South Laos and beyond

Its been a while, but we're both doing great!

We've been all the way through Southern Laos and are now in Siem Reap, ready for 3 days at the amazing Angkor temples around here, the most famous of course being Angkor Wat.

We blasted our way through Northern Laos, due mostly to the high price of everything and the amount of tourist traps that held sway in that part of the country, and found ourselves right down the bottom of Laos with a lot of time left on our visas... so we took things pretty slowly - Pakxe for 5 days, then a fantastic trip to the Bolaven Plateau to several waterfalls, a coffee and a tea plantation, and a great local village. It was an eco-tour so part of the cost of our trip went back to the villagers (something the majority of tours don't do) - and it was obvious from the interactions between the villagers and our guide that there was a lot of mutual respect there, I'm sure Michelle will elaborate when she posts very shortly...

From Pakxe it was on the Champasak to see Wat Phou - a pre Angkor temple, we arrived in time for a local festival, with thousands of Lao and Thai people making pilgrimages to the ancient site. We were planning on staying at that relaxing riverside town, but were awakened in the middle of the night by the sound of a rat trying to chew (and barge, by the sounds of it) through our bathroom door, so we left early and headed downriver to the island of Don Khong for 4 days of relaxing. The island is a little smaller than Rarotonga, and smack in the middle of the Mekong. We met 2 new friends - Chris and Rachel, from Calgary - and headed down to the smaller island of Don Det, for 4 more days of relaxing, floating down the river, swimming etc... Don Det has no mains power so relies on generators which run from 6 untill 10. When its 35 degrees during the day and high twenties, but really humid at night, you really start to wish for a fan!

After a 2 day bus ride (not too bad - we stopped to sleep at night), we're now in Cambodia!

Sorry, can't put more photos up at this stage - the net is pretty dodgy and 30 minute "downtime" is pretty common!