We only spent one afternoon and one evening in the capital city - It was really only a stop over to get to our next destination, Tha Kaek. Nonetheless we spent our afternoon there walking around the city centre and along the wide Mekong river. We met up with J&J for dinner that night. They had spent the day more productively by visiting one of the city's biggest wats, the SE Asia take on the Arc De Triumph and an enormous Reclining Buddha statue. They rewarded our laziness with another magnet to add to our collection - not so fair as we didn't actually visit the place but it will always be a reminder of our time with them in Laos. We had a great dinner at a restaurant in the centre called Blue Banana. The owner, an English golf professional ex pat came to chat with us for a while after our meal. He had been in the country for 7 years and explained to us the appeal of the city for the thousands of other ex pats that have recently hoarded the capital - Governmental, missionary and mining are the top draw cards.

We had booked ourselves a VIP bus to get to The Kaek the next day at 1pm. J&J had done the same but with a different company. They were picked up promptly at 12:00 to head to the bus station but we sat outside the hotel and waited. And waited... By 12:45 we were both getting pretty anxious so Jeff ran down to the agency we had brought our tickets from to remind them of our existence. We were eventually picked up in suped up little car for the bus station. We assumed that the bus would wait for us to arrive but when the driver of our car went past the bus station and started waving down a local bus, we knew it was going to be a long day. The local buses are pretty comfortable but that's not the problem - the problem is that they stop every 5-10minutes to pick people up on the side of the road, load their belongings on the roof (sometimes their belongings included motor bikes) and stop to let them off again. The driver had a sweet obsession with his hooter which also annoyed the journey - he would hoot at every dog, cow, motorbike, car,intersection or person he passed - eventually it just became a background din with the sound of the Laos music being blasted through the bus's speakers. The constant stopping and starting extended the journey by at least 25% so what we thought would be 6hours turned into an 8hour journey and when we eventually arrived it was 8:30pm.

We haggled with tuk-tuk drivers to get to a guesthouse that we had agreed we would go to with J&J. There was no way of letting them know why we hadn't arrived for the VIP bus or to tell them that we would be late. But we were greeted at the hostel with their relief, had a quick dinner and headed to another guest house which they had booked for us. We agreed to meet up the next morning at 8:00am to arrange motorbikes for a 4 day loop around the surrounding areas. We didn't anticipate that there would be none available, so after a long walk around town, we came back to the guesthouse empty handed and with a whole day to kill in a pretty dead end town. That's when a bottle of whiskey and cards comes into play. We taught J&J a game we had learnt in Peru and spent the whole day there eating, drinking and playing cards - not a bad way to waste a day away!

The next morning we were set to pick up our booked bikes and hit the road at 8:00am but Jay came out the room with his head hanging and told us that Jeanette was feeling awful and that they would not be able to join us. Jeff and I decided to go alone and made plans to try meet up with them on the 2nd or 3rd night of the loop.

The bike we got was a brand new piece of crap. It hadn't done any mileage but it was practically made of tin and it had no storage space for our bags. Jeff had to wear his day pack on his stomach and I had to hold the straps behind him so that they wouldn't fall down. Jeff got a hang of the manual gear changing while we drove through the town and along the Mekong river which creates the border between Laos and Thailand. After our previous accident in Sukothai, we had agreed to take it really slowly to our first night's stop. It took me a while to get comfortable on the bike again especially around a pretty windy mountain road but Jeff was very patient and took every precaution for our safety. On route we stopped at a small local village for lunch which was quite daunting as none of the 'restaurants' had menus and none of the owners spoke English. But we braved it and sat at the most inviting one - we pointed at a meal one of the other patrons was eating, a soup of some kind, and ordered one with a side of sticky rice. The soup arrived and after the traditional self spicing with the provided chilli, lime, fish sauce and soya, it was actually very tasty - a truly authentic Laos meal!

We parked off at a cosy little guest house with a deck restaurant in the afternoon. We checked in, ordered well deserved drinks and settled at one of the tables for a chill after a long day on the bike. One hour into our chill session a motor bike drove past with two familiar falangs on the back - jay and Jeanette. At around midday Jeanette had mustered some strength and they decided to race up to the first stop to join us. Great Surprise! We spent an hour and a half playing connect four, waiting for our meals and were all very pleasantly surprised at the quality of the owner's cooking. Jeff and Jay had a fantastic Tom Yiam Soup which we all put orders in for the next night.

Our 2nd day on the road involved only a one and a bit hour drive on a welcome well tarred, straight road to get to the KongLor Caves. We enjoyed some beautiful scenery but particularly loved driving through the little villages along the way where we were always greeted by waving and shouting kids. There was not much fanfare to the caves - an undiscovered gem! We chartered two long boats to take us through this most incredible gift of nature. We were equipped with life jackets and head torches and set off through the 7.5km tunnel to the other side of the cave. It is very hard to describe in words - like floating into a different world. The cave, at some points, is as high as 150m and as wide as 80m. A jumbo jet could have flown though it! We floated through this eerie and remarkable cave with our jaws to the ground - it was so unreal that I kept comparing it to a ride in Disneywotld. At one point we disembarked from the boats and walked through a wonderland of beautifully lit up rock formations that took our breath away. The four of us shared our enthusiasm and amazement of this highly underrated attraction afterwards over lunch and a swim in the turquoise blue rock pool at the foot of the mountain we had just come out of. The ride back to our guest house was the perfect cap off to a magnificent day - we drove with an orange and pink sunset over the distant hills as our backdrop.

Day 3 was a toughy!! After 2 hours of easy road we stopped off at a remote town for a bite to eat before hitting the daunting stretch of gravel road - 60km of it! We couldn't find ourselves a restaurant so ventured into the local market where we found a table and were served 4 of the same soups Jeff and I had enjoyed on our first day on the loop. We all enjoyed the fact that we were the only foreigners around - we were actually getting gawked at by many of the passers by - its awesome to have such real moments on a trip that is usually set on the tourist track.

We were fed up and energised for the rest of the day on out bikes but the enthusiasm did not last long when we realized the quality of the roads we would have to make it through to get to Thalang - our third nights stopover. The roads were completely uneven with huge stones embedded in the path - impossible to manoeuvre around and so over them it was. Needless to say it was a slow and bumpy ride. At the blessed stages were the road smoothed out slightly, the stones were replaced with potholes making it impossible to hit 2rd gear. The 60km stretch took us 4.5hours! Towards the end, as we approached Thalang the roads improved enough for us to appreciate the scenery - we were driving through the forest of the dead trees. Acres of bare trees that have been waterlogged from an overflow of water from the neighbouring river, Our excitement for arriving in one piece was quickly replaced by exhaustion from the draining concentration that was needed for our safe arrival. Jay and Jeff did a great job!

Our final day on the road started off a bit hairy - the road was covered in soft sand, was windy and had a sloping gradient. We had one or two close calls but we were always going at a reasonable pace to compensate for any loss in balance. We sang the Hallelujah chorus when we finally hit tarred roads again! For the first time in 1.5days we were in 3rd gear!! We got back into Tha Kaek in time for a late lunch which we had at a restaurant along the river overlooking Thailand. This was followed by seriously needed showers and rest.

The next day was spent on the road - another all day local bus heading south. We spent the night in a town called Pakse but were out of there early the next morning for our final Laos destination - a 4 day chill out on the 'beaches' of the 4000 islands. In the far south of the country the Mekong river widens out and is dotted with thousands of little islands (some only 1/2meters wide). We found a nook on the island of Don Det - one of the larger more touristy islands - and lazed around from the minute we arrived to the last moment before we left. Our days consisted of a mid-morning wake up, a filling breakfast and ice shake at a restaurant overlooking the small beach close to our guest house, then a few hours lounging on that beach with our books, sundowners and cards with J&J watching the indisputably most beautiful sunsets of the trip over the river and surrounding islands and long leisurely dinners and post drinks at our choice of restaurants and bars along the main road of the island.

We did however take one of the days to rent bicycles and venture around Don Det and the neighbouring Don Khon Island. We visited a waterfall and 2 remote beaches and had lunch at a restaurant on the river. On our last afternoon on the island and in Laos the 4 of us chartered a long boat to take us on a tour of the islands through sunset followed by a slap up fish BBQ. Unfortunately, quite often you don't get what you pay for and instead of the 1.5 hour boat ride promised to us, our driver took us 20 minutes up the river to an island with no real beach. He set up our BBQ, which consisted of 1 lonely fish for the 4 of us to share, on a patch of leaf and twig covered ground with no views of the water/sunset. We wanted to try make the most of it and so went for a walk around to see if we could find a secret beach to spend our time while the guy cooked our 'dinner'. We eventually settled for the closest thing to a beach - a sandy area which had tobacco plants growing out of it. After a few bites each of braaied fish (which by the way, had not been gutted and whose guts and innards had to be dodged to get a decent mouthful) served to us on one plate on a cooler box, we headed back to Don Det and took our disappointments to the guy we had bought the tickets from. After a few minutes of negotiation we managed to get back some of our money back which we spent on a seriously decent Indian meal in town.

Laos far exceeded any of our expectations. We got to see such varied landscapes and environments and shared it all with really special new and old friends. Next stop, Cambodia, but only after the longest journey we've had since South America....