Don Det, one of the 4000 Islands (Si Phan Don) - Big fun on a small island

The trip down to the Southern most tip of Laos was not well organized, to say the least.  We took an overnight bus to Pakse, where we were lucky enough to be put in the back where there was half the room as in the front (although away from the bathrooms which actually was a plus). We arrived in Pakse in the early morning, having barely slept in our child sized bed we were sharing (should have bought the bottle of Johnny when we had the chance!) We then switched to a van, which drove us most of the rest of the way, to the "pier", a currently forming pile of rubble and dirt that should be a pier in a few months. The tour people attempted to up sell everyone, and would have succeeded had it not been for our stubborn asses-everyone else took the bait. We opted to keep going to Don Det, and not pay more to go to another, further island, which we later found out was more expensive and not as much fun (suckers!). But we payed for that decision later. The boat ride was amazing. A small boat carted us across the Mekong, which in this area is very wide and dotted with tons of small islands which at this point in the year can be small enough to house just a single tree if not fully submerged.

The boat took us to the wrong side of the island (which we believe they did because we didn't get up sold). We found out later that there is a normal beach where the tourists get dropped off, near all of the guesthouses and hotels, but we were not so lucky. We were surrounded by locals, none of whom spoke English, and were barely lucky enough to find one who understood the word "bungalow", and pointed us in a direction along the riverfront. We chose to believe, because we had no other option, and walked in the direction she pointed. We balanced our packs through rice paddies and locals houses.  About ten minutes later we saw the first decent bungalows (the ones we had actually found online), and were disappointed to find out they were full. We then found decent accommodations down the street overlooking rice fields and a lotus plantation.  Still, we came back to book the nice place (hot showers) for the remainder of our stay. The owner was a wonderful, cooky Brit named Peter who was obsessed with classic rock and lived most of his life in India.  He was a kind, fascinating, old chap.

The main "street" was really just a five foot wide dirt road shared with many dirty dogs, chickens, mangy cats, water buffalo, a few motorbikes and many tourists on bikes. Oh and there was a pet monkey on a string that I let crawl onto my hands and it bit me (Devon)!  She thougth my bracelet was fruit and was pulling at so I tried to put her back on the fence and that's when the trouble started.  She has had all her shots, but Breen keeps telling me I have incurable monkey pox.  It was worth it to feel her little human-like hands and feet on me.
 

Don Det was a strange place, but had a certain charm to it, though the locals seemed lazy and quite disinterested in serving any white people ( it often felt like an "f-u," though we understand as they have been quickly inundated with many tourists recently).  We spent a lot of our time at the restaurant by the tiny beach/pier in hammocks and met a wonderful group of people our first night and formed a crew that was much fun.  We shared some whisky and Beer Lao and drunkenly decided we should all go kayaking together the next day.  Which is just what we did.  There was a trio from South Africa (Andre and Nikki -who also recently got engaged, and entertaining, talented, aloof Brizi), a wonderful, jolly gent from Wales named Garreth, and a funny, musical, fellow Californian from LA (Brady).  We all got along swimmingly and had an amazing day on the Mekong with our humerus French guide Jean.  We kayaked through sunken forests, saw two of the largest waterfalls in SE Asia, swam at a beautiful beach, got stuck on a sunken tree in the rapids (thanks Brizi), and illegally crossed the border into Cambodia where we ate lunch and watched the very rare and endangered Irrawaddy river dolphins breach. On the way back from Cambodia we had to cross the Mekong at it's widest and discovered that there are jumping water spiders that enjoy hopping on kayaks (that's right, fricking JUMPING WATER SPIDERS... tons of them).  As you may have guessed, Breen and I did not enjoy this very much and freaked out a bit, whacking our paddles against our boats and screaming like little girls, becoming the butt of some well-deserved jokes.  But we survived (and didn't even capsize!) and have conquered some of our arachnophobia! It was one of the best days of our entire trip. Though it ended on a bit of a sour note when we saw a bad accident on the road, dead bodies and all.  These roads and the way people drive here scare me.

The next two evenings we spent with our wonderful new friends and another gent we met at a bar, a doctor from Switzerland named Flo.  We played music (Brady had a guitar) a few different nights.  One night, Brady and I entertained the local crowds into the wee hours of the morning (even after all the bars shut down at 11pm).  We laughed a lot, played pool, and drank buckets of Lao Loa whisky together.  It was quite fun.

We also ran into this wonderful Austrian couple whom we had met back in Chiang Mai.  We ended up going out to Indian food our last night and sharing many bellies full of laughs.  We also had a lively discussion about renewable energy solutions!

Though the water was a muddy brown and the locals didn't like to return smiles much, it was a beautiful place and an amazing part of our trip.  We are so glad we met the fellow travellers that we did, as they were the ones who made it special.

Then it was off to Cambodia...

Love,
Devon and Breen

Vientiane - Bumming around and trekking

What can we say about Vientiane?  There were wonderful restaurants from around the world, good book stores and cafes, nice guest houses and nice people, but there really wasn't much to do.  Despite that, the people and energy was great (especially compared to the caustic Vang Vieng) and it was actually nice to spend our days just walking around.  As I (Devon) was getting over a sinus infection and it was "that time of the month" our motto for the time we spent there was "Eat, drink, and be merry!"  And that is just what we did.

Once Devon was feeling a bit better we decided to do a village trek with Green Discovery Tours.  We decided on "The Challenge," which included hours of mountain biking and hiking each day and an overnight at a traditional village. We stowed our big packs and just took the necessities, leaving at 8am with our guides, Dom and Somxay (pronounced Som Sai).  Dom was our driver and personal chef while Somxay spoke English, took us mountain biking, and was our main guide.  We started the trip with a stop at a local markets to pick up a wide array of vegetables and meat for our meals and started on our way.  

We drove about 2 and 1/2 hours into the adjacent National Forest to what we later found out was the village at which we would be spending the night.  From there we hopped on rusty, old mountain bikes and headed in the direction of a waterfall.  The biking lasted about 3 hours, with ~10 inclines that literally took our breath away and reminded us that we have not been exercising enough. Only our guide could climb the hills while on his bike, although Breen did climb one or two all the way. Devon for sure would have, but the rusty gears on her over sized bike slowed her just enough to make it impossible. We ended up at an AMAZING waterfall, which emptied into a large pool that we were able to dive into and swim in while our guides prepared our lunch of BBQ and fried rice. It was a highlight for sure.

After that we trekked through some rain forest with two local forest guides added on to our crew.  One led the way and the other tailed us for safety and to help the local economy (the trip was expensive).  Luckily we avoided snake attacks, spider bites, and leeches sucking our blood.  It was a beautiful trek lasting a few hours, ending at a Mekong River tributary where a longboat driver was waiting to take us back to the village.  The very old, almost submerged long-boat didn't enable us to move much, but was a fun and beautiful ride.

Our host family was lovely, the father with is weathered, smiling face was welcoming as were his sweet daughters and his little granddaughter was quite beautiful. We stayed in their raised, thatched hut, talking for hours with Somxay about his life, dreams, women, and growing up in a poor northern village in Laos, a country which is rapidly changing.  Dom cooked the market food with our help over an open flame.  We made traditional larp (a favorite of ours), which is a minced meat dish with many fresh herbs. We had a feast with the family including a veggie stir fry and the larp and (of course) sticky rice for all.  We also were able to try the fresh tree leaves they use in place of sticky rice and utensils.  It tasted like ginger to us and Somxay said it is of the same family.

After dinner Breen and Somxay walked to purchase Beer Lao to share with the father and the group, and we continued our conversation about life with Somxay for a few hours more. It was fascinating to him and both of us. Somxay loved our insight, advice and knowledge, and we were sympathetic to the issues an intuitive dreamer would have in a country so far behind yet moving so fast towards western ideals. It felt like a discussion with a genius child, as he was so energetic (only 23) and full of life, and seemingly so far ahead of everyone else we had met in terms of his life aspirations and goals for his current and future family. He wishes to study psychology in America or Australia and we plan to help him find a grant or scholarship if we can.  He was a very smart, driven, kind, funny young man and we felt lucky to have him as our guide and get to know him a bit.

The next day was more of the same, except that the first hour of biking was along an industrial dirt road and we probably ate about a pound of dirt. Overall the day was easier and more low key. The bike ride was to a park service area with another, less exciting but beautiful, waterfall where we walked around and swam again.

We watched Somxay climb a tree, prepared to jump into the river (which he never did because it was much too shallow -as we had told him), and find the reddish gingery leaves we had eaten the night before. Dom and Somxay, being opportunistic, grabbed handfuls for our lunch and for their dinner later that night. We trekked again for an hour or so over makeshift bridges and stagnant ponds and streams.

Dom and Somxay had known of Devon's singing ability from the night before, asked her for a song, and she obliged with her original song "So Real" (a Capella of course, which triggered about the billionth time she wished she owned a travel guitar).  Then Dom prepared a lovely lunch of stir fried veggies (with Devon's help) and we had it with the ginger leaves and sticky rice.  A tiny black kitten took a liking to Breen and was following him around.  After that (sadly) our amazing trip was over and our two wonderful guides drove us back to Vientiane.

Somxay didn't want the fun to end and invited us to come out to dinner with him and his girlfriend that night at the night market on the river. We ate fresh grilled river fish and more larp with more sticky rice (at this point our new favorite food), sharing laughs, a few glasses of Johnny Walker whisky and more Beer Lao. It was an incredible few days that neither of us will ever forget. Thank you Dom and Somxay!!!

We had one more day in Vientiane and we went via bumpy, dusty tuk tuk ride to Buddha Park, a park full of all kinds of concrete Buddha sculptures.  It was beautiful with interactive sculptures, may favorite was a daemon mouth that you climb through and enter hell, you can climb up the 7 layers of hell and out the top of the domed structure with a perfect view of the park and the big sky.  We ate a yummy lunch of fried rice, morning glory, fried eggs and sticky rice down by the lovely river by the park.

Later that day we decided to try the Indian joint on the river front where we ran into our friend Paul from the Slow Boat and shared a night of boisterous conversation (and more Johnny Walker and Beer Lao) at the Beer Garden near our guesthouse.  Paul is a golfer and we enlightened him about Disk Golf, which BLEW HIS MIND. He is convinced he will become a billionaire by introducing the sport to England as "Frolfe."  As recent MBA graduated we made sure we would get a cut (;

We then headed down to the Southern most tip of Laos to 4000 Islands "Si Phan Don" for some water side relaxation, kayacking and hopefully some views of the very rare and endangered Irrawaddy river dolphin...

Love,
Devon and Breen

Vang Vieng - The Town of the White People

The bus ride to Vang Vieng was amazing: full of blue, rain forest-covered mountain vistas layered in fog.

We were wary of the loud Irish trio that boarded the bus with open Beer Laos at 8 am, and a bag full for the road, but they turned out to be hilarious and fun, even if they were drunks (at least until their Beer Lao ran out and they hit the wall, passing out on each other's shoulders). We shared more than a few Beer Laos and a drinking game with them once we got off the bus right outside the bus station.  We also encountered a chic, very cool, very young group of Thai teenagers when we had to stop due to a truck running off the road down a hill.  We plan to hang with them when we return to Bangkok as that is where they are from.  The backup included passenger buses, cars, and semis full of food and the like - the myriad motorbikes flew threw the mess.  We walked up to the blockage and saw that some people were attempting to pull the truck up the hill with a rusty old winch strapped to a rusty old truck, which could only have moved the downed truck a combined total of about 6 feet (it must have been 40 or 50 feet down the hill) so we and a few others were a bit perplexed.  They gave up and we went on our way.  I hope someone figured it out and was able to help!

In Laos and Thailand, "phalong" means white foreigner and in Vang Vieng there were way too many drunk, under dressed, loud, rude ones.  As you walk down the main drag you can see multiple restaurants playing Family Guy or Friends over and over on big T.V.s for the foreigners. It felt a bit like the Twilight Zone for us, but we figured out that many people just head straight there to get drunk and tube down the river, taking shots and drinking beers at various bars as they pass by.  I (Devon) was feeling sick with a bad head cold so we skipped it, and we are both glad.  We ended up running into a wonderfully sweet girl from Holland and exploring the surrounding rice fields and authentic villages full of skinny cows, water buffalo and dirty dogs and cats. We ended up trekking through the rice paddies to the base of some of the beautiful cliffs to a dark, dank cave dripping with life.  It was fun adventure.  I got bit by the largest ant you have ever seen (not poisonous) and almost lost my footing and fell in a very dirty, muddy stream, but our new friend from Holland saved me.

We luckily found a beautiful guest house called the Mountain River View with hard wood everywhere and a lovely mountain and river view (go figure).  Sunsets were lovely and I did some Bikram on the deck, seeing as it was nearly 100 degrees anyway.  It was cheap and off the beaten track so we didn't have to hear the drunk phalong partying into the wee hours of the morn. Two nights was enough as we didn't feel like joining the kitchy parties.  We are glad we went just for the amazing views and beauty, but were happy to continue on our way and headed for Vientiane, the capitol city of Laos...

Love,
Devon and Breen

Luang Prabang - Best City Yet!

Luang Prabang is the old royal capitol of Laos and it's sleepy charm won us over immediately.  From the many beautiful temples and quiet monks to chic tea houses and hip hop shows, this has been our favorite place yet. We stayed in an old french colonial hotel that was expensive for us at $40 bucks a night, but lovely as were the gentle, helpful, men who worked there.  While Thailand is lacking in any bread other than awful sliced white bread, in Laos the French influence has brought delicious, crusty, personal baguettes of which we have eaten quite a few.  The French also brought cakes and other bready deliciousness that have we have enjoyed trying.

Getting there was quite an adventure in itself.  We decided to take the "slow boat" from Chiang Mai, which is slower than it sounds.  It took us three days to reach the town including two overnights at small, rustic hostels along the Mekong river. The first day we were in a van for 7 hours with the impressive highlight of getting to see the White Temple.  This is an intricate temple built over the past 15 years and still in progress.  it is the brain child of an architect who is supposedly a bit insane and all the work is hand- done.  It is quite the sight to be seen and perhaps our favorite temple of the trip, at least, so far...

We befriended two delightful, middle-aged Aussies and a sweet Brit on the way-sharing a bottle of whiskey to calm the nerves after the stress of getting onto the boat ( we were the very last ones and it was packed!). We ended up hanging out with them at Pakbeng, one of the tiny towns along the way.  We shared food, laughter and many Beer Laos under teeming swarms of mosquitoes and ate our first traditional Lao food and our favorite-"Larp," an herbaceous chopped meat dish that we will be attempting to replicate when we get home.

All in all the boat ride was wonderful, with beautiful scenery, but we will never do it again.  It was overcrowded and many of the tourists were very rude, taking up multiple seats, even when they saw people crammed together.  But we did see some wild and working elephants along the way, wild water buffalo, tiny villages, drippy rain forests, and met some wonderful people too. A  sweet man from India and some young girls from Montreal and Germany.  But, as we said-never again!  But, don't miss the experience if faced with the chance (:  It was all worth it in the end. (Small note- had we been swindled into paying more to take the bus, we would have spent the night on the side of the road as the bus broke down mid way,  it was supposedly quite the nightmare, and we are grateful to have taken the "slow boat.")

We planned on staying three nights in Luang Prabang, but fell in love with the slow pace and quiet appeal of the beautiful town and stayed an entire week.  Not that there is much to do there but eat, read, relax and enjoy our big bed (;  We avoided the heat of the day by chilling in this little bookshop/tea house called L'Etrenger drinking ginger-honey iced tea and reading to one another.  We befriended a young lad that worked there who had just finished an 8 year stint as a monk and his peacefulness added to the ambiance for sure.  It was great to have some slow travel time after the bustle of Chiang Mai and all the adventures we had signed up for.

I think the most active thing we did was hike to the top of Mount Phousi, a small mountain covered in all sorts of golden Buddhas with a beautiful temple that also provided an amazing view of the sleepy town. 

We also traveled via a long, bumpy tuk tuk ride to a stunning waterfall with mint green pools perfect for swimming surrounded by sunken mangrove trees. We climbed the half hour to the top and were met by an incredible view. We climbed down and jumped in one of the perfect pools despite the teeth chattering cold of the minty water!

We ate Lao BBQ at a rustic, local hang out where you make your own soup and grill your own meat.  It was a bit strange, but so fun and very delicious.  They literally just plop a burning bowl of coals into a hole in the middle of the table and bring plates of raw meat, dry noodles, veggies and herbs and a big bucket of chicken broth.   We were told by the owner that we were doing something wrong, but it was good anyway.

One morning we woke up at 5:00am to go down to the street to watch the alms giving ceremony.  There were people lining the streets during sunrise to give sticky rice or candy to the monks who walk from the temple all over town.  It was beautiful to see the chain of giving-the people on the streets give to the monks who then turn and give to the poor children who come from surrounding villages and whatever falls goes to the eagerly waiting dogs that also line the streets.

We were lucky enough to have been in Luang Prabang for the Loy Kra Thong Festival (Festival of Lights). It is meant to honor the Goddess of the River for all she gives and apologize for all we take, also it celebrates the end of the rainy (harvest) season and monks come out of a three-month silence to preach again and interact with others once more. In addition, small boats made of banana leaves and flowers are lit with candles and put on the river-Breen and I both sent one on it's way down the river as it is meant to seal the love between two people to let your lights float down the Mekong together.

The festival was absolutely nuts, or as our Brit friend, Paul, aptly put it -"This is MENTAL."  A huge parade occurred with many intricately made boats lit with candles and lanterns that were brought down to the river.  There were fire dancers and live bands.  The Mekong was alight with many burning things as was the sky as people make small hot air balloon-like, rice paper floaty things that are released for good luck. Small kids and pre-teens constantly shoot off and throw big firecrackers (or as we would see them, small bombs) and Roman candles.  And none seemed to care if a "Phalong" (foriegner) happened to get hit by one.  In fact, Breen saved me from losing a toe or worse when a group of 10 or 11-year-olds threw a big one right in front of us.  My hero.

Then it was off to Vang Vieng...but that's a different story altogether...

Sending lots of love to you from across the world!
Devon and Breen