. Our first reaction was how did mankind let this happen? As young adults in the 70's we had no idea of the horrors of the Cambodian Civil War. We seemed to hear a lot about the Vietnam War but Cambodia wasn't really a ... read more

Hello Family and Friends We decided it was time to branch out a bit and see some of the island. I met a lady on the beach from Canada who lives here 6 months of the year who recommended an excellent tour guide called "Mr. Piggy"! And the island tour certainly didn't disappoint. It was a great day with Mr. Piggy and our driver Jeremy. We started north along the Caribbean side and as soon as we left the Crown Point area, the landscape became very hilly and lush. Kind of reminded us of Costa Rica. The further we went the more mountaineous it became and the road became steep and windy with breathtaking views along the coast. Much of the interior is protected reserve forest with no road access. The one road that goes around ... read more

Hola Everyone! Our final tour days took us to the town of San Diego where we stayed at the lush mountain resort of Soroa known as the rainbow of Cuba. The resort was built back in the 50's and much of the decor and facilities represented that era. This is where Americans came for holidays before the revolution. The area of Soroa is a rainforest and there has been a lot of re-forestation since the days when much of the land was cleared for sugar cane and coffee plantations. Much of the area reminded us of Costa Rica. We hiked up a steep 2km climb to the top of a mountain with a stunning view. It was quite a work out!! Next door was a lovely orchid garden with about 70 different varieties of orchids both ... read more

We're really enjoying our GAdventure tour of western Cuba entitled "Cuba Libre". We've got a great group of 8 people and are having lots of fun together. We have Nicola and Natalie from Australia, Nicole from the U.K., Ben from Montreal, our tour guide Andy and our bus drive Jose from Cuba. We travel around in a 24 passanger bus so we've got lots of room to spread out. Unfortunately another couple from Australia didn't show so we were down to 6 which is quite samll compared to the average size of 12. Our local tour guide "Andy" is such a fun and friendly young man and is a wealth of knowledge about Cuba and its way of life. We were interested in hearing what life is like in Cuba under the communistic system. He said ... read more