Update From Laos 9/28/09

Hello to all,

I apologize for not updating my blog in a while, are you still out there? Anyway, we are in Laos right now. We left Bangkok on 9/20/09 for a visa run. We took a night bus and ended up in Pakse, Laos (southern) the next day. I feel rich because $1 will buy 8,400 Kip (Laos Currency). We stayed the first night in the Sabaidy 2 Guesthouse, it was decent except for the hammering and construction right under us at 8:00 in the morning, we also found out that we were being a little overcharged for what it was. The next night we stayed in the Royal Pakse Hotel, which was decent, we paid about $4 a night each (they gave us a good deal). We had A/C and our own bathroom with a hot shower, that was nice since it is a little cooler here in Laos. We stayed there for 3 nights.

The second day we took a trip to see some waterfalls, a tea and coffee plantation and an ethnic village, it was pretty fun except...Jonathan got some rash from climbing around in the jungle...we all wanted to see the waterfalls better, and I think we all got a little bit of the rash, but Jonathan got it bad, haha. At the next village the driver got some lime and powder so we put it on him...he is doing much better now.

We then took a 2 day trip to Champasak, the home of Wat (Temple) Phu. We stayed at a pretty nice guest house on the river for about $3/night each. We had to cross the Mekong river to get there and the boat was a little scary, I wasn't sure if we would make it all the way across the river. Champasak was very nice and relaxing, very quiet compared to Pakse and especially compared to Bangkok. Wat Phu is a pretty cool temple complex, we spent about 2 hours there. When we left, we took a ferry boat that carried vans and cars...I thought that might sink as well...but it held up pretty well, haha. I have lots of pictures, I will post some when I get back to Bangkok, we left our computers there.

We are now back in Pakse and are staying in a different place, Sedon River Guesthouse. It is a pretty good price and includes a hot shower and A/C.

Oh, and I almost forgot to say that on our way to Champasak, we paid (1/2 the trip cost) a guy to set us up to go. About 2 kilometers into the trip the driver stops because he is supposed to pick up other people and take them farther...long story short, we ended up getting out and taking a different van, much nicer for less. Now we need to find the guy we paid to get our Kip back!

Hope you all enjoy reading the update, I will post pictures when I return to Bangkok.