Your Above Average Beaver in The Land Of The Smiles: Cambodia & Laos

Hello Family and Freinds!!!

I recently just got back from traveling to Siem Reap in Cambodia and then to Don Det, the south of Lao where the 4000 islands are located. I went on the 9 day trip with my friend Connor from Oregon State. We spent 3 days in Siem Reap, they have a cool bar scene called Pub Street, I think the name sums up the activities on the street. We stayed in a Hostel for $4 a night, it was... well you get what you pay for, but $4 def goes farther than in the states!

The second night out I went to withdraw money from an ATM, and the machine ate my card... The owner of the shop where the ATM was said he couldn't do anything about it, and I would have to wait till the bank opened up in the morning. The next morning I woke up, found a Tuk Tuk driver, gave him my last $10 US in my wallet and asked if he would help me track down my card. After 3 hours of going across the city to different banks, I finally came across my card. It was quite the adventure. Good news, only $100 was stolen off of it. It could be worse, right? Gotta love developing countries.

Later in the afternoon I met up with some other Americans from my school and Wisconsin to explore the famous Angkor Wat temple. There are some HUGE temples in the Siem Reap area, the temples hold some of the most beautiful architecture work I've ever seen, there are drawings in all of the stone. I would tell you all about the history of the temples, but I don't want to bore you, if you're interested in hearing about the rich history behind Angkor Wat there is a great thing called "Google"!

I'm really glad I went to Cambodia, they used the US dollar and beers on draft were as cheap as 25 cents!!! What a great way to spend $2! After a few days in Cambodia Connor and I packed up our bags and headed to the south of Laos using the Asian Van Transfer (highly recommend this company) and were smuggled across the border in 8 hours. We had to walk across the Cambodian Border into the Laos side and go through immigration there, where a new van was waiting to take us to Don Det. We got dropped off in one city and had to take a boat with about 12 others to reach the island. Man oh man, I really was nervous about the boat getting us there, it was all wooden, a small motor, and the entire boat would lean if one person shifted their body weight. Definitely can't be afraid to go for a little swim!

Getting to Don Det we realized we definitely were no longer in Thailand or Cambodia, it is a 3rd world country and is incredible. The roads were all dirt, the tallest building was 2 stories, and we were on the only island with electricity (that ended up going out the first night for 13 hours), oh and there was only one ATM in the area for 150 KM around. We stayed at OI's guesthouse (def recommend) and had 2 beds, 2 hammocks, and one small bathroom, most of the places all have shared bathrooms, and it only cost $4 a night as well!!

What to do in Don Det? Absolutely nothing. And that was exactly what I wanted. I lay in a hammock reading my book, ate some good food, and drank some cold beers. The sunsets, WOW!! They're incredible, one of the most beautiful spots I have ever been too.

The past 9 days was a great getaway from Bangkok! I now have class for 2 days and then am heading off to visit Taylor in Europe! We will be spending a few days in Prague, Brno and then fly to Amsterdam for the last couple days.

Cheers!