Had a relatively straight forward run up to the 4000 islands from the Laos/Cambodia border. We stayed on an island called Don Det in the middle of the Mekong river, spent about 10 mins in a boat threading our way through other, smaller islands and got off on the beach at Don Det. Its a pretty small island, about 1.5x0.5km and all the accommodation was in bungalows. We found one with 3 single beds in it for 75'000kip, which is about $9. We had all sorts of grand plans of renting kayaks and renting bikes but unfortunately Rob was right, the island is just too good a place for relaxing and doing very little so thats pretty much what we did, we met a couple called Rich and Sue from Crawley and we ended up spending most of our 4 evenings with them. We finally dragged ourselves away from all the relaxation and booked a boat and then a bus up to a place Champasak about 3 hours North, in the end we kind of wished we hadn't. We got up early, got the boat back to the mainland and then got in the 'VIP bus', basically an oversized tuk tuk with bench seats and about 15 people in it. It wasn't to bad, we got there, or so we thought, we asked at someone and it turned out we were about 12km from Champasak. The plan was to go to Champasak and see a temple and then get the night bus to Vientienne. We flagged down an articulated lorry carrying wood and he said he take us as far as the river. I sat in the cab while Colm and Kris had to stand behind the cab, don't think they minded though! We got to the Mekong, again..., paid to get across to Champasak and then walked 2km toward town in sweltering heat, after the 2km we decided to stop at a guest house and have a drink. We left our bags with them and walked the rest of the way into town to go to an cash machine, we were all running low on money, but the cash machine was closed for some reason! By now we were all pretty fed up and then we were told that the busses to Vientienne only left from Pakse, so we decided to cut our losses and got a tuk tuk the rest of the way to Pakse, got there by about 4pm and by 8pm we were on the night bus to Vientienne. Found ourselves a room with 3 beds in for $18, more than we wanted to pay but it did have a TV which meant we could watch the final of the Melbourne Open. The next day we did a walking t
our that was in the lonely planet, it was supposed to take 4-6 hours, we managed it in 1, dont think our hearts were in it really. The following day we got the local bus for 4 hours up to Vang Vieng. We spent 3 nights there before we managed to get it together and go up the river for a spot of tubing. Had a really good time and drank far to much as you can probably see from the pictures. We all ended up with a few cuts and bruises from the river and I needed a new pair of flip flops when I ended up with 2 right feet ones at the end of the night (think that pair number 5 now). After that we spent 6 hours on the bus going from Vang Vieng up to Luang Prabang. When we got there we realised we were only going to be in the country for a few more days so we had to start rationing ourselves so that we wouldn't have to go to the cash machine again and its not a partiuarly cheap place to stay. We managed it though, went to visit a waterfall which was really cool, they have loads of asiatic bears that they've rescued from poachers who keep them for they're bile which is used in Chinese traditional medicine, they s
eemed really well looked after. The water fall was really nice, I haven't ever seen water that was that colour before, we spent an hour or so walking around it and climbing to the top and then after that we went for a swim, the water was
freezing! It was good though, did the rope swing and jumped off the waterfall. If you left your feet in the water there were little fish that come and nibble at them, that was quite a wierd sensation. The day after the waterfall we had a day walking around Luang Prabang (see the buddha for each day pictures) and that evening it was a seater bus over night to the Laos Thailand border.
Had a relatively straight forward run up to the 4000 islands from the Laos/Cambodia border. We stayed on an island called Don Det in the middle of the Mekong river, spent about 10 mins in a boat threading our way through other, smaller islands and got off on the beach at Don Det. Its a pretty small island, about 1.5x0.5km and all the accommodation was in bungalows. We found one with 3 single beds in it for 75'000kip, which is about $9. We had all sorts of grand plans of renting kayaks and renting bikes but unfortunately Rob was right, the island is just too good a place for relaxing and doing very little so thats pretty much what we did, we met a couple called Rich and Sue from Crawley and we ended up spending most of our 4 evenings with them. We finally dragged ourselves away from all the relaxation and booked a boat and then a bus up to a place Champasak about 3 hours North, in the end we kind of wished we hadn't. We got up early, got the boat back to the mainland and then got in the 'VIP bus', basically an oversized tuk tuk with bench seats and about 15 people in it. It wasn't to bad, we got there, or so we thought, we asked at someone and it turned out we were about 12km from Champasak. The plan was to go to Champasak and see a temple and then get the night bus to Vientienne. We flagged down an articulated lorry carrying wood and he said he take us as far as the river. I sat in the cab while Colm and Kris had to stand behind the cab, don't think they minded though! We got to the Mekong, again..., paid to get across to Champasak and then walked 2km toward town in sweltering heat, after the 2km we decided to stop at a guest house and have a drink. We left our bags with them and walked the rest of the way into town to go to an cash machine, we were all running low on money, but the cash machine was closed for some reason! By now we were all pretty fed up and then we were told that the busses to Vientienne only left from Pakse, so we decided to cut our losses and got a tuk tuk the rest of the way to Pakse, got there by about 4pm and by 8pm we were on the night bus to Vientienne. Found ourselves a room with 3 beds in for $18, more than we wanted to pay but it did have a TV which meant we could watch the final of the Melbourne Open. The next day we did a walking t
our that was in the lonely planet, it was supposed to take 4-6 hours, we managed it in 1, dont think our hearts were in it really. The following day we got the local bus for 4 hours up to Vang Vieng. We spent 3 nights there before we managed to get it together and go up the river for a spot of tubing. Had a really good time and drank far to much as you can probably see from the pictures. We all ended up with a few cuts and bruises from the river and I needed a new pair of flip flops when I ended up with 2 right feet ones at the end of the night (think that pair number 5 now). After that we spent 6 hours on the bus going from Vang Vieng up to Luang Prabang. When we got there we realised we were only going to be in the country for a few more days so we had to start rationing ourselves so that we wouldn't have to go to the cash machine again and its not a partiuarly cheap place to stay. We managed it though, went to visit a waterfall which was really cool, they have loads of asiatic bears that they've rescued from poachers who keep them for they're bile which is used in Chinese traditional medicine, they s
eemed really well looked after. The water fall was really nice, I haven't ever seen water that was that colour before, we spent an hour or so walking around it and climbing to the top and then after that we went for a swim, the water was freezing! It was good though, did the rope swing and jumped off the waterfall. If you left your feet in the water there were little fish that come and nibble at them, that was quite a wierd sensation. The day after the waterfall we had a day walking around Luang Prabang (see the buddha for each day pictures) and that evening it was a seater bus over night to the Laos Thailand border.
Sounds like you are still MAKING PARTY!!!!
ReplyDeleteCOLD, wet and miserable! But it is home.
DON@T COME BACK!!!
See you all soon.
Love you long time,
Rob xxx