The journey to the first main city in Laos took a total of 11 hours, and consisted of 7 forms of transport! These consisted of... TukTuk, Train, Taxi, Bus, Walking (guided by nice Thai man), Minibus and the back of a van! Due to the long travelling, we spoke to our volunteer co-ordinator and she gave us Monday off work, to allow us to stay an extra day to make it worth while! So we decided to stay the night in Pakse and travel the further 4 hours in the morning.
Once we got to the closest town to Don Det, we had to get a "ferry" across to the island. Now they call it a ferry, but what they actually mean is long, thin wooden row boat with a tiny motor on the end, in which the try to pack in as many travellers and large backpacks as possible without it capsizing!! Very interesting experience, but we got used to them as that's what was used every time we needed to travel away from the island. The island was tiny, and almost every guesthouse cost a maximum of £1.50 a night per room, and that got you a bed and a squat pot. But we decided to go all out and spend £4 so we actually got a mosquito net, proper western toilet which flushed (better than here in Surin!!), shower (cold - but we're used to that) and electricity between the hours of 6.30 and 10.30 at night!! It was like heaven!! The whole island was very chilled out, and ideal for anyone looking for some tranquility.
The next day we did a trip to go and see some Irawaddy Dolphins and the largest waterfall in East Asia. We were pretty sceptical about the promise to see the dolphins, as several people had told us we'd never see them in rainy season, but we went to the Cambodian side of the river and sat down on the bank for an hour, and managed to see several dolphins playing and jumping, very close to us!! Attempted to get some photos but the best I could do is a tiny black dot in the middle of the river!! That afternoon we did some tubing down the river - not quite the same as Vang Vieng as there were no bars along the way, but we made up for it by getting some small bottles of wine to drink on the way down!
The journey home on Monday was a bit easier as we got a package deal, and we ended up on only 5 types of transport this time and made it all the way home by 10pm ready for work the next day. We were all geared up for a hard weeks work (well, 3 days...) but so far we've only had a couple of kids turn up to school who actually need physio, and we have another trip out tomorrow to go and meet the Governer of Surin!! We did, however, spend a day on Outreach and got to see another couple of patients who we'd previously assessed - turns out we must be reasonably good physios as they're improving already! It's great to see that we're actually making a difference!! It's also great how laid back they are with it all here, so far we've only had to do a maximum of 3 days actual work as there's been a school trip each week. Last week's was to an elephant centre where we got to watch a show with the elephants playing football, basketball and doing various other tricks! The elephants actually looked like they were enjoying themselves and they are treated well at that place which was really cool to see.
This weekend we're going to an elephant village to spend a few days looking after the elephants and do some kayaking which I'm very excited about! Then we'll be heading to a market at the Cambodian border on Sunday to do some much needed shopping!!
Much love xxxxxxxxxx
The next day we did a trip to go and see some Irawaddy Dolphins and the largest waterfall in East Asia. We were pretty sceptical about the promise to see the dolphins, as several people had told us we'd never see them in rainy season, but we went to the Cambodian side of the river and sat down on the bank for an hour, and managed to see several dolphins playing and jumping, very close to us!! Attempted to get some photos but the best I could do is a tiny black dot in the middle of the river!! That afternoon we did some tubing down the river - not quite the same as Vang Vieng as there were no bars along the way, but we made up for it by getting some small bottles of wine to drink on the way down!
The journey home on Monday was a bit easier as we got a package deal, and we ended up on only 5 types of transport this time and made it all the way home by 10pm ready for work the next day. We were all geared up for a hard weeks work (well, 3 days...) but so far we've only had a couple of kids turn up to school who actually need physio, and we have another trip out tomorrow to go and meet the Governer of Surin!! We did, however, spend a day on Outreach and got to see another couple of patients who we'd previously assessed - turns out we must be reasonably good physios as they're improving already! It's great to see that we're actually making a difference!! It's also great how laid back they are with it all here, so far we've only had to do a maximum of 3 days actual work as there's been a school trip each week. Last week's was to an elephant centre where we got to watch a show with the elephants playing football, basketball and doing various other tricks! The elephants actually looked like they were enjoying themselves and they are treated well at that place which was really cool to see.
This weekend we're going to an elephant village to spend a few days looking after the elephants and do some kayaking which I'm very excited about! Then we'll be heading to a market at the Cambodian border on Sunday to do some much needed shopping!!
Much love xxxxxxxxxx
Awww you are having such a great time babe and im glad u are able to put it up here for us all to read! its so funny how going all out is paying #4 (i dont have a pound sign on this computer) and thats expensive lol. Lucky u got to see the dolphins though!!!!
ReplyDeleteGreat to talk to you today, had missed you so much!!!! LOVE YOU xxxx