Sorry for the delay in update everyone, we wrote almost a whole blog post (twice!) a couple of weeks ago and then the power cut out and we lost it all, fun times!...So after spending a few days in the capital of Vientiane waiting for our visa extensions and lapping up the cafe culture, we took our adventure into Southern Laos.

Our first stop was the spooky but amazing Kong Lor cave. I had just about enough of caves by this point, theyre not my favourite thing (rachel) but this was something different. A little hard to describe, the cave mouth was surrounded by beautiful scenery, a crystal clear lake and dense forest. We took a motor boat down the 7km river that runs through the centre of the cave, moared up and walked through what could only be described as an other worldly place of stalactites and stalagmites. Though the rest of the cave was completely pitch black this area was impressively well lit up to show off the natural sculptures. Excuse the photography, it doesnt do it justice, we've decided to get a better camera soon! With 100 metre high ceilings in places the cave is home to the largest cave spider in the world- luckily we didn't find any!

A couple more bus journeys took us through the french colonial riverside towns of Tha Khaek and Pakse until we reached Champasak, a village with an imposing Angkorian era temple. After exploring the overgrown monuments and sculptures and encountering the obligatory school group (we seem to attract them at most temples!) we headed on to Tad Lo.

So here in the Bolaven Plateau where the air is cooler and the coffee fresh from the hills, we hired a moto to explore the picturesque surrounding area. Zipping through the banana, coffee and tea plantations (avoiding the cow traffic) we stoppped at two of the most imposing waterfalls we've seen yet, one 130 metres high, crashing into the depths of a gorge. Its always a nice feeling passing through small villages on a moto receiving endless waves and hellos from the friendly families rushing out to greet you.

Next we went on to Siphandon, the '4000 islands', set in a wide stretch of the Mekhong river. Hammocks, palm trees and lemon shakes go down well in these sleepy village islands. We spent our last few days in Laos here, mostly soaking up the R and R. The island, with no roads and full of rice paddies, was not the easiest terrain to learn to ride a bike for the first time! But impressively Rach managed it with only one mud puddle incident! By far the best thing we did here (and maybe so far) is the kayaking trip we took down the river to the home of the rare Irrawaddy dolphins. It was an amazing experience to sit silently in a kayak (just us and our guide) while the dolphins popped up around us spraying water from their blowholes. Apparently there are less than 90 left in the Mekhong region and the world so we felt quite lucky to have seen some of them.

After a last meal of grilled fish, sticky rice and Lao Lao we finally left Laos at the end of an amazing 5 weeks.

Through a sparse border, some dodgy attempts to make a few bucks by the immigration 'officials' and witnessing the beating of a 2metre snake by the locals we were in Cambodia! First stop; Ban Lung in the North East, where we enjoyed a dip in a beautiful warm crater lake surrounded by forest, with clear water upto 70m deep! Got a little sun burnt on an elephant and finally spotted a proper gecko! theres hundreds of smaller geckos everywhere but the big ones are loud and more elusive GECK -- OH!!

Next blog coming soon as we're catching up a little, photos of the above are up already. Time for a beer (no more BeerLao - nooo!), bye for now,

Miss you all xx