Well, we are currently waiting for 6 hours for a connecting bus to Vientiane, so this gives me the perfect opportunity to update the blog.

The usual author is taking a break so you are stuck with me for this and possibly the next few entries.

After leaving Phnom Phen for the 2nd time we embarked on our long journey up to the Laos border which involved an overnight stop in Stung Treng. We organized our onward transport and promptly left the next morning via Bike-Boat-Car-Bus-Boat to Don Det (4000 Islands) in Laos. The immigration officials at either side of the border asked for a token USD1 for our passports to be stamped, after a slight argument we reluctantly paid and were on our way.

We arrived in Don Det at around 14:00 and found a room for USD2 per night, which included use of a shared bathroom (back to squat toilets again!!! L) a rat and a whole host of flying insects. But for the price we couldn't really complain.

4000 islands is possibly the most beautiful place we have seen, it's a 14km wide stretch of the Mekong that cuts its path through the land to form thousands of small islands, river pathways lined with huge trees and a couple of the largest waterfalls we have ever seen.

The second day of our stay we decided to join a Kayak tour, this turned out to be extremely hard work. The first part was all downstream and apart from the fact that the Kayak wanted to turn left all the time it was quite relaxing. We then stopped at the first waterfall and started Kayaking on the other side, again downstream, if a little quicker this time, and still the Kayak wanted to turn left. We then stopped again to spot the rare Irrawaddy Dolphins while eating lunch, we were lucky and saw a few although I wasn't quick enough with the camera. After lunch we paddled upstream for about 2 hours and were completely knackered.

Yesterday we did nothing as we both ached all over, rather lazy, but hey!