The last time we spoke we had just got off the boat, which "sence of humour" missed, and discovered we were on the wrong island, in the dark, with no mains electric!! (really could have done with sence of humour around now). We made the best and asked two guys if they knew which way town was, they laughed and in broken english told us "no town, these is its", good times! We were at least gratfull it's impossible to death march at night, on our tiny island we found a lady whom would let us stay in her garden shead (which smelt like something or someone had died in there resently) she told us "only $8" oh ho ho.The next wanted $30 oh happy happy joy, we were not spending $30 or staying in a shed!! Then our luck changed and we found pension dolphin "pension? thats hotel right??" Oh yeah baby,$5 and it was clean and bigger than a shed and had a mossi net, we dropped everything on the floor before she had asked if we wanted the room.

As dawn broke (which apparently, is four am, according to the local cockrells) we found our selves on an island we knw nothing about, except the c*** could run faster than me, not sure what i would have done if i had caught one at 4.01am but hey. We hired a pair of funky bikes from the guest house, and went exploring, at the princly sum of 9000 kip each to cross the bridge (which you had to pay whether you were crossing the bridge or not??) so we rode past a french steam engine without seeing it first time round, didn't go into a temple because of short sleves and then got stuck in mud trying to get to a waterfall, micheal palins' got nought on us!! We decided to cross the bridge to find out where, other than over the river it went (finding the french loco on the way!!)

We crossed on to a new island, completly unsure of where anything was, as there were no sign to town or in fact no signs of a town, so we set off on our bikes down what looked like a road (the road was actualy the foundations for the tracks that were never layed), where we experienced something very familliar but very different!? It was the middle of the day with no shade for five k, no big bag, so no death march, this was our first "DEATH RIDE", only after ten minutes did we start to quistion is this the right way??, are we half way there? whilst we were fading fast thinking this was it, there appeared a mirrage, it looked like a blur of green in the distance, the mirrage held and turned in to a bush, salvation we had shade!! Hev produced a bottle of water from our bag, the only thing it was missing was the tea bag! After what felt like cycling across the sahara (actually i think the sahara is slightly cooler!) we arrived in the "town" of don det which is one long row of guest houses with there attached bars....BLISS (appart from we were on the "wrong island")

We dumped the bikes at the last guest house in the row and went for a dip in the mekong, both watching for the famous mekong crocs, (talking too much to aussies will make anyone a little jumpy!) The ride back was a lot less traumatic, as we were both soaked, we had also managed to find the cheapest bug spray and sun screen on the island, more by default as the guy gave us the wrong price, we paid and his wife kicked off at him!

We opted to eat and drink at the guest house that night, as a bottle of whisky cost $2 as did a bottle of beer, guess what we were drinking?? The plan for the next day was rent a bike go to don det (down the river side path, that all the locals used, as it was far more shaddy) swim in the river then book tickets to Don Khong, the day past with supprising ease, no death anythings, no crocs (there are no crocs in the mekong, just in case you were worrying) tickets purchased, and a time given when we would be picked up. Little did we know, the man whom we had bought tickets off would conveniently "forget us" the next day. So we sat and waited and waited, until the guy at our guest house lent me his scooter, as long a i put fuel in it, i paid for the bridge, paid for the fuel and couldn't find our man any where (at this point alarm bells are ringing and crazy head is attempting a coup, "just throw all of his stuff in the river, yeah , then write THIEF and CHEAT all over his office" crazyhead lost and i wrote a note asking to be picked up tommorow at 10.30am) after leaving my note i searched the local bars for locals, whom might be our guy with only managing to look like i was on the bounce or pull, niether is a good look so i left don det on my wonderfull flying machine. After a short discussion we decided our man was now a liabillity and we would have to move camp to don det to ensure we weren't "forgotten" again. This decission cost us 20,000 kip ($2) on top of the fuel and bridge toll, so after our speed boat trip across the mekong, we had all ready ruled out a death march, we stormed the beach of don det and found our man, fast asleep in his office.

The exchange between our man and hev resulted in him handing over 100,000 kip. We went off found a new guest house, new tickets, and a bar, not quite a wasted day after all!

The next morning we set off to don khong, the big island which has had electricity for ten years!! Our ticket would take us all the way to the island, first by boat, then minibus, then another boat. The fact i've even mentioned this should give you an idea of whats coming, the minibus stopped on the main road and told us we had to walk the last two hundred yards as he couldn't turn around at the bottom, or "i've got you're money and now i'm ditching you", once the "shock" of our ticket not being valid by any of the boat companies we paid extra to get to the island.

The death march was far more of a death strole, as it turns out, there aint alot to don khong, so after one insect infested night we left for Paxse, just in time for the start of new year, after hitching a lift into town and finding digs, we set off to check out the town, which is small enough to walk round in about an hour, in which time we were shot several time by varing degrees of of freindly locals (some of the kids blast you at point blank with a water pistol in the face, bad times)

After an evening of curry, beer and new freinds (more aussies, no invites this time) we decided to go for breakie and buy a water pistol, so i could defend hev of course. We crossed the bridge to the other side of town, which lead to a fantastic but very drunken afternoon. (check out the pics) We found a market that was pumping out very loud, very bad lao music, so we headed for it to check it out, which lead to us being draged (you can imagine how hard we fought, as they were armed with beer lao) in to their party of beer and dried fish, which is a hard combo to keep down, so we stopped with the dried fish and stuck to what we know best.The afternoon past in a drunken blur of talc, lipstick and a crate of beer lao every fourty minutes (not even joking about the amount and speed at which these people were drinking) After a drenching we found our selves back at the guesthouse at four in the afternoon, that was that.

Next day we spent the whole day looking for burgers (hev told me this is normal hangover behaviour) with no sucsess, the closest we got was lettuce with fried chicken, a chicken burger?? This lead to this whole day being written off, never have we wanted either KFC or Mc Donalds so badly.

For our final day in Paxse we hired a bike to go see waterfalls and a coffee plantation, with the sun in the sky we didn't mind the kids hurling water bombs at us, as we sped past at sixty k/hour, (which realy stings) we stopped at the first waterfall, soaking wet thanks to the locals, and took a very long walk to go see a waterfall, as we got down the huge, steep flight of stairs it began to rain, joy, after the climb back to the top we hid in the little cafe for twenty minutes untill it died off, we then carried on to another hotel, as the rain came back with a vengence, we were told the coffee was twelve k in the direction of the big black clouds, a couple of cups of coffee later (to warm up and pass the time) the rain eased off to a drizel and we made our break back to town, tails between our legs and freezing cold, we had to check with each other "Is this lao or england". In town it hadn't rained, a local guy told us the plantation is in the mountains and it rains a lot, wounder why he never told us this before he rented the bike to us?? We left Paxse that night on a sleeper bus, which had a single bed that two people were to sleep on, it was cosy to kinda nice, untill, one am the bus broke down, the belts had snapped?? a full service was under taken on the side of the road by "the bus people" (these people aer never seen by passengers, untill the bus breaks down, so most people in lao have seen them!) to give full credit, the service only took an hour and we were back on the road to vanvieng. Where we will pick up next time we speak as this episode has waffled on for far too long already, so

till next time hang loose

the shoe string two xoxo