Sold Out CAKE!

So that was a sign in a restaurant in Cambodia and for some reason it struck me as very funny. Especially because cake wasn't even on the menu....

OK, since my last post I basically had a whirlwind through Southern Laos. I spent one day in Vang Vieng and really was not impressed. It is kind of like Spring Break meets Laos. The scenery is gorgeous, but the town is overflowing with drunk Westerners. There are restaurants that play Friends all day long. Episode after episode. Same is true for the Simpsons. I did the tubing thing which was fun but after the one day, I was totally ready to leave. Instead of taking the minivan to Vietnienne, I opted for the back of a local pickup truck. And this is something I love about Laos. If you want to get away from all of the other tourists, just travel like a local. Every time I was the only Westerner and all the locals smile and try to talk to me as well as they can (most don't speak English). It is really fun!

I didn't really do a whole lot in Vientiene. I wandered around and checked out the riverside restaurants and the night market and went to the National Museum which was part historical and part propaganda (did I mention that Laos is a communist country?? foreigners have a curfew and are forbidden from dating locals). The main thing I did was to get my visa for Cambodia (although it turns out I could have gotten it at the border). After two days in the capital, I headed down to Pakse with a quick overnight stop in Savannaket. I quite liked Pakse. Its small and cute and on the intersection of two rivers. I took a day trip to the Bolaven Plateau which has loads of waterfalls and coffee and tea plantations. We also stopped at a few villages. One of them was interesting in that the villagers make their own coffins when they hit adulthood so they know they have something to be buried in.

From Pakse I went to 4000 islands- again in the back of a pickup with the locals. Since I didn't take the tourist bus, I got to share a boat with a group of Lao people having a Sunday picnic. They chatted to me for a bit and gave me a beer. I found a bungalow on the river with a hammock and set up camp on the island of Don Det for a few days. My guesthouse was run by a sweet old woman named Mama who spoke of herself in the third person ("Mama is going to cook fresh fish tonight", "Mama gives you change tomorrow") I ran into an Irish guy, Collum, I'd met in Khao Sok in Thailand. He told me about a festival that was going on at the wat on the island that night. So I met up with his group there. The festival was great. I won 2000 kip (40 cents) playing a game where you pick a number and then get two darts and have to make your numbers add up to the one you picked. We met some locals and hung out by the dance floor for most of the night. I was tired from traveling so I went home by midnight, but I could hear the party going at 4 AM. The next day I rented a bicycle and rode over the bumpy island tracks (on a one speed cruiser with bell and basket but no shocks) to the neighboring island of Don Khon. There is a nice waterfall there. I also swam in the Mekong and did some reading in the hammock. It was a very relaxed atmosphere. My last night on the island I met a British couple who had been there for two months. They invited me to a wedding at their guesthouse that night. The son of the couple who run the guesthouse married a girl from another island. Of course I had to go. It was so much fun! There were very few foriegners and the locals treated me like one of the family (I met 5 women named Mama....). We drank and danced and ate and it was quite the celebration. The party continued for 3 days, but I left the following morning (and getting up for my boat was not fun!).

After a long day (11 hours) of travel yesterday- including a bit of sketchiness by the transport operator (who completely overcharged us all) I am now in Ban Lung in Cambodia. Cambodia is country number 7. Oh and I am four months in- crazy! Since it is the dry season, it is very dusty here in NE Cambodia (most roads are unpaved). My legs and feet look like I spent too long in the tanning beds from walking to local villages this morning. And my guest house here is brand new and has incredibly comfortable beds! I am going to try and slow down a bit from here on out. I was pretty exhausted from rushing through Southern Laos and I'd like to spend more time in fewer places. But then again, I do get antsy easily....

All for now! No pics cause Internet is slow here.