W.W.M.D.

Sorry about the delay folks...seems Carla and I got ourselves into a bit of a spot here in Laos.

Of course we planned to get out of party central Vientiane and go see the dolphins in the 4000 Islands in the south of the Mekong. So we ended up on Don Det, a tiny island with very few people and sporadic evening electricity. Well, we managed to loose our flashlight four days in and wandering around one night in the pitch black with a few too many Lao Lao cocktails in our system, we stumbled into the wrong bungalow and passed out. Only to be woken up by the police who wrongly accused us of bedding a local and tossed us in the local holding cell. As many of you may not know, it is illegal for foreigners to sleep with Lao people...and is apparently a law which is enforced. So we spent another 5 days battling tiny ants in our beds, and showering in a concrete room with dirty Mekong water, itchy and trying to bribe our way out.......


Well, maybe it wasn't exactly that way, but we thought it was a better story than meeting a couple English lads on the bus(es) heading down south, happenning upon a group of quiet bungalows on the sunset side of the island and doing nothing all day...literally. It was perfect.

Our first day was quite ambitious we got off the bus-taxi-bus-boat at about 9am, rented bikes and went to explore the island. We made the mistake of following James' man-sense at first and got lost, ending up riverside for a dip, then made our way with a bit of back tracking to the huge waterfall hoping for a swim. Turns out the waterfall, where we had to pay to park our bikes, was really huge. James and I, to Carla and Rob's discontent attemted to jump rocks and find a cool spot to hang out anyhow. Which was going great until James came to help me across and slid off the side into the falls going over a 12 ft drop and coming out quite scractched up at the other end...ok a bit of an exageration. But he did fall off the rock and manage to put a nice gauge in his leg....my hero.

We finished the day off downing beer Lao (large bottles only please), and giggling at Rob's attempt to be a propa' gangsta' with wonky nips. Good luck to ya hun. All was going great until the cement walk to the washroom managed to jump out and steal the ends off of Rob's toes on both feet, only to have James stumble and do the same not 5 minutes later. You can imagine the pools of thinning blood under the table...napkin anyone? Carla felt like joining the ranks, and fell off the steps on our way out of the bar, twisting and bruising her ankle. In her defense there was no light since the power had gone out over an hour before and the bar staff had gone to bed leaving us with a solitary flashlight and four more bottles of beer Lao....but still.

So that was enough excitement to last us...about 8 more days. Until we rented kayaks and paddled against the current on our way to see a 'lame' temple (we're a bit templed-out) and more waterfalls. Really what we did see was much more exciting: we ended up on a smelly island surrounded by dead fish and no shade. And again we blame James' man-sense and his "these islands looked alot smaller on the map" sense. So we thought to ourselves, what would MacGyver do?, and attemted to build a canopy on the kyak...but alas the day was not a waste as we watched another gorgeous sunset on the water. So other than that the days were filled with late and long breakfasts ending around beer-o'clock, and alot of hammock time. We also met a nice man from Leeds who somehow managed to smell worse than the adorable monkey he carried around....one point off for the English

It was hard to leave out quiet island paradise, but after nine days managed to split and get going. Carla and I are back in Vientaine where we treated ourselves to a nice hotel with a real shower. The bit about the concrete room and the Mekong water...both true. I had actually convinced myself we were showering in rain water for the first week, that was until they started pumping it and filling the tank while I was having my morning wash. For those of you who do not know, the Mekong is not the cleanest of rivers in the world. It has a reputation for being thousands of people's bath, toilet, dishwasher and even drinking water, oh ya, and they also float bodies down it for burial...lovely. So here we are waiting to catch our 2 pm bus up to Viang Veinne for some quality drunken tubbing down the river tomorrow.

Until next time...R