'The DON'

'Don Det' - 31/07/2013 - 03/08/2013

We arrived at a little village which is where we had to get the small boat over to the (one of many islands) island of Don Det. The boat in front of us actually sank, with everyone on board and all of their belongings. I have one bad photo of the guys trying to pull the boat out of the river (and she was flowing so fast) but other than that, I'll have to tell you this story in person it was unbelievable and apparently hasn't ever happened before this! (so they say)

Don Det soon became my favourite places in Laos, we had a room hanging over the Mekong with two hammocks for 1.70 English pounds a night. So a meer 85p each. We basically did nothing but smoke weed and chill out here, the Mekong started too rise so much even over just the short amount of time we were there. You couldn't imagine being more relaxed... reading a book and swinging back and forth in your hammock. (If you don't already know i now have a small fetish for hammocks and will make sure there is one in every single person i visits home STANDARD)

The beautiful sunset on our first night there.

The first day we teamed up with Owen and and Chris and Bailey (an american we'd met in the evening) and went on a bike ride around the island, we visited the neighbouring island of Don Khon, all in all it only took 2 hours, they are tiny!!! At the bottom of Don Khon we got a boat over to Cambodia for an hour to watch the rare Pygami river dolphins, they make short appearances at the surface but I wasn't quick enough to get anything on camera!!!

This is the Mekong in Don Khon, I've never seen water from a river with as much power as this. Fancy a dip??

The next day we pretty much spent the whole day in our hammocks, i read the entire Camera instruction manual (weed induced) and as a result we found out all these new tricks you could do with the camera we had, hence the funky photos.

By night one of the most powerful and beautiful storms i have ever seen ripped up overhead, the lightening was a pure white light and the thunder roared and cracked for over a minute. Damn nature ... you scary!

We could of stayed here forever (most people did), but next stop Cambodia!!! So bye bye most relaxed and beautiful place ever! Mum if your reading this, you will LOVE southern Laos. It's truly magical, rich in wildlife and in the rainy seasons some of the most impressive feats of nature you'll ever see!! 

'Pakse-t up'

'Pakse' 30/07/2013 - 31/07/2013

Pakse was a random little stop we had decided to take, it meant that the travel between the capital and Don Det in the south of Laos at the 4,000 islands wouldn't be such of a mission as well as the fact we still had a fair bit of time to play with! I'm so glad we did this, we ended up meeting up with a guy called Owen who we'd met in Vang Vieng and the three of us rented mopeds on the only day we spent there (as we had arrived really early)!

We travelled about 30km out of the city and found 2 amazing waterfalls. They truly were beautiful, and on a scale i had never seen before. the second one was over 240m high. We couldn't even see the bottom!!! I'll let the photo's do the talking...

On the way back Owen's tyre burst, luckily on out 30km stretch of travel back to the city, it happened in the only place we could of had it fixed, phew. Funny though :)

In the evening we all had some food and beers and booked our bus to Don Det for the following morning, we had also met a German guy called Chris so we all became a little group and off down south we went...

'B'N B'N'

'Vientaine' - 27/07/2013 - 30/07/2013

We took a bus transfer to the capital Vientaine. Well, given that we have absolutely loved Laos so far as had everyone we'd met or travelled with, this was a BIG letdown. The city was rundown and most shops and businesses were closed, it felt like it was under some kind of communist regime and the whole place was sad and depressing. A few streets offered good places to eat, but as for things to do... No way!

This is a shot from the city and here's the Mekong (again) and on the other side is Thailand.

It rained for the whole first day so that made the place seem even more miserable.
Finally on the 2nd day (and we couldn't wait to leave) we got to go to the Buddha park. We took a local bus and hoped we knew where to get off, we ended up at some border crossing but met with an Australian lady and her little boy and haggled hard for a tuk tuk to take us the rest of the way as he wanted almost 4 times what we ended up paying!

The road there was... well for a start... not really a road. We smacked our heads a few times and were glad to finally arrive.

The Buddha park was pretty cool but still it took us about 45 minutes to go around and then that was it! Vientaine... DONE! Next Pakse.

'V for Vendetta'

'Vang Vieng' 24/07/2013 - 27/07/2013

We got a bus transfer, just a short one to Vang Vieng. Olly and I are now so used to travelling for 8 to 14 hours in one go a little 4 or 5 hour bus journey is nothing. Its a sleepy, empty sort of ghost like place, once home to some of the most extreme tubing in the world. Unfortunately due to a large amount of Australians dying in 2012, the tubing although still running is nowhere near as extreme. Bars everywhere just playing friends on repeat was strange... people just order food and chill out on futons all day watching it.

We booked the tubing the next day which starts in the afternoon and goes on until 5/6 in the evening. We met some really cool people and floated about 5 minutes down the river and stopped off at the first bar which was empty and lifeless. Soon enough lots of people were turning up, there were volleyball nets and all sorts. The second bar was much more lively, it was raining by this point so muddy banks became mudslides and instead of people playing ball games, mud was being launched left right and center. We played our first game of beer pong and lost badly. The third bar was even more lifeless than the first and we just shared a few buckets with the guys we'd met. I was absolutely hammered by this point, not sure floating down a river in a tube was a good idea, but I was loving it. We got out back in the center, with a few cuts and bruises, but some awesome memories. All the photos for this our on my iphone as the camera wasn't allowed tubing.


In the evening we went out to the Irish bar, may the party never end!!!!


We wanted to rent a moped the next day, a manual was soooo much cheaper than an automatic so Olly feeling a little worse for ware braved it and hired the manual having never ridden one before. Firstly the gas ran out so we ended up pushing it about 2km to the nearest gas station, and then when we finally got going, we realised it was probably the dodgiest manual ever, old, knackered and basically a big pile of shit.

However, it did make it to the Poukham caves which is where we wanted to go. We walked for a while up this beautiful clear stream that was home to an abundance of amazingly gorgeous butterflies.

A great place to park don't you think?

When we made it to the caves we were guided by a straggly old gentlemen who was wearing ripped clothes and carrying a bag of strange things... He smelt weird and didn't talk much but he guided us around the caves well, although at points i did think he was going to lead us in to the darkness and murder us. The spiders in there were like nothing I'd ever seen, I was petrified, they were so big. No worries though as our 'guide' just bashed the shit out of them with his flip flop, many spiders died on this day....

'Luang Pra-Banging'

'Luang Prabang' 19/07/2013 - 24/07/2013

The bus left early for Laos and it arrived at the border crossing 3 hours late. We got a couple of hours sleep before we crossed over the Mekong into Laos. The slow boat we had booked was an experience, we bought some beers and sat chatting to various people, the first leg was a 9 hour meander down the Mekong to a place called Pakbang where we stayed the night to get back on the boat for another 7 hour trip into Luang Prabang. These are all photo's of the boat trip... all 2 days of it.

Luang Prabang was amazing, we managed to get a really cheap room with wifi, probably one of the best we'd stayed in, the markets were amazing and the vibe of the whole city was chilled loveliness. 

On the first day we haggled with a tuk tuk driver and made our way to Huang Xi waterfall, this is the most amazing waterfall i have ever seen, I'm not sure why but the water is a beautiful refreshing menthol green colour, there were big rope swings and places you could jump into the little lush lagoons. There was also a bear sanctuary there saving bears from poachers. All in all a magical day.

We met that evening with some guys we'd met on the boat at a bar called Utopia, so named because it was chill out central. Everywhere in Laos shuts at about 11pm, but if you want to carry on drinking you can go to the 'Bowling Alley' where they serve alcohol and you can also buy beer etc. This probably wasn't a good idea in hindsight as we didn't arrive back to our room until about 4:30am and had booked mountain bike riding and kayaking for the next day which started at 8:30 AM, oooppps.

The bike ride was intense, our tour guides bike kept breaking, hello Laos. We saw some beautiful scenery and then had lunch and chilled out at Tad Se waterfall, menthol green pools with a tiny rope swing.

Onto the Kayaking and our tour guide fixed up one of the holes with leaves, haha. It was so hot and we just floated down the river as the current was quite strong. By the time we were an hour and a half in the heavens opened and there we were just paddling down the river in a monsoon, this was strangely beautiful. We sang songs and laughed at the random situation we had found ourselves in on a hangover from hell. All in the name of fun, I won't forget this day. Truly awesome.