Heading South

Shame Laos' roads are so shyte - it means back-tracking if you want to see both north and south. We wanted to see south. So back-tracking it was!

Only been back in Luang Prabang five minutes when we bumped into our Canadian drinking buddies Graham and Kristy - who, much like the rest of Laos hadn't moved in the past week. No sooner had we arranged drinks than we set upon by a six-foot stranger who claimed he knew us. Would you Adam and Eve it. If it wasn't our good mate Jeremy with whomwe had shared many a drunken night on The Andamans (not to mention his sisters Beth and Michelle, who we teamed up with Darjeeling).

Enjoyed several "late nights" with everyone - it's difficult not to in Luang Prabang! But with the idyllic south calling our names we forced ourselves into a ticket agent and onto a bus for the nine hour tripback to Vientiane. With four hours to kill in the capital, while in transit, there was only one thing for it. Yep, Beer Lao! And plenty of it. Needless to say we both slept like bambinos as our VIP chariot - are bums needed a slice of luxury - swept us south through Paksan,Thakhek and Savannakhet before finally coming to rest in Pakse.

The largest town in the south, Pakse sits on the junction of the Mekong and Xe Don rivers. The town has surely seen better days yet the tatty colonial buildings lend an air of old-world charm to the place. And it doesn't take long to realise how the town's old colonial ebb is fast succumbing to Thai and Vietnamese influence. The French orchestrated change in this part of Laos after identifying the Boloven Plateau as a prime location for farming stock. Now the spectacular plateau is home to Laos' coffee industry - more than 20,000 tonnes of the bean is grown annually.

But we weren't here for the coffee, as good as it is (superb when drank without the condensed milk locals prefer to add as sweetener). Nope, we were here to charter transport to the deep south. Si Phan Don, the place they call "The 4000 islands".