Laos - Pakxe, Champasak & Si Phan Dom Islands (8 - 15 April)

Arrived in Pakxe after a great squished local bus journey, enlivened by a gecko running all around the bus and a great thunderstorm. Got a ride to the town centre on a jumbo (a pickup with a motorbike front) dangerously overloaded and with me and a few other men clinging to the back in the rainstorm. Pakxe was cool, despite there being no real sights (unless you count the collapsed tourism office) just lots of rain and decent curry.

Champasak: bailed out on our first guest house after 2 hours cos there was too many geckos, spiders, beetles and cockroaches in the room. Rancid. Saw some great old ruins the next day and chilled out by the beautiful river.

The Islands: Don Khong: cycled and motorbiked around the place and got pretty well toasted in the sun. Caz had a go on a motorbike and didn't cry and managed to achieve a stately 20mph on the deserted roads!

Don Khon & Don Det: stayed in a riverside shack for a few days. Despite having no electricity (except for a strip light in the bathroom which you turned on by wiring it up to a car battery) it did, crucially, have hammocks and was a seriously great place to chill out. It was Caz's birthday while we were here, so on her birthday we took a boat trip to (only just) see some rare dolphins which live in the Mekong river, saw a good waterfall and did some more random cycling round the islands. For my birthday we had dinner with 2 New Zealanders, an Australian turned Cambodian and another guy who happened to be sitting alone at a table that we wanted to join to ours so the poor guy had no choice. My birthday wish was for it to rain as it had been ridiculously hot, and the dream came true at 11.40pm when there was an awesome thunderstorm one night, as if the sky was lit up by a strobe light for a few hours with a heavy thunderstorm to accompany it!