Last Days in Laos and Moving Down to Koh Pangan

So it's been awhile, I know. Our last days in Laos were amazing. We went down to Champasak and Si Pha Don (aka 4000 Islands). Since we overslept, we spent about a day getting to Champasak and stayed the night in a guest house by the river. At 5 am we woke up and went to Wat Phu Champasak just after sunrise. It was breath taking. On the drive up we saw the locals give food offerings to the monks as the sun peaked it's glowing eye over the palm trees. We arrived to the castle/wat which looked a lot like a cross between the Secret Garden and Hogwarts. It was great. We climbed up the old, steep and uneven steps about 1km away from the entrance to get a view of the whole land. After about 100 pictures later, we went back to the hotel, grabbed our packs and hopped in a minibus down to Don Det island. On the ferry there we met up with Matt, one of the boys we met tubing in Vang Vieng. He was with a German guy named Til. We stayed together in the same guest house. I think it was called Thonden, but not sure.

We met some other Germans at the guest house and took a canoe boat over to a small piece of island in the middle of the Mekong. We hung out on the beach there and played some cards. Basically the whole time we were there we just chilled and enjoyed the sunsets. Not to mention watching one German get wasted and start singing Bob Marley's "Jamming" but replacing "jamming" with "German." A rendition that when something like: "We're German and I hope you like Germans too... We're German in the name of the Lord."

Unfortunately for us, we had no money and the nearest ATM was a 2 hour drive away. We cashed one of Alison's travelers checks. Then went up to Pakse, got sick from some bad noodle soup and spent a grueling day getting to the border then to the train and all night to Bangkok.

We stayed at the D&D, met up with Taz. Checked out the Grand Palace and disappeared on the bus the next night to Koh Pangan. We arrived at Chumpon at 5am and had to wait 2 hours for the bumpiest ferry ever. Half the boat was puking. We met a Mick Jagger type character named Ian. He was taking swigs from a bottle of Cointreau and shouting to me, "It's like a mad dance floor, but you don't have to move to feel the party." He was friggin ridiculous. Funny guy though, some sort of DJ. He played me some of his music from his ipod and took mine. He was so stoked on all my music. "Angelic Upstarts, mate, that's from when I was a kid oi!" I guess he's some sort of DJ. Kind of reminded me of a movie I saw with Wes called Everything's Gone Pete Tong or something like that. Anyway, it'd be pretty hilarious to run into him again. Strange old dude from South London who looked like Mick and started drinking at 7am on the rockin' ferry... pun totally intended.Do