Pez and Noony go away

Christmas shopping.

Not sure who would want this. (me)

Vroom vroom!

Will tipped forward this painting to look behind. With hilarious consequences.

Laughing with the artist about said consequence.

Thankful it was fine.

Christmas tree?

House lights.

Gifts from England.

The perfect final addition to my suit.

Will really wanted this.

Will really wanted this.

Starter for 10.

A farmer has two hens, a white one and a white one…

A happy eater.

Dessert.

…and a dance.

We’ve been in Laos now since the 15th December and having a jolly good time with Mr William Moss. There will be photos to follow of our Christmas in Vientiane, but first we will write about our time away in the south at Pakse and the 4,000 islands.

We took a bus from Vientiane at 8 am and 16 bone-shaking hours later we arrived in Pakse. We only had 2 full days in the south so decided to do a full day tour of the islands. We had our own private mini van, driver and tour guide who took us to Ban Nakasang, where we caught a motor boat (a narrow boat with an incredibly noisy diesel engine on the back) to Don Khone island. We hired some bicycles and toured around the island with our guide. It was my first time on a bike for at least 10 years and took me back to the rides we used to do around the villages in Cocking. After races and dodging chickens and dogs galore we made our way to the south of the island to take another motor boat across the boarder to the edge of Cambodia where we sat and watched some Mekong dolphins playing in the water. We then went back to Don Khon island for lunch and visited the Li Phi waterfall. Li Phi literally translates to “ghost trap” as the waterfall was used to build contraptions to catch dead bodies floating down the Mekong during war time. Lovely!

After catching a motorboat back to the mainland of Laos we visited the Khong Phapheng waterfall, which is the biggest in South East Asia. We clambered over rocks and climbed down to the waters edge. I cracked my knee on the side of a rock, but it was nothing that a bit of germolene and a plaster couldn’t fix. We will also post some photos of the islands later.