Champasak, 4000 islands, and into Cambodia

Hello! The last 4 days have been pretty interesting and very nice. After the last post, we continued riding another 20 miles to Champasak, another Mekong river town. The last 25 km down a dirt road along the Mekong through rice fields at sunse was stunnig. Here we stayed over a day to see the Wat Phu Champasak, and old Hindu temple built near the river. The temple complex was built to impress someone approaching from the river- as you come from river side, the pillars, temples, and stone carvings become more and more impressive, culminating in the main temple which is situated part way up the mountain, so the king would have had a pretty sweet view. That day was the first of several days festival that marked the begining of the new year, and the sart of a period (kinda like Lent) where some Buddhist folks give up alcohol and killing animals for a period of 3 months. So everybody was out to have a good time, with a lot of folks coming to this important temple from all over Lao, Cambodia and Thailand.

The next day, we rode about 85 miles south to an area called 4000 Islands. We stayed at a particular island called Don Det--very pretty spot in the middle of the Mekong, and also very much a backpacker hangout. We arived in time to watch a spectactular sunset/lightning storm over the Mekong from the hammocks on our bungalow's porch. Nice. The next day we bycicled around the island, saw a really spectacular waterfall (the Whole Mekong drops over a big series of Falls/rapids), and then got some old dude and his son to take us fishing in the afternoon. We didnt exactly rope (I had one fish on the whole time), but we still had a sweet riverside BBQ--Catfish, rice, vegies, and Lao Lao--with our guide, who tuned out to be a pretty interesting and funny old dude. It was a good typical Lao meal--eaten sitting on the ground around a comunal bowl of food and bottle of whisky--and a good way to leave this wonderful country.

The next day we headed south again, towards the Cambodian border. We met up with a dude (Abrahim) from Turkey who was also biking south that day. We rode with him about 50 miles through the border and to Sung Treng, and it makes a big diference to have three folks pulling instead of two. First impressions of Cambodia: some dude at the border tried to tell us that we couldnt ride our bikes through the border and had to get a bus istead. We pretty much just laughed at him, but it was a reality check because I dont feel like anybody tried to scam us even once in our three weeks in Lao. But border crossings and border towns are just like that, though. Sung Treng was nothing special, and we decided to bus the (reportedly) hot flat and boring 90 miles to Kratie. Feels like kinda a cop-out, but its nice to have a good rest day, and Kratie is actually pretty cool--big crazy market, nice riverfront, etc. Seems more laid-back than Sung Treng, and if there's one thing I like, its being laid-back. Reportedly, you can see the endangered Irrawaday river dolphins here, so we might try to hire a boat for a couple hours this evening. And its always cool just to get out on the HUGE river.

Alright, Im off to forage for some lunch. Apparently, they have eally good curry here. Tommorow, were headed off on a long ride to Campong Cham--on a little road that runs right along the Mekong. Not sure about the quality of the road, but were going to see about 100 km of it. Should get us off the main line and into some smaller towns, which yall know is more to my taste than big cities.

Alright, thanks for tuning in. Miss yall, we'll post as soon as we can.