Ban Lung

Our last few days were spent in and around the town of Ban Lung. We took a 6 hour minibus from Kratie and were dumped off at a hotel. We stayed the night, but moved to a different hotel the next day because we were the only people at the first hotel. After dropping our bags off at the new hotel, we hopped on the back of motorbikes for our guided waterfall and lake tour. Our overly friendly guide and his buddies took a bunch of us to the first waterfall. There we went elephant trekking!! It was really cool to ride an elephant, but slightly uncomfortable, and I felt like a dumb tourist riding a poor elephant. They kept stopping to eat, especially the one that Dave and I was on. They seem to love bamboo leaves. We rode along a red dirt road then ducked into the jungle. The trek took about an hour and took us back to where we started.
We met Matt and Ally, an English couple who were doing the same tour as we were, and we walked down to the first waterfall. We jumped in and swam underneath the waterfall. Dave didn't jump in for a swim because he is unfortunately suffering from festering wounds on his feet that started out as mosquito bites but have opened up and are refusing to heal. After a refreshing swim and shower, we headed back up to our waiting locals and they took us to the next waterfall. This waterfall wasn't as amazing, but there was some thick foliage surrounding the falls and a suspension bridge that took us over top of the river. We went back up to the road and waited out the rain for a bit, then decided to head out to the third waterfall. The third one was perhaps the most amazing. It was about 100 feet tall and the water crashed down onto rocks at the base. Dave went down and tried to stand underneath the fall: a good photo-op. A few minutes later, a bunch of monks arrived. They made their way down to the base of the fall and the first one walked right underneath the pounding water. He stood there for a while and then began to cleanse himself. It was cool to see us foreigners struggling to walk close to the pounding water and then a monk stand beneath it like it was a bathroom shower.
After the waterfalls we all went to a restaurant in town. Dave and I have completely switched places; now I am the one eating up one and a half servings while Dave can only eat half a plate of rice.
Our last stop was Yeak Loam Lake, a volcanic crater filled with gorgeous blue water and surrounded by lush green jungle. We stayed at the first dock and met some other tourists there, as well as locals. We all had fun jumping in off the dock.
The night was spent drinking beer with Matt and Ally and watching the world cup at the Gecko Bar.

The next day Dave and I rented one moto and drove it to the lake again. We stopped at the guy selling waffles and then made our way down to the lake. We chilled at the first dock, then walked around the whole lake stopping at a couple of different docks. One dock we went to had a really cool tree right next to it and I climbed up and jumped off. The walk around the lake was very tranquil. Not many places here are very peaceful due to Asia being so populated, but this lake was definitely an exception. We didn't see anyone on the trail as we walked around the lake. On one side was lush jungle and dense bamboo groves. On the other side was the lake. It reminded us both of Cat Lake. We stopped at the main dock as we completed our circumnavigation of the lake. The dock was packed with locals when we got there. They all stared at us expressionlessly until I asked if I could jump in over top of all the kids sitting on the dock steps. I did a 360 over them and then everyone went crazy and the kids were doing backflips off the railings and the adults were laughing. They were interested in Dave's goggles and a bunch of them tried them on and went for an underwater swim. Dave did his classic underwater leg grab maneuver to some locals and everytime he came near the dock underwater with his goggles, the locals would shout and point and laugh at him. We stopped off at the waffle man on our way back to the moto and then drove back to our hotel.
We played some ping pong and tossed the frisbee around before heading out to a bar to watch England crap the bed.
Now we are in Stung Treng, northern Cambodia, on our way to Laos. We are waiting for our connecting bus which will take us up to Don Det, an island in the 4000 islands. Apparently it is super duper nice there, so we might stay for a while as we both feel like chilling out. After that we are going to head up to Pakse where Dave is going to head into Thailand and go kickboxing in Pai. I am going to continue up Laos, but I will try to convince Dave to motorbike up to the Bolaven Plateau with me before he leaves through Pakse.