Pakse Loop: Day 3

If you are sleeping in a bamboo hut in what feels like the middle of the jungle, one expects to wake up to the sounds of the birds. And insects. And maybe a rooster. What one does not expect to be roused by is loud music. But roused we were, courtesy of the three french guys next door.

Normally we would have been quite peeved to wake up this way. But all was forgiven on this particular morning as the song they played was so beautiful. We had been away from home for 3+ months at this point, and had lost touch with the rest of the world. We had no idea what song it was, only that it was mesmerizing. At breakfast, we discovered that we had well and truly been living under a rock, as it turned out to be one of the best-selling singles of all time: "Hello", by Adele! We owe those french guys a big thank you as they managed to make this otherwise mundane morning something special enough that I remember it in vivid detail even now, 7 years later. Everytime I hear "Hello", I'm transported back to Laos.

Our day only got better from here. The well-marked trail from the guesthouse took us to 7 different waterfalls, some of which were truly stunning.

Waterfall #2, our favourite. That's Nick's head on the bottom right

Pakse Loop: Day 2

Apparently a bite from this spider will cause temporary paralysis!

Our first stop of the day was a village tour with Captain Hook. No, really, he goes by the name Captain Hook.

He is a bit of a character and definitely the rebel of his village. He is quite open about his personal story which I think needs to be heard directly from him to be appreciated. I got the impression that although he is tolerated within his village, the others are not too happy about the fact that so many outsiders tromp through every day. That said, his tour was incredibly interesting (and at times, shocking).

We learned a lot about the way of life, practices and beliefs of his people. I'm really glad we stopped here and can highly recommend it.

After Captain Hook, we hit the road again. As both Nick and I had been on silk making tours in China, we opted to skip the silk stops along the way and just find a place to swim.

Tad Faek was just the ticket: quiet, peaceful and relaxing.

Tad Faek

Bamboo shelters with quite the view

I’m not dead yet!

Chime In hasn't had a pulse for a good 6 years, but despite all appearances to the contrary, this blog is not dead yet! A friend recently asked us for travel recommendations for Thailand and it led me down memory lane a little bit...and back to this blog! I discovered a few unfinished drafts and it has inspired me to finish what I started.

Life has changed so much since I last wrote an entry. We have had many more adventures, we now live in the UK...and the biggest adventure of all...we now have 2 kids! 2! No one is more shocked by this development than me, let me tell you, as we weren't planning to have kids at all! But Selvan and Keeran have turned out to be the best things that have ever happened to me. They are now 2 and 4.

We still travel, but the way we travel has changed quite a bit. It also continues to change all the time as the kids get older and their needs and abilities change. When I was on maternity leave with Selvan, we managed to do a lot. We went to Canada, San Francisco, Cape Town, India and Cape Town again, all before his first birthday!

The Boomslang Boardwalk in Kirstenbosch was a huge hit with the kids!

We have made all kinds of newbie mistakes when traveling with kids. So many valuable lessons have been learned and I'm looking forward to writing about them soon. I also plan to go back and fill in information from our RTW world trip. Hard to believe that was 7 years ago now! So please stay tuned!