Si Pan Don

In honor of our last week in Laos and the Christmas holiday, we took what we are considering to be a little vacation to the very southern tip of Laos. Si Pan Don literally translates to Si Pan Don (all three words we have learned and you should have seen Kyle's face light up when she put that together; 'Four' 'Thousand' 'Islands'!!) is basically a delta where the Mekong creates several tiny islands . . . perhaps 4,000 of them?
We rented a little bungalow on the sunset side of the island with two hammocks and thatched walls/roof.
This vacation was really meant to be time to slow down before hitting Cambodia full speed and we took the concept of Slow very seriously. Our major activities were waking early to the roosters, reading aloud from a borrowed copy of The Fellowship of the Ring (550 pages completed in 4 days) and taking walks and/or bikes around the island. This island is sort of a hippy spot full of tiny restaurants/guest houses and then just some farms. All the electricity is on generators and the food/drinks are kept in coolers on ice that is hand delivered on a little boat once a day. Water buffalo is king (as is their excrement) and hammock-perching alternated with cruiser bike riding are the major activities in town.

To celebrate Christmas, I surprise Kyle with a Christmas tree of a branch of bamboo decorated with cold pills (all red and green still wrapped in their hermetically sealed silver bubbles), all my jewelry, some dyed silk thread from my weaving class a few weeks ago and a few other odds and ends. Kyle had secretly picked up some presents at a western store in Vientien - granola bars and good chocolate!! - and I had stashed a single packet, peel-off face mask in my bag before we left home (just in case). For Christmas eve dinner we went to a pig roast (very fresh pig, in fact it may have been the one I waved at so often on my way into town) with a large group of travelers. I had a long conversation with a very patriotic young Polish couple who informed me that both Chopin and (albeit arguably) Copernicus were both originally Polish. Though this polish couple lived in Australia for two years, they still say that Poland has some really great beaches(?). Guess we all have a soft spot for our homeland - especially when we're so far away!!

The week was wonderful and relaxing but we were ready to get moving again by then end. Our last day was somewhat marred by my infliction by some horrible sickness that kept me in bed for about 36 hours with fever and plenty of dashes to the rather unpleasant bathroom. I should like to thank the ubiquitous Lao National toilet paper brand called, I kid you not, Sweet Sentiments . . . and it's pink.