Kayaking to Vientiane and onto the Islands down South

We woke up early and got into the back of a truck with canoes stacked up to the sky and hit the windey road, a Dutch girl who had a dogey stomach and gets car sick was in with us - another barf bag, and my tissues and wet wipe later she sheepishly with many apologies started looking helpless holding the bag and not sure what to do with it. Craig who was sitting next to her and looking rather green himself told her this is not Holland toss the bag out the truck.We arrived at our canoe stop and hit the river anticipating 2, 3 and 4 grade rapids and watched our bags disappearing over the hill on the truck destined for our end point, wondering if we would ever see them again.

Lou partnered with Bill, Nick with Craig, I definitely lucked out with Bill he and I were a team and he worked hard, Nicky on the other hand played the fool the whole trip and at one point as I canoed past he was lying back and using the paddle pretending to be doing bench press, he definitely is training to be Mr. Funny guy. We stopped before the big rapids, climbed out and walked round to check them out and then got a vague go to the middle mmmm, who bloody thought of this. Anyway Janine and Lawrence, me and Bill ended up capsizing, no one injured so all ok, they made us lunch on the side of the river little kebabs, with baguettes, the last part of the journey got a bit long in the tooth and I think we all lost our sense of humor, anyway at least the car to Vientiane was air-conditioned and a mini bus.

We got dropped off and walked towards town and the river all a bit frayed at the edges and there like a mirage in the desert was a shiny new hotel, I was saying in my mind – that’s for me and then Janine god bless her soul said it, we walked in did the deal and had shiny new bathrooms and rooms, what a pleasure. Hit a local expat French restaurant and tucked into steaks and red wine for a change and languished in our aircon rooms seeing what had happened in the outside world in the last few weeks, elections SA! Viva Zuma!

The next day awoke to no electricity, no aircon, no money and temperatures soaring. Realized my mobile had been switched of and packed in the bottom of my bag for two weeks, not missing it at all!

We have been in Laos about 2 weeks now, for a communist country it has been remarkably free and easy but time to move on. Bus to border, border crossing, overnight train to Bangkok, and flight to the South and the islands. All accomplished in 24 hours, its amazing how organized travel is in this part of the world. Small operators, very entrepreneurial and cheap, SA could pick up some good tips here.

Decided on new financial plan for the boys - pocket money 250 bahts each every three days. Arrived at Bangkok airport and both boys blew their new found wealth in one go on Sushi. Took Nicky a 10 baht bet to eat a big blob of Wasabi, should have seen his face on his first Wasabi rush priceless!