Our Island Home

Visiting 4000 islands down in Southern Laos involved hammocks, Bungalows on the Mekong, waterfalls, hammocks, cheap food, cocktails and more hammocks. It was the perfect place to rest our sore muscles after the hike. Being the middle of the wet season, the river is FULL to the brim and the waterfalls absolutely raging. After a prolonged case of 'Cambodia Belly' I was finally able to once again enjoy the wonders of south east Asian cuisine, delicious!! Our next adventure involved catching the mother of all VIP sleeper buses. We rocked up to the bus station to find a greased lightning type scene. There were lines of suped up double-decker buses complete with strobe lights, enough LEDs to light an entire neighbourhood, shag pile rugs and gum-chewing drivers with slicked back hair and backwards facing caps. I half expected them to get in and drag race each other down a storm water drain, Danny Zuko style. The anticipation to get on the bus was immense and the drivers...

We left beautiful Pakse in the south of Laos and drove to the middle of nowhere for our next adventure! Our hike was a rainy three days. We were zip lining, abseiling, tight rope walking, walking along rope bridges, hiking and rock scrambling in the Laos rainforest. The zip lines were 450m at their longest and when you were in the middle you couldn't see anyone or either end. It was amazing and a tad scarier than first expected! At the end of our hikes each day we arrived at our camp, right next to an enormous waterfall in the middle of nowhere. We enjoyed hot coffee straight off the fire and traditional Laos food for dinner. Our group got along really well, we had an Italian couple on their honeymoon and a Swedish/Canadian couple all of whom were around our age. Just when we thought it couldn't get any better, the guides told us to put our harnesses back on at about 9pm - they were taking us to our 'rooms'. We zip lined 30m into our own private tree houses...

Phnom Penh was great fun. Brad and I watched the cats win against the hawks and had a few Angkor beers. We tested pig ear, tongue and stomach on the recommendation of a tuk tuk driver wearing a geelong cats cap. We felt much like we were partaking in a survivor food challenge minus Jeff Probst's narration (so of course I loved it). Elections are soon to be held in Cambodia and there are mobs of teenagers riding around on motorcycles holding flags, playing loud music and yelling their leader's names. Its pretty impressive, you wouldn't see that in Australia! We spent a couple of days down on the coast at Sihanoukville where there was plenty of deserted beach to play on. It was a good bit of R&R (this travel business is hard work you know...) Next Brad and I enjoyed a lovely homestay in a little town called Battambang. We visited an old French train line which the locals now run bamboo trains along to transport goods and people - it was great fun but certainly woul...

Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City (the locals call it both) was great fun. It was my favourite big city in Vietnam. Mainly because there was so much war history around and of course, more fantastic food!! Brad and I were in full tourist mode by this stage of our journey. We arrived in Saigon at 7am on the overnight train, dumped our bags at our hotel, grabbed some pho for breakfast and plodded straight off to see what we could find! We visited the war museum, art gallery, cathedral, the reunification palace and markets galore. Everything was within walking distance of our hotel. The city was bustling and the people were once again so helpful. Just out of Saigon are the Chu Chi tunnels, used by the Viet Cong in the war to hide from bomb raids. The guide told us, "these tunnels were very small back then, but now they are very big so that even big fat man can fit!" I took this to mean that they would not be too claustrophobic ... I was very, very wrong. Those Vietnamese people ...