Laos

After that motorbike tour we arrived at the "4000 Islands of Laos". That are a lot of Islands inside the Mekong River. Its famous for tourits and quite beautiful. We used that time to relax in our hammocks directly in front of the Mekong River, had good food and explored the Islands by bicycle. After that we went by nightbus to Bangkok and flew to the Philippines....Yeahhhh!!!!Ah and that huge waterfull was amazing.

The next days we went by bus (30hours) from the north to Tha Khaek, a small village close to the huge Kong Lo Cave. Our plan was to rent a motorbike over a few days and go slowly through small villages, mountains and dirt roads to the famous Cave. So we started the trip 4 days ago with a big group (Me, Melanie, Maxi, Scotty the australian, Giulliaum the french and Johnny and his girlfriend from Vietnam). It was the first time for me driving a motorbike, but it was a lot of fun, but quite hard to hold on the bad dirt roads. We slept in small homestays, had good barbecue, swam in natural water pools, had perfect weather and lots of fun. We really enjoyed our trip, although when we had twice a flat tire and missed couple of times the right way=). Anyway the cave was huge and creapy, but the bath in the lake before was much better. We saw already to much caves...

Today our group will split up, all in different directions. We will travell to the 4000 islands. Its close to the border to Cambodia and our last destination in laos. After that we will fly to the Philippines......yeah!!!!we need to rest a bit on the beach and need more sun....time to go to the Philippines.

What did we do during the last days?! First we spent a couple of days in Luang Prabang to wait for my friend Maxi (i met him in Australia to travel from Darwin to Melbourne). Its a beautiful old city with perfect food and nice hotels. Thats why we had a good massage, tatsy wine and finally enjoyed to stay a bit longer than normal to wait for him. When he came we  took a boot at the next morning. We drove on the Mekong River for two whole days included a overnight stop in a small village. Its was beautiful. Finally we arrived all togehter in Houy Xai. From here you can start the Gibbon Experience. Thats a dschungel trip where you can hike, zipline and sleep in a treehouse deep in the dschungel. That was an amazing experience although if it was quite expansive with 310 Dollars. But you only live once!!! So we did it and we could listen to the gibbons when they start to sing early in the morning (beautiful) and to sleep in a real tree house, unbelivable. Now we are in the north of Laos in Luang Nam Tha, where you can hike into the Nam Ha National Protected Area, but i will let the other go and take these days off for myself. At the moment i enjoy a great coup of tea in a nice restaurant....=)

The next days we plan to travel down to the middle of Laos to start a motorbike tour, so that we can explore one of the biggest caves in South-East-Asia and to see a bit more of the small villages of Laos. And that all togehter in a group of Melanie, Maxi and Me....

First days in Laos after Burma. Hmmm. Thats quite different. In Laos are a lot of tourists. Young tourists which are only in Laos for fun and get drunk and not for Laos by itself. In Burma you could me really interessting travelers. I guess we have to get used to it -to travel in Asia is pretty popular these days....

The first days we spent in Vientiane, thats the capital of Laos. We enjoyed the western food and managed some stuff to keep on travelling. Now we are in Vang Vieng. We spent a day of kayaking. Thats was actually really nice, but although in Vang Vieng are a lot of tourits-even more then before in Vinetiane. Tomorrow we will go to Luang Prabang. We will see if we start to appriciate Laos a bit more----its so difficult after Burma.