4000 Islands

We have had 4 hard days of travel but finally made it to Si Phan Don, otherwise known as 4000 islands, (though I think 2000 of them are under water at present.) Lao transport works as long as you are in no hurry to be anywhere. The timetable is flexible, the arrival times vary considerably, you may be on a bus, a tuk-tuk or as in the photo where we r changing from the tuk-tuk, a sorngtaaou, that's a truck with hard seats in the back, we did about 150 km in those one day, 3 different ones that link smaller routes. In one it was bucketing down with rain, we were soaked. From Vientiane we went to the kong lo cave, just amazing. Photo of small entrance way across the river. Once inside in a small motorised long boat it goes for 7.5km. Enormous inside and awesome stalactites and stalacmites, some photos included but was quite dark inside so may not be the best. It goes right through to another village. They bring coffee through the cave on boats in the season. The water was really high, much higher and we would not have been able to go through. A bit scary hooning through a cave in the dark with one guy at the front shining a torch and driver at the back. Our young driver made a couple of mistakes which kept me on high alert hoping I wasn't going to be floating down a fast flowing river in the dark! The places on the way down here were very uninspiring and not very nice places to stay so we kept traveling each day. All the seats were full in one bus and sacks of rice all down the aisle, then they put small stools on top of the sacks and people sat on them. Hot and tiring and you can't get out, food is sold through the windows. Crickets, chicken, rice, eggs... But now we are relaxing for 4-5 days, reading books and laying in a hammock, time out. These islands are between Laos & Cambodia on the Mekong. Boats cannot come up river to here because there are 5 wide waterfalls blocking the way. We are on the island of Don Khon in a lovely bungalow on the water edge. We cycled round and checked out 2 waterfalls, other parts of the island are very primitive. Very cheap in Laos, we can get our washing done for 10000 kip ( $1.50) One day I withdrew 3 million kip from the ATM about $450, takes ages to get through that. Cambodia next, when we can face another bus...