Thanks to our trusty travel ladies (mentioned in the previous entry) we got a tuk-tuk pickup from our guest house, which took us to Thanaleng Station, 30 minutes outside Vientiane (the Thais are currently funding the train line's extension themselves, from Nong Khai to Vientiane), where we got stamped out of Laos and got the shuttle train to Nong Khai, in Thailand. The stamping out cost 30 baht each, and there is no exchange booth there, or ATM, so we had gotten some baht already. We met a really fun couple at the station who had been travelling for the last 15 years, and had just spent almost 2 years travelling around Africa. Their tales of rough travelling (sometimes going without food for days because none was available, not being able to go out past dark ... read more

Our trek began with a boat ride south on the Nam Ou, adn a visit to Se Kong, a Lao Lum (a tribe of lowland Lao) village (in retrospect Meagan pointed out that this visit was probably because our local guide was late, but we didn't notice at the time...). We soon began trekking and the scenery was gorgeous, lush mountains one minute, then traversing dry rice paddies, strolling through animal farms (usually situated about a 30-minute walk from the villages) and then through jungle landscape. We stopped at Ta Lem, a Khmu village, and then for lunch in its H'Mong counterpart, Yong (many hilltowns are divided in two by tribes), where we could see people's activities during the dry season, since they are not caring for the rice fields. Everywhere people were tending to their ... read more

The trip from Vientiane was a long bus ride up route 13, the trip taking a total of about 12 hours. We had read so many reviews about the road being treacherous at best, so windy and in bad condition that boarding the bus was like flipping a coin on whether or not we would live to see another day. We had also read that the scenery for the second two thirds of the trip was some of the most beautiful in the country. We were almost set on renting a car to do it ourselves until we found out the total price for one day of driving would end up being almost 400 dollars. So we took the bus. Whoever said the roads were terrifying has never been to Norway, or Vietnam, for that matter. ... read more

Our last morning in Champasak, we lazed around by the river, and managed to research our upcoming travels, before our boat came. Surprisingly, it was only the tow of us, but they neither tried to charge us extra or persuade us that it was not going. We simply sat there, on a large, lovely boat (with actual wicker chairs!) and watched the scenery. The trip was just over two hours, and we were in Pakse before dark. Now that is a day's travelling we could get used to... We were originaly going to be in Pakse between Xmas and New Year's, so we had booked a place to stay when everything was full, and ended up with the scraps. We had, however, changed our dates since, so we ended up with the scraps when everything else ... read more

From our first morning in Don Khong, eating breakfast while overlooking the Mekhong, the island's mellow vibe won us over. A tropical island in the true sense of the word, complete with palm trees, canoe-like ferries and the extreme languidity was almost visibly dripping from the local's every movement; we were not disappointed we had chosen this island over Don Det (even though getting there had been a shot in the dark). We rented a motorbike the first day and drove around the whole island (about 50 km), and about 100m from our guesthouse, we were already in the countryside. Besides the occasional cows, dogs, and water buffaloes, the roads were deserted, and for the first time in a while we were able to relax, to stop whenever we wanted to take pictures, and to not ... read more