lao 3

savannakhet was my first time in southern lao...it's one of quite a few border crossings with thailand, though i don't think foreigners are allowed to use this crossing...savannakhet is on the mekong river, it was an important center of commerce when the french still ruled the country...now, it's really quiet...REALLY QUIET...the whole time we were there i felt like it was sunday afternoon...the streets were quiet, there didn't seem to be many people, anywhere...
there wasn't much to see or do in savannakhet, save for walking around and enjoying the old colonial buildings...there is plenty more outside the city, in the province, but we didn't have time to explore, which is too bad...it's one of the provinces that has quite a bit of UXO, which is kinda scary...layna found a couple places that served up great BIG bowls of soup, she's been on a bit of a soup kick...the most exciting thing to happen happened in our hotel room...while layna was shaving, the sink dropped, and broke...for absolutely no reason...she had filled it partway with water in order to shave, but wasn't touching it at all when it dropped and broke...one of the pieces cut her toe quite badly when it fell, there was blood everywhere...it was loud, and i immediately asked what had happened...about 10 seconds after i asked, there was a knock on our door...turns out the owner of the hotel heard it as well, and knew it couldn't be a good sound...he insisted layna split the cost of a new sink with him, even though she hadn't done anything wrong...while they were out shopping for the sink, he took her to the doctor as well...it's a big cut though, and will probably scar...(to go along with her scars from the nasty mosquito bites in goa)...on their way back to the hotel after shopping and the doctor, the moto got a flat tire...layna told me later she wished she had had her camera then, as it would've been a fantastic shot...her, sitting on the back of the moto, holding a sink, while the guy worked on the tire...opportunities lost, oh well...
from savannakhet we went to pakse, which is basically a transportation hub...there isn't much here, save for a few wats...we stayed one night, in order to catch further transportation the next day...
our last stop in lao was the 4000 islands, or in lao, si phan don...the actual number of islands varies by the season (whether its wet or dry) and we wondered what constitutes an island...anywho, we stayed on the biggest of the islands, don khong...just because it's the biggest doesn't mean it's very cosmopolitan...all habitation was village style, there weren't any big areas of people or housing on don khong...we loved our guesthouse though...the room was HUGE, we both had HUGE beds, and the guesthouse had a giant wraparound porch...on the porch was my new favorite chair...too bad i couldn't take it home with me...the day after arriving, we took a boat trip to a couple other nearby islands...don det, and don khon...there is a waterfall on don khon, and you can walk there from don det...howeva, the walk is across open fields, which were HOT HOT HOT...but, we like walking, so we did it...we ended up walking for a while with a couple from austin, TX, so layna had plenty to talk about, just in terms of TX...the waterfall ended up not being very impressive...you couldn't see where the major fall was...given that the river was quite spread out, i climbed upriver a ways, out into the middle, and got to see a bit more of the falls...fun, but not easy...surprisingly, i didn't fall off anything while climbing around!!! after walking back to the boat, we swam around in the mekong for a little while...it wasn't quite refreshing, but it felt pretty good nonetheless!!
the next morning, we crossed the border into cambodia...crossing the border was an adventure, of course...first they have to stamp you out on the lao side...the fun part is when they won't give you back your passport until you pay them a dollar...all sorts of people show up at the border with no extra money, but they still wouldn't give back passports...it's clearly very shady, but seeing as they have actual possession of your passport at that point, you don't have much of a choice...then we walked down the road a bit, and filled out a form for our cambodian...conveniently, the handwritten sign said that cambodian visas cost $21, even though the visa itself says $20...again, you don't have much of a choice if you want to get in the country...they have no problem letting you just sit there and go nowhere...argh...