Communism is alive and well and living in Laos

Greetings followers,

Well our travel plans have changed somewhat! A day before our bus was due to depart we got a phone call at our guesthouse in Vientiane. The bus operator told us that the government had confiscated our tickets and given them to a bunch of Vietnamese soap dodging students how had to get back for new year. After further questioning they also said that the bus had broken down and wouldn't get here in time and is was four days until the next one???? if the excuse fits......

Anyway, this turned out to be a stroke of luck as we swapped our tickets to Hanoi and went to a place called Si Phan Don (4000 islands) on the Laos Cambodia border. This turned out to be a fantastic place, probably the the nicest we have been to so far. As the name suggests, it is a shed load of small idyllic islands in the Mekong river with plenty of cheap guesthouses, bars, restaurants and other backpackers. We chilled out on the beach, hired inflatable tubes and floated down the river, cycled to the waterfall and went swimming and finally went on a boat trip to see the Irrawaddy river dolphins. This was fantastic, they are very shy creatures and are only about 12 left in the Mekong, however we saw them breaching within minutes of arriving. Aparently the Khmer Rouge used to fish the river using grenades which killed them all off. (Monsky, maybe we should try this on our next trip, seems to work but not very environmentally friendly). The sunset on the boat trip way back was beautiful and almost worth the 2 hr cycle ride to get there with a flat tyre, no brakes, and Urv getting stung on the arm by something evil on the beach. Still, we had a few beer Laos on the beach that evening to chill out (covered in DEET).

Anyway, as there are no banks or cash machines on the islands we ran out of money and had to leave after about 4 days. We are now on route to Vietnam and stopping in Savannakhet for a few days before going to either Hue, Hoi An or Danang. Not sure which one yet, anyone got any suggestions? Savannakhet is a nice sleepy place on the river, very french.

We are uploading some photos of the trekking to photobucket but it is a bit slow and haven't quite figured out how to share it yet, but will hopefully get it sorted soon enough. The big news is Pete has finally had a shave this morning, just under 2 months growth. He covered his face with milk and let the guesthouse cat lick it off. It had to go; apart from looking ridiculous, it was making me sweat like a dog in a Vietnamese take away. The Afro is staying though, despite the comments to the contrary. I don't care if I do look like Leo Sayer, and it makes me feel like dancing, get used to it.

Take care and love to all,

Pete & Urvy

XXX