Tour de Laab

After a leisurely breakfast on Don Khong, the largest of the Four Thousand Islands, we hopped on our bikes anticipating a boat ride about 15 kilometres downriver to put us within spitting distance of Cambodia. To our mild disappointment, that long range ferry had left while we were eating, so the only option remaining to us was a smaller boat across one of the branches of the Mekong, followed by a ride and another ferry. Admittedly, I had secretly harboured hopes of taking this tiny road, since it looked more like a path than a road on the map. Sure enough, upon disembarking, we found ourselves bouncing down a dirt trail. Whether made by humans, buffalo, pigs, or more likely a combination of the three, we couldn't immediately tell. However, we saw absolutely no signs of cars, and I don't recall being passed by a single motorcycle on our 10km jaunt parallel to the river. Villagers were harvesting an additional rice crop, which we had not seen in Laos, but it seems that with ...

Hunting for snails around Sam Pan Bok Both of us agree that the deviation from Thailand into central Laos and Vietnam had been well worth the effort. I'm sure interesting opportunities would have presented themselves if we had continued along the Thai Mekong path, but the only site I know of that I regret not having visited is a place called Sam Pan Bok, or Three Thousand Holes. It's an area on the Mekong only visible during the dry season. Here, the river narrows to its thinnest width since leaving China, earning it the vastly inappropriate moniker "The Grand Canyon of Thailand." . As water levels drop, thousands of eroded holes in the rocky riverbed are exposed, but remain filled with water well into the dry season.  Taking a dip in one of the holes, with Thailand visible across the Mekong Enough Thai tourists visit that I had been able to discover it on the internet, but despite a fair amount of effort, I found absolutely no information regarding thi...