Guro and Caroline Blog

southern laos

sounds like a great party sis, wish we could've been there... hope you're arranging something huge for may!! may come to visit before bro's wedding.
currently in Pakse, the largest town in southern laos but it really isn't huge. has 2 good indian restaurants and lots of good internet cafes so i guess its all a backpacker could want for a day.
the 4 or us left kratie the next day (early again) and headed into laos via the unofficial border... first by minibus, then speedboat (so cool) to the small village where you get you're stamp out (one of the locals throws on an official looking shirt as we pull up...) bus to the laos entry stamp place (looked slightly but not much more like an official border point) and then bit more bus and 1 more boat to don deth. felt like we were smuggled in! altogether an amazing trip and to date our best border crossing experience! don deth is the 2nd biggest island in the siphandon 4000 island area and is quickly becoming a backpacker haunt, but currently hs a bit of a hippy commune feel - any meal can be made 'happy for an extra 5000 kip (25p). we met a couple of finnish lads, ante and risto and spent a couple of days swinging in hammocks watching the world go by on the mekong :) i got my first bout of food poisoning.. good going i think.. but am not suprised now as the hostels in pakse advise all people going there to take some immodium with them! from don deth to pakse where guro, quentin, nicky, ante and risto checked out a local night club before the others left the next day. guro and i headed to the Boloven plateau, attracted by the promise of cooler weather after don deth where just sitting doing nothing even our figertips were sweating! just back and we've had a great 2 days. we swam in clear, cool waterfalls on the way to Tad lo, visited tea/coffee plantations (lao coffee is possibly the best we've found) and visited an ethnic village. we stayed at tad lo the night but could've stayed a few more. great relaxed place by another waterfall. we went elephant trekking in the morning, after taking in chez - a traveller who found herself lacking a roof for the night.
so now we're back in pakse and without enough time to get north we've decided to head towards bangkok today via songthaw then overnight bus. really feels like our travels in se asia are coming to an end but looking forward to the beach on ko tao where we've a padi course booked for christmas. we fly to sydney on jan 3rd to meet my folks who are stopping over there for 4 days before a 3 week hol in new zealand :) great to hear from all on email and comment, miss everything from home.. even winter! best of luck to kate and guy
x

posted by Caroline @ 05:16