Vietnam to Laos (Oct 12th to October 26th)

We are in Laos right now in the city of Pakse having spent 3 days in the 4000 island area in the south of Laos. We are about to get on a 10 or so hour bus ride north to the captial of Vientiane. Here's the play by play of whats happened since the 12th. The videos give more details, and pictures will be up in a few days hopefully. Oct 12th - Bus to Dalat, central lowlands, place of eternal spring. Nice cool weather. Oct 13th and 14th - rented scooters and drove around the country side checking out the landscape and waterfalls. Oct 15th - Bus to Nha Trang, met some friends, hungout at the beach, friends of friends got in a fight involving bats knives and a gun. Oct 17th - I forgot to mention in the video that we went to a mineral mudbath place. Its way cheaper than back home so we decided to do it. Basically sat in mud and mineral water for a few hours as a way of killing of time and improving out health hopefully. Checked out some ruins outside of town. Sleeper bus to Hoi An, reclining seats like a bed. Oct 18th - Hoi An, many tailor shops, craft shops, beautiful little town. Oct 19th - Hoi An, checked out some more ruins made out of bricks called My Son. Oct 20th - Got some clothes tailor made. pants, a shirt, and a wool jacket. Oct 21st - bus to Dong Ha, stayed in some guys home for the night, waiting to get into Laos. Oct 22nd - Crossed into Laos, bus to Savanakhet. bus to Pakse. Oct 23rd - 5 hour pick up truck ride to Si {an Don (4000 island area), 3 benches with 22 or so people including 5 monks. Boat to Don Khon, the island we stayed on for 3 days.
Oct 24th - biked around the islands, scary bridges and nice waterfalls. Tried Lao Lao, Laos moonshine..blindingly strong. Oct 25th - Dolphin watching, only 100 of these freshwater dolphins left in the world. We saw about 4 or 5 and watched them for a while from the Cambodian side of the river. Tried Cambodian moonshine with an offduty police man, and a 50-60 year old soldier. Much better than the Laos stuff. Oct 26th - boat and bus to Pakse, bus to Vientiane.

Vietnam, October 5th - 12th

Quick update..we are in Dalat right now, the videos I am posting were made in Mue Ne. There is some wind in the videos but hopefully you can hear them O.K. I'll give you the quick rundown anyway. Oct 4th - Phnom Penh, Oct 5th boat to Chau Doc in Vietnam (easy and scenic border crossing), bus to Can Tho (Curt was sick with motion sickness, thought he was dieing), Oct 6th tour of the Mekong Delta, stayed at a homestay in Vinh Long, Oct 7th biking around Mekong, bus to Saigon, Oct 8th war remnants museum and independence palace, Oct 9th bus to Mue Ne, Oct 10th relax at the beach, Oct 11th rented a scooter and checked out the fairy stream, red sand dunes and while sand dunes (where the videos were made), Oct 12th bus to Dalat. Its nice and cool here, not sweating 24/7. It's the place of eternal Spring. After the pictures are 3 videos doing a summary since leaving Cambodia. and 1 of Curtis sliding on the dunes. It cost us about 1$ each to do that. A bit pricey if you ask me.

Houses built along rivers in the Mekong. Some have fish farms underneath. Notice the antennae - they all have T.V's.

Poor picture of a floating market.
Interesting way of rowing standing up.
These are called Monkey bridges.

Making rice noodles in the delta.

Rice fields.

Cooking dinner at the homestay.

Saigon scooters...millions.

Cobra and scorpion alcohol of some sort - we did not try it.

Kite boarders at Mue Ne.

White sand dunes.

I think I forgot to mention in the video that we got a flat tire. Had to push it for 400m about. This guy fixed it for 60 cents.Red dunes. Fairy stream. Red and white sand, photo doesn't do it justice.

Fishing village just outside Mue Ne.

Cambodia II

We have just spent the last 2 1/2 days in a beach town called Sihanoukville on the south coast. It has been fantastic..we rented scooters, lazed on the beach, and lazed on the beach some more. Just like last time we made some videos, 3 this time. A few things I wanted to mention but forgot: want free range beef? Buy Cambodian beef. Cows range all over the place, especially on the roads. A bit dangerous when driving on the roads, especially a red scooter. Oh, and the pool tables in this part of the world. We have played on three so far. The first one was more like a putting green, playing the break instead of the bank. The second one had rails that were super soft so the balls didn't bounce true. The third one was great, but we encountered Asian rules? (they don't play this way in Korea) - told to us by an irish guy. Apparently if you scratch (sewer or miss your ball etc) you get two shots instead of one, why I don't know. And some other dumb rule. Either way, we were not impressed. We also talked to some old guy who has done a lot of travelling and is now working at the local dive shop. We says Cambodia is the way Thailand used to be 5 -10 years ago and doesn't see himself leaving as long as things stay the same. It's still really relaxed here compared to how crazy Thailand can be. We are headed to Phnom Penh tomorrow to pick up our passports with Vietnam visas and then we are off to Vietnam the next day. Anyways, here are some pics and vids. Actually the vids aren't loading properly so I'll try again tomorrow hopefully!

This is the guesthouse that we stayed at in Phnom Penh (2.50$ each)

Memorial at the killing fields outside of Phnom Penh.

Pits where the mass graves were.

Toel Sleng prison where people were held and tortured before being sent to the killing fields.

Scenic bus ride to the south. If only they didn't blast terrible Khmer music in our ears the whole time.

Our guesthouse in Sihanoukville (2.50$ each)

The beach closest to us, about a 2 minute walk.

Curtis after an hour in the sun without sunscreen. I got red too, but I'm golden brown now.

Tiny crab I caught at a less busy beach. It's about the size of my pinky fingernail.

Curt and I playing in Ream National Park.
Second truck we have seen flipped over.

Above is a video made on Ostres(sp?) beach, a much more peaceful beach about 5km from our beach area. This video tells about our first Southeast Asian massage experience.

This video details our experiences since leaving Siem Reip and Angkor Wat.

This is a video made while riding our rented scooter. The countryside was not very scenic where we made the video.