Another splendid, lazy day in the middle of the Mekong. I was just telling my better half how much I'm enjoying these islands. Well if you don't count the 'return of the creature' on the first night or last night when we were nearly eaten by massive mutated roaches ... Ok there's also the routine scam artists to forget and the 'toll' we had to pay just go underneath a crappy bridge. But beside all that, this place is pretty nice.
Spent the morning doing some travel planning and hanging out. Of course we were completely saturated in sweat by 11 AM. Oh I forgot to mention that we changed rooms first thing this Am. Luckily the first place we stayed at had a room available for 150,000 kip so we jumped on it. The owner of the roach zoo we stayed at last night wasn't too happy to give us our money back but finally relented after we kept pressing him. His apparent astonishment regarding the mutant roaches leads me to believe it ain't a big deal for them. Actually that shouldn't be surprising since we've seen deep dried roach served in numerous street stalls. Hold on while I vomit.
Ok so we got a room at pan's (first place we stayed at) and hung out for a bit. Around 2:30 we decided to rent bikes again and go check out Don Det which is connected to our island by the bridge we had to pay to go under. After yesterday's issues with the bikes we went to another place that seemed to have better looking ones. 10,000 kip per bike and we were off. We were hesitant about the bridge in case toll-booth-Willy tried to extort us again so we peddled like we owned the island. We passed the toll booth without so much as a 'Sa-ba-dee' (hello in Lao). Success!!!!
Peddling around Don Det it was quickly apparent that it was the 'backpacker' island. I guess you could say Don Khon (our island) is the laid back, more Lao-like island while Don Det has been taken over by the backpacker scene. It wasn't bad, just different. Heaps more people and stores and tour agencies. We had some ice-cream (a luxury not seen on Don Khon) and took a dip in the river at a decent beach / ferry port.
Like I said above, lazy day. Nothing spectacular on our last day in Laos. Did I mention that part? We bought our bus ticket south into Cambodia tomorrow. Shouldn't be any trouble at all. Visa will probably cost us around $22 per person depending on how much 'tax' they charge us. Then we'll be on our way to Kratie for a day'ish before continuing on to Siem Reap.
Most importantly, a couple big birthdays this week:
- Grandpa
- Jane
- Carolyn's mom
Happy birthday!!!! We love and miss you all!!!!
Pics:
1) Mekong beach
2) random monkey we saw today
3) The Blues
4) Mrs Blue on the bridge just before sunset
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