Champasak (1-2 March)
After my initial visit to Vientiane, I caught an overnight bus to Pakse; sitting only (not one of those deluxe sleeper buses), but surprisingly comfortable, and I arrive in Pakse pretty refreshed. After some attempted extortion at the boat landing, I teamed up with a French couple (well, separatists from Brittany, actually) on a tuk-tuk to Champasak instead. The journey included a great little river crossing on a pontoon ferry (that I thought was the jetty, until it started moving!) loaded with vehicles. Unfortunately, I managed to lose my photos from this... :(

Champasak is a sleepy, sprawling little village; probably a good place to recharge for a few days after a long journey, but (once again) my visa was about to expire and it's still a fair way to the Cambodian border, so this would be an overnight visit only... After a morning/early afternoon nap, I hired a shitty bike (to be fair, all the hire bikes are fixed-gear pieces of crap in SE Asia!) and made the surprisingly long trip out to the UNESCO-listed Wat Phou ruins. If I wasn't in such a rush to avoid closing time at the ruins, I would have enjoyed the journey through the villages, with the local kids waving and shouting in their best english at the bald foreigner. This is probably one of the best tourist destinations in Laos to see villages which aren't significantly impacted by tourism (if you can appreciate the contradiction) – at least, the villages along the road outside of Champasak gave me the strongest feeling of authentic Lao life out of the places I visited in the country. I'm sure that Laos experts can provide better suggestions for an authentic Lao experience, but I'd say this is a good “easy option” for people heading in that direction anyway...

I arrived at the ruins, knackered from my speed-cycling, to be confronted by three flights of steep ancient stone steps – doh! But it's a serene place, with not many visitors at this time of day (around 5pm) – aside from some locals who still use it as a place of worship – and you can understand why they built a major temple there, given the amazing views. I met a group of Aussie girls at the summit, including one fellow West Aussie. Now, I normally avoid groups of Aussies when overseas, since (like Americans, and probably many other nationalities) they can get especially patriotic and annoying when they congregate together somewhere else around the world – a cringeworthy example of which was the dozens of Australians with their “Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oy oy oy” chant while floating serenely down the river in Vang Vieng... And I've never really understood people from a country meeting up and travelling the world with other people from the same country – I mean, isn't one of the joys of travelling meeting different people and leaving your cultural comfort zone? But it is nice to chat with your fellow countrymen (and women) every once in a while, and share stories and opinions. Unfortunately I didn't get much of a chance to chat, before they were ushered away by their guide into a waiting mini-van. Despite their best attempts, and my attempted bribery, they weren't able to pursuade their guide to let me load my bike on, so I was left to cycle back to my hostel, which was once again performed at speed since the sun was setting and my bike lacked any form of lighting...

The next morning I joined a half-dozen other travellers, a motorbike, a few rooms worth of household furniture, and a local (who's tuneless whistling got on everyone's nerves after about 5 minutes) for an annoying 2 hour tuk-tuk trip south towards Si Phan Don.

Si Phan Don (2-5 March)
The 4000 Islands (Si Phan Don) are a sort of inland river delta, caused by the natural damming of the river at Khone Falls (the largest waterfalls by volume in Asia). On the advice of Gareth, I visited the island of Don Det, where I also hoped to meet up with Adam and a couple of the other guys from the Gibbon Experience and Luang Prabang – although there are other islands that also attract tourists with varying levels of amenities.

Accommodation on Don Det is mostly in stilted wooden huts on the side of the river (probably over the river at high water in the rainy season?) with river-facing balconies/verandahs. With no electricity (other than an electric light on the balcony that operates for a few hours after sunset), my first thought was “what the hell am I going to do here to while away the days till I cross into Cambodia?”. On first impression, this place is nothing but a stiflingly hot and humid hippy haunt (alliteration – and I wasn't even trying!), with nothing to do other than smoke joints (openly listed, in large or small sizes, on some cafe menus) and lounge about in the water trying to beat the heat (unfortunately, the river is pretty warm, so you're usually still sweating even in the water!). But after a while the slow pace and abundant opportunity to contemplate life, etc, kind of grows on you. Incidentally, if you do decide to indulge in the green stuff, beware that it is of course illegal, and the local police do pull some stealthy raids – helped by the lack of electricity, which makes them difficult to see when they're staking out a place... I was in a bar, playing the longest game of pool in my life with a manic Englishman (who stopped during every shot to sing whatever was being played – but never with the correct lyrics) and a cute Swedish girl who's glasses he'd cracked (can't remember how), while the staff were betting on cards in the corner. From out in the fields, two cops emerged, promptly confiscating all of the money on the table (gambling is illegal as well), and purposefully walked on towards one of the dodgier, joint-offering bars further up the way. Not sure whether they caught any foreigners in their bust, since all the locals were running in different directions, and we thought it best to follow suit...

On my second day I decided to hire a bike and ride over the bridge connecting Don Det to Don Khon to a spot where you could view the elusive Irrawaddy dolphins from. What a self-inflicted nightmare this turned out to be. My advice: do what everybody else did, and abandon your bike as soon as the path gets rocky (probably better not to hire a bike at all, since the bike-friendly portion of the journey doesn't extend far beyond the last huts on Don Det). Do not do what I did and stubbornly continue riding the whole way – not unless you enjoy blisters and the chafing of sensitive areas and the constant risk of injury! On top of this, I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere, because I ended up at the top of some concrete structure a long way above the waterline; no way of spotting a dolphin from here even if they did make an appearance. Aside from masochistic cycling, you can tube or kayak around the island, and there are a few different fishing and sightseeing boat trips. Along with just relaxing on your balcony or in the river, or else in the cafes and bars around the island, there's enough to occupy a relaxing few days – maybe even a week – on the island. I was a bit bewildered to meet a guy who'd been living on the island for 6 months, though, and another who'd been there for 3 months and claimed to be working on his thesis...

With my visa set to expire, and some hard negotiation to exchange my Japanese yen into US dollars (the currency standard for Cambodia) completed, I boarded the boat on Monday morning back to the Laos mainland, from where a heap of foreigners were bussed to the Cambodian border.

Farewell, Laos; I can see myself continuing to come back to this great country.