An awesome trip... but some frustration...

Sorry it's been a long time we haven't written anything on the blog. It's been a bit difficult to find a fast and reliable internet connection in southern laos.

We are now back to Bangkok, familiar city by now... and it feels good! Nice to have food at the clean and excellent Ricky's Coffee Shop and to find our little New Siam II guesthouse.

Southern Laos was great. We left Siam Reap in Cambodia on Saturday and landed in Pakse. From there we took a songthaew to the island of Don Khong. This part of the trip was probably as close a backpacker experience it would get (at least I hope!)... and for that I almost killed Nick!! Let's just say that in order to save a few bucks Nick thought that it'd be cool to travel with the locals. I was opened to it. When we arrived at the local "bus station" in Pakse (you'll understand the "..." when you will see the photos), we were told to jump in a songthaew for the 4 hours trip. Already 8 people were in it, and we hesitated, thinking that it was already full, but they convinced us that there were enough space available for two more people. We were far from guessing that 20 more people would join in!!! To summarize the experience, we spent 4 hours stuck on a songthaew betweem 28 other people, smelly rotten meat, rice bags, and some other stuff I prefer not to think about (snakes?!)... We were so stucked that people were almost sitting on top of each others, and some had to spend the four hours hanging to the top of the vehicle... The smell was... ughhhh... (I wish I hadn't develop my smelling capabilities by taking evaluation classes at IFF...)

However, even with that, the trip was worth it! (hard to believe, but it is true). Don Khong and the 4000 Islands region in Laos are really amazing. We took a boat down the Mekong to the other islands, saw some great waterfalls, rode bikes around the island, along rice fields, and trying to circle between the goats, chicken and buffalo sharing the road with us. People there really live like 100 years ago --although as Nick would say, some have satellite tv -- living pretty much in autarky, cultivating rice, bathing in the river...

We made our way back to the Thai border yesterday by car and were supposed to fly back last night from Ubon Ratchathani to Bangkok, but encountered again some pretty annoying airlines disagreement (you really need to be VERY patient here to handle customer service people... and let's just say that this is not one of my forte). All in all, we probably lost 8 hours dealing with tickets and airlines issues (and this may not be over yet).

We are not sure yet how long we are going to stay in Bangkok. Ideally, we'd like to leave tomorrow, but booking last minute tickets does not seem to be part of the culture here (can you feel some frustration?). We are thinking of heading to Malaysia but aren't sure yet... La suite bientot...