LaoLao

Sorry for the delay! Laos has been the worst with internet, everywhere we go is either so slow and not worth the money. So the update from since Luang Prabang...wow we are pretty far from there now. From Luang Prabang we bussed down to VangVieng with our canadian buds where we met Amber and Hannah. Randomly we ended up getting a room directly beside theirs (we knew what hotel they were though). VangVieng was hilarious basically all u do there is go tubing and then lounge at these "Friends Bars" where all the restaurants play episodes of either Freinds or Family Guy literally all day long. Its a trap for all the hungover people who go tubing the day before. The day after we arrived we went tubing, there was 6 of us (all canadians) so we bought red and white heart shaped sunglasses and then each person bought 'sanpans'(those asian rice hats). we made quite the impression. Tubing basically involves renting a tube and then geting a tuktuk to the top of the river where u start at the first bar (the river is lined with bars) and then you tube to the next. It was incredibly fun! Amber and Hannah left the day after the tubing and we stayed, we planned on doing one more day of tubing before heading to Vientiane but we woke up to the weather being really crappy and pouring rain so we decided to leave vangvieng. In Vientiane we only stayed one night, the 4 of us went to a french restaurant for dinner which was sooooo good and we had amazing steaks (we went all out and got wine and salads etc and our total bill was still only 50$ between 4. it was awesome. Vientiane wasnt that exciting though, the weather was still crappy (probably about 15 degrees and pouring rain). After our dinner we went bowling and without knowing it we ran into amber and hannah again! Bowled with them for a while then parted ways. They left for Hanoi the next day. From Vientiane we decided to reroute and instead of heading to Vietnam we decided to see Southern laos and what they call the 4000 islands. its a long route so we broke it up and stopped at a cave called Kong Lo and it is 7.5 km long, it was wild. we took little boats through it. We stayed one night at a guesthouse, saw the cave, then left that night for Pakse(after a 12 hr bus ride that was supposed to be 6 hrs). UGH and it was freeeeeezing while we did this. This cold front hit that area of laos i guess and we literally had to wear pants and layers and layers of tops because it was probably 5 degrees (not joking) and sooooo windy. During the night maddy and I shared one of our single beds and put 2 comforters on it. Lasted about 2 days. anyways, We arrived in Pakse after at 4am and had to find a guesthouse, which was annoying but not too bad, just super tired. The next day we took a bus to Don Khong (the biggest of the 4000 islands) which is where we are now. Its really nice and were really glad we came this route because now we arent far from Cambodia, and its super relaxing so we are just gonna chill here for a few days before crossing the border. THe islands are super quiet and its funny cause they are called the 4000 islands but we think that they count these 5 foot chunks of land emerging from the water, in that 4000, so its not like all these massive islands everywhere....just a lot of little guys! today we rented bikes and we just biked around trying to find beaches but they dont really have them on this island, its the most "authentic lao" of them all. We have hardly seen any tourists. TOmorrow we are going to DonDet which is one of the smaller islands and apparently a bit more touristy (supposed to have a beach or 2), but well see...we thought this one had beaches but it definitely doesnt!
we are having an amazing time though, Laos has been sooo awesome, hence our extending our stay here a bit and traveling more of it. were excited to hit cambodia too though!
hope all is well back home!!
xoxo
Nomads