namaste' my journey...

Crossing the boarder into laos is another funny am I really crossing a boarder experience.  We actually walked across and got some pixs while doing so.  Here I meet Luke who is also traveling to Don Det to meet up with friend Mike who he has been traveling the past 8 months with and Mikes fiancé El who has been travel just a couple with them.  We all hang together.  Our first place in laos is the 4000 islands which are a bunch of islands in the Mekong.  When I say little islands I mean little.  There is only one road a temple to see and a beautiful waterfall.  We stayed here for a few days before heading to Campensak on our way up to pakse.  One day we rented bikes to head out to the waterfall.  Now like I said there is only one road so when we were trying to get to the waterfall we were stopped by the fact that the locals were moving these huge cement poles (which I think are going to be used for electrical lines or something of that nature) from the river up the hill across the road into a pile.  Well since we could not cross Vanessa and I decided that we would help them move this one.  It was such fun laughing and moving this huge thing with the locals…We got the one up and realized that they still had about 7 more of these things to move.   We figured we really have nothing to do today so why not stay and help them move them all.  Now it is not like there is some rig helping get these things up the side of this hill.  We are doing it the old fashion way here folks…rope, bamboo underneath to roll them on and guys with tires rapped around the pole to help lift it.  It was one of the best times I have had…we were all laughing and working together.  At the end they were so thankful that they shared fresh coconuts and shots of whiskey with us.  I have about 6 full blown blisters on my heads and every time they sting it brings a smile to my face thinking of my afternoon working, sweating and laughing with the locals.   Later that night we meet up with Luke and his two friends El and Mike.  The five of us will now travel together for a bit.  While sitting at Luke and there place this kid from Israel comes up and starts talking to a girl at the table that Luke has now run into at like 5 different places.  We all start talking and I introduce myself and he says, “dre Sylvester?”  ok who is this guy??  Well he ends up being this kid that I have been talking to about over two months ago on couchsurfing who was traveling and we talked about maybe meeting up….and now here is he…had no idea each othere were going to be in laos never mind don det….i am finding it is a very small world...