4000 ISLANDS

The 5 of us struggled a little to find a hostel due to the uneven number but Chris said he was okay to stay on his own, after all, a full room was $5. We spent the whole fist day lounging around and reading on the hammocks. Traveling wears you out. The guesthouse was really homely and the entire family took care of it. Right outside of our rooms the hammocks overlooked the river. The day was beautiful and the sunset was out of this world. Pink and purple tones that looked as though they had been freshly painted onto the sky.



At night, we went to the famous rasta bar, where pretty much everyone in the island ends up at. The main server (still not sure if he is the owner) was a lanky guy with rastas down to his hips, his eyes more red than white, and lets just say a very interesting smell. He was really friendly though and told me that he was originally from Austria but had been in the island for over a year and a half. Believe it or not, a lot of travelers get stuck along the way, and they never make it back.

The next day we went biking all the way to the neighboring island Don Khon. My bike didn't quite have breaks but that didn't seem to be a major problem as most of the land was flat. The pieces of land looked is if they were divided in little squares ready for them to grow rice, but there wasn't any for all we could see. Lots of locals were burning wood, giving of an eucalyptus scent. Along the way crazy Chinese tourists in tuk tuks were waving and taking pictures of us. We stopped to look at the remainders of the first railway in South East Asia, built because it was not possible to get through the waterfalls. At the end of the island, we got to see Cambodia across the water, but no Irrawaddy dolphins. On our way back, Claude and I helped a 6 ad 8 ytear olds to fix their bike (chain derailed). We also saw ducks going at it... normally I wouldn't care about such a trivial detail but it just so happens that 1) the female fought for the whole time 2) the shape of the male's 'organ' was just too funny, like a broken spring. Anyways... we ran into the motorbike crew from  Kong Lor and agreed to have a drink later on at rasta bar offcourse.

 That night it got packed, lots of people ordering "happy pizza", watching soccer and just having a good time. Its weird how a group of strangers can turn into friends in such a short period of time. We had a really fun night, lots of Beer Lao, crazy pictures and laughs all round. The lights went off at 3:30am but some of us were still sitting there. Eventually, they told us we had to leave haha.

On the last day all it did was rain non stop. The streets were  muddy and I saw people kayaking, poor souls. We went to another guest house ans spent the day watching movies. That night the girls and I had a lao BBQ  to celebrate our last night together.