Laos to Cambodia

Good morning everyone!!

Things have been hectic since my last e-mail!! Sam,
the guy from Laos, was sweet and stuck around as I had
a bit of a fit about how I was going to accomplish
everything I wanted in the little time I had left!!

After coming up with something of a plan, it was
almost noon so we went tubing as it was too hot to do
anything else!! It was really a float/drink down the
river with occasional zip-ropes to go flying into the
water. We had a lot of fun, hooked up with a pile of
other travelers and drank too much!! (Lao Lao, the
local moonshine, is beyond too strong but everywhere
we went they were giving it away for free with a
beer). A beer (the size of two in Canada) is about
$1CDN so Sam and I would split them to avoid getting
too buzzed.

Sam left the following day to the village and I went
cave splunking. We did three real caves and one
cavern which, if you possess a lot of imagination, is
shaped like an elephant :) The going was slippery and
wet and sometimes quite tight but it was nice to spend
the day out of the sun. Word to the wise, once you've
seen one cave, they all look the same :) The fourth
and final cave was a water cave so we got tubes out
and floated/paddled about 5km into the cave. It was
cool and the water was very refreshing!!

I traveled to the village to meet Sam's family and
stay in a small, quaint little town. There were about
150 people in the village and everyone was more than
curious about me. Some of the stares were hysterical
when we drove around the rice fields on the
motorbike!! (I have to say, my first time on a
motorbike was with 16kg of luggage, not ideal but Sam
didn't go too fast!!). We couldn't go anywhere in
town without someone wanting us to sit and chat or
"rest"!! They had a traditional going away
celebration for him on the 25th and they wanted me to
stay but it didn't work into the new plans!! When I
left, his grandmother gave me a bracelet for good luck
and safe travels and said that I was always welcome
back. It was sad to leave them as they were all so
nice!! Funny, no one spoke a word of English, yet we
still communicated well together ;) I then headed to
Vientiane with Sam and his cousins. We checked out
the capital - they have something that looks like the
Arc de Triomphe and hung out. We then had dinner on
the river and went to a discotheque!! An interesting
experience :)

I caught a night train from northern Thailand to
Bangkok. It's ironic but I wouldn't pay a travel
agent/hotel person to book the train ticket for me
because they wanted twice the price of the actual
ticket (it included border crossing). I did it on my
own last night, got to the station and all they had
left were 3rd class seats which means no reclining, no
sleeper, no sleep!! I was kicking myself for most of
the night but it was an experience and definitely
better than the train from Chile to Bolivia, at least
this one travelled better and they were kind of
padded!!

I'm now in Siem Reap, Cambodia (caught a flight over
today). I'll be spending three days checking out the
Angkor Wat and the surrounding ruins before heading
down to the beach.

Hope everyone's well back home!
Miss you all!!

Sarah

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