Southern Laos

After Gary left, I met up with some English girls and went out in Luang Prabang for one more night, went bowling, all the works. But I missed you babe!

I was supposed to catch a 6:30 bus to Vientienne, but I overslept and had to take the 9:00 one, it was a long day on a bus but I made it pretty late at night, and just walked around and went to bed. I flew the next morning to Pakse, which is southern Laos. I got there really early in the morning, put my bags in a hotel lobby, walked around and decided there wasn't much there so I went to the bus station to head to Tad Lo, which is this small town outside Pakse with a lot of trails and waterfalls, etc. I met a guy on the bus from Colorado, so we explored together. We walked to a waterfall and just around the area. There isn't much to the town, but it is very peaceful there, I enjoyed it.

The next day we woke up and went for a walk. We just walked for about an hour and enjoyed the scenery. We found a waterfall, went for a swim, took a nap by the water, and then walked around some more. We saw this restaurant on the water and decided to pop in, and what luck! It happened to be a gathering of all the local police officers from the surrounding "counties" all eating and getting absolutley wasted. They invited us to sit with them and have some beers, so we ate and drank and they gave me their cell phone numbers and said if I get in trouble in Laos, call them... hah. Thanks I guess!

Waterfall

TadLo

More Tad Lo

Head of Police

The pigs in Laos are HUGE

Andy playing the local game of volleyball/hackey sack. I tried too, but then fell on my ass while trying to kick the ball over the net and quit out of embarrassment

I left the next morning to head even more south to an area known as the 4,000 Islands (becuase there are 4,000 little islands all strewn through this area of the Mekong). When I got there, I ran into a couple I had met in Luang Prabang, so we found some bungalows on the water, which were like $2 a night! The island we stayed on, Don Det, is more of the backpacker island, but since we went in the off season, there was hardly anyone there. It was soooo nice and such a beautiful place. I absolutely loved it. We rented bikes and cruised around to the different islands, saw a cool waterfall, found a swimming beach, walked around the island, drank on our porches, read in our hammocks, it was so nice. I had planned on only staying a couple of nights but stayed 4. Since the electricity stopped at 10pm, there wasn't a lot going on at night, so it was a very relaxing few days... not like I have anything to relax from.

Bike riding

Riding over to Don Khon

A surprisingly large waterfall in the Mekong

Fishing Boats

One of the things the islands are known for are these freshwater dolphins, that are endagered because during the war, they were all bombed because the army thought they carried the spirits of the enemies or something weird like that. Anyway, we rented a boat and had a guy take us out at sunset to see the dolphins. We saw 6! We were lucky!

Brad, Me, Sicilia and Ben, technically in Cambodia waiting to see dolphins.

We stopped to check the fishing traps. Our driver was absolutely hilarious.

Local lady selling snacks

Ben and Sicilia on the Island

Local kid taking a nap, haha, I just thought he looked so funny since this was part of a kitchen at a food stand.

After I lef the islands, I took yet another long bus ride up to mid Laos to Savanakhet to cross the border to Vietnam. I stayed one night and actually really enjoyed this town. There are so many old french buildings that are just falling apart becuase they can't afford to fix them up, nor do I think they really care. But it felt like a ghost town almost because all the buildins were just these beautiful but crumbling structures.

Old radio tower I think

Buildings

Lady making one of my favorite snacks, papaya salad!

Another building

I ran into an English guy, Tom, who I had met in Thailand who was also crossing the border to Vietnam. We decided to take the local bus and what an adventure! We were the only two white people on the bus. We got to the border around 2am and had to sleep on the floor of this woman's house while we waiting for the border to open. We crossed over, made it to Hue and even though I had initially planned to skip the north and just spend three weeks in the south, I decided since I am nearing the end of my trip, I want to see and do as much as possible, sooooooooo, I hopped on another overnight bus up to Hanoi which is where I am now. Hanging out up north for a bit then heading south.

Our local border crossing bus