No, it's not. Because there's no such thing.
Don Khong is quiet and often overlooked by your regular traveler as there's not a lot to do. We don't care. We've had enough of buzzing round cities for a bit and it's ideallic. There's one strip of guest houses and restaurants and that's about it. The four of us, Martin and Stephanie have come this way too, settle on Mr Pon's Guest House and it's restaurant looks out over the tumultuous Mekong. Jo and I hire bikes to ride round the island. We stop breifly at the car ferry port where there's a sign saying 'Welcome to Khong Island' which makes me feel all geeky and hoping there's a massive ape running somewhere but then I remembered that it's called Skull Island in the films and of course there's no 'h' in Kong. There's also no 'f' in ape. Anyway, we get a third of the way round when one of Jo's pedals falls off. The walk back to the guest house is actually a highlight as locals are really friendly greeting us as we walk past, some laughing quite rightly at our daft predicament. The children are the friendliest of all waving and calling to us, some in English, some in Laos. As the temperature has dropped somewhat, many are out in the paddy fields working the land. They too, are happy to say hello.
The night's entertainment consisted of chatting to M&S about their travels and playing cards with them too. It's been a while since I played Shithead but it seems pretty much same the world over. They've been traveling for their honeymoon which will, when they finish in a month or two, have lasted a year to the day. Their stories of South America and Antarctica are enough to get us planning more trips than our means will allow.
We leave 45 minutes late on Mr Pon's charter to Don Det eventually waiting for some Imodium to kick in as the fish in coconut milk the night before left me somewhat unsettled. the other couple we get it with are very patient and relieved to get going as it's a pricey trip if there's only two of you. The boat trip takes ninety minutes and I use the time wisely to count all of the islands we see to get a rough idea of whether there is in fact four thousand of them. I counted seven. Even then, one of those was a large tree in the middle of the river so may not count. I think there has maybe been an exaggeration somewhere down the line.
Arrival on Don Det feels victorious as neither the boat nor I needs bailing out during the journey. Good times. Within all of two minutes on the isle, we bump into Cody and Julia again. We join forces and head for some riverside shacks. The Lonely Planet paints a few of them in a generous light and we feel we should go see what the fuss is about. We went, we saw, we said bugger that. We stop for a drink at the charming Mr Phao's but the amenities are a little too basic. We end up staying Little Eden which is at the pricier end and kind of confirms my fear that we are creeping into the ranks of flash packers. The thing is, it's plush and it's still less than eight pounds a night between us. It's run by a nice Belgian called Andrew who we met first of all on our guest house hunt and he said we'd be back. And we were. We also needed to do some laundry. The hotel charged one and a half times what all the other laundry places were charging so we elected to take it else where. Andrew spotted us leaving the room with our stuff in a bag and called us over. He did two things. He weighed a 1.5 litre bottle of water which came us 1.5 kg as it should. This is a trick I've repeated a few times since to great effect. He then weighed our things which came to 5.2kgs. He insisted we go to the other laundry places to see how much they weighed it at. We tried the first place and when our sweat ridden togs weighed. the scales were already a kilo over before we got near it. Fair enough, we'll just take a kilo off. The lady then sat our washing on it and the scale went round to just over twelve kilos. Twelve. Ok, even with taking the first kilo off, that leaves us well over double what it actually weighs. We'd seen enough and gladly took it back to the Belgian.
That first night we met two German physicists one of whom was half German and half Vietnamese. He had striking looks, dreadlocks and was a big guy. They were really good fun and told us of their experiences of coming over the border and the corruption involved. Forewarned is forearmed and all that. Had a great night drinking by the Mekong with beers from the supermarket after the bars had closed as there's a strict curfew even on this remote settlement.
Jo and I hired bikes and travelled across the bridge to Don Khon, not to be confused with Don Khong from earlier, and tripped down to the south of the island. We stopped at a strange river dock thing that clearly had a past role that has been defunct for a long, long time. While we're stopped there are some kids playing and a girl comes over and asks if she can ride one of the bikes. There's a few adults around and no-one objects as she starts riding round. Another girl comes over for the other bike and she too soon starts flying round. They then both take on toddler passengers at which point we're worried they might get shouted at but the little uns hold on like they've done it before and they all cackle in glee. It's a great sight and we're happy to sit and watch while we enjoy a cold can of Coke.
After that we head to the waterfalls which are intimidating even from a safe distance. We then realised that the quiet hum we can hear from the guest house a few kilometres away is actually the roar of these falls. Water crashing over rocks at terrific speeds and absurd quantities. The skies start to darken and we head back to avoid the incoming storm. Thunder and lightening, very, very frightening, punctuate our ride back to Don Det village. We were ten minutes away from home when the heavens opened. Soaked doesn't cover it. Torrents of water are running through the village as we wade our way back. It's a matter of yards but there's not a dry stitch left on us.
Another lazy day in Don Det means we are to leave Laos and head for the border at Cambodia. No Mans Land becomes a well trodden path for us but more on that next time.
Monday, 20 September 2010
A capital city with a small 'c'
Ok, bit behind on this, I'll crack on with a few posts...
We left the hedonism of Vang Vieng as well as our new chums Julia and Cody behind on a VIP bus with bigger seats, more leg room and luscious air-con. Well, that's what we booked. What we got was a minivan, a slightly bigger version of a people carrier but with smaller seats. We also got a driver who frankly, even by South East Asia (SEA) standards, was a bit of a nutter. We were the last two on the minivan so we had the dubious honour of the fold down seats. Jo had to ride side saddle as the chair in front was broken and came back too far but couldn't be adjusted. The broken chair also swayed about as if it were on strings giving the impression to the lucky chap in it felt like they were on a boat on heavy seas. I was that lucky chap.
The drive to Vietiane, Laos' capitol, is a straight forward affair compared the roller coaster, heart in your mouth, adrenaline in your pants kind of ride that the mountains and landslides of Northern Laos offer. That said, we'd only been driving in the city ten minutes when our driver didn't see a lady who was a vision in pink on a moped as we joined a major carriageway and she went over. Three lanes over. She was fine except for a bumped elbow and no doubt shattered nerves. Our driver's first response though was to check his van for damage before helping the poor woman. Anyway, we made it. We later chatted to a few other peeps who had come up the same day as us on the real VIP bus and by the sounds of it our trip wasn't too bad. The air-con had broken down on both buses and they turned into saunas. Not nice.
Vientiane is a strange little city and has a population of only around 200,000. Given 85% of Laos population lives in rural areas, that's not too surprising. There's not a massive amount to do there but like anywhere in SEA, there's always a temple or ten to be had. You can always wave to Thailand on the other side of the Mekong that separates the two countries. We bump into Martin and Stephanie who are headed in the same direction as us in terms of their next few days and compare notes. One meal of note was the Laos Hot Pot which basically a terracotta pot atop hot charcoals in a plant pot. Into this goes stock and then you are given a plate of meat and a plate of vegetables. Everyone seemed to be doing it differently so we winged the lot into the pot and let it boil for a bit before trying it. It was awesome. We also had some more Laap which is a spicy minced meat salad and it can have quite the kick.
We also hired bikes and rode to the bus station to check out prices for our next part of the trip which turned out to be quite the odyssey. Cycling is something we've done in a number of places out here and it's really not that dissimilar to the UK. There are clear signs that indicate rules of the road along with traffic lights and lane discipline markers. The similarity with blighty ends there as for all of the signage, it's largely ignored and anything goes. Even going the same way on the same side of the road seems to be optional. Another difference is that everyone is very aware of everyone else and the speeds involved are a lot slower which makes for a greater feeling of safety than that in Britain. Sounds crazy I know but it works. Most of the time.
We decide on a sleeper bus as we'd not tried one yet and it was a damned sight cheaper than flying to Pakse which was our original plan. Martin and Stephanie are also doing the same. We arrive at the bus station in the evening and the place is buzzing with people and neon as all the sleeper buses are pimped out. The bus double beds were a cramped single but the bus was half full, ever the optimist, so we could spread out and get a bed each. We set off at eight and I had a great couple of hours listening to Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier talk rubbish in a SModcast on my iPod watching the incredible lightening off in the distance and decided to get some sleep. Imagine, if you will, you are lying in a cozy human being sized shoebox with a pillow and blanket trying to doze off. Now take that box you are lying in and shake it. A lot. For 10 hours. We eventually dropped off for about twenty minutes and then we stopped and the bus lights went on. All in all I think we slept for a few hours before arriving at half six in Pakse. We decide, along with M&S that we'll soldier on and do the last three hours down to the 4000 islands which is where want to get to for a few days of relaxing.
It's a VIP bus, no really it is this time, and it has the added bonus of a screen at the front showing Thai or Laos karaoke DVDs. You wouldn't think the bus had a decent sound system but it does. iPods it is then. We stop at a terrace of shacks where the driver can get some breakfast and Martin and I witness what looks like a big wasp like creature that is sat on some strips of beef drying in the sun. It cuts a chunk of beef off a little bigger than a pea and then flies off with it. We were amazed by this as it just didn't seem possible that this thing would be able to carry it's bovine bonus.
Slept through second half of the bus journey and arrived at the boat stop. We then cross the Mekong again to our first of the 4000 Islands, Don Khong.
We left the hedonism of Vang Vieng as well as our new chums Julia and Cody behind on a VIP bus with bigger seats, more leg room and luscious air-con. Well, that's what we booked. What we got was a minivan, a slightly bigger version of a people carrier but with smaller seats. We also got a driver who frankly, even by South East Asia (SEA) standards, was a bit of a nutter. We were the last two on the minivan so we had the dubious honour of the fold down seats. Jo had to ride side saddle as the chair in front was broken and came back too far but couldn't be adjusted. The broken chair also swayed about as if it were on strings giving the impression to the lucky chap in it felt like they were on a boat on heavy seas. I was that lucky chap.
The drive to Vietiane, Laos' capitol, is a straight forward affair compared the roller coaster, heart in your mouth, adrenaline in your pants kind of ride that the mountains and landslides of Northern Laos offer. That said, we'd only been driving in the city ten minutes when our driver didn't see a lady who was a vision in pink on a moped as we joined a major carriageway and she went over. Three lanes over. She was fine except for a bumped elbow and no doubt shattered nerves. Our driver's first response though was to check his van for damage before helping the poor woman. Anyway, we made it. We later chatted to a few other peeps who had come up the same day as us on the real VIP bus and by the sounds of it our trip wasn't too bad. The air-con had broken down on both buses and they turned into saunas. Not nice.
Vientiane is a strange little city and has a population of only around 200,000. Given 85% of Laos population lives in rural areas, that's not too surprising. There's not a massive amount to do there but like anywhere in SEA, there's always a temple or ten to be had. You can always wave to Thailand on the other side of the Mekong that separates the two countries. We bump into Martin and Stephanie who are headed in the same direction as us in terms of their next few days and compare notes. One meal of note was the Laos Hot Pot which basically a terracotta pot atop hot charcoals in a plant pot. Into this goes stock and then you are given a plate of meat and a plate of vegetables. Everyone seemed to be doing it differently so we winged the lot into the pot and let it boil for a bit before trying it. It was awesome. We also had some more Laap which is a spicy minced meat salad and it can have quite the kick.
We also hired bikes and rode to the bus station to check out prices for our next part of the trip which turned out to be quite the odyssey. Cycling is something we've done in a number of places out here and it's really not that dissimilar to the UK. There are clear signs that indicate rules of the road along with traffic lights and lane discipline markers. The similarity with blighty ends there as for all of the signage, it's largely ignored and anything goes. Even going the same way on the same side of the road seems to be optional. Another difference is that everyone is very aware of everyone else and the speeds involved are a lot slower which makes for a greater feeling of safety than that in Britain. Sounds crazy I know but it works. Most of the time.
We decide on a sleeper bus as we'd not tried one yet and it was a damned sight cheaper than flying to Pakse which was our original plan. Martin and Stephanie are also doing the same. We arrive at the bus station in the evening and the place is buzzing with people and neon as all the sleeper buses are pimped out. The bus double beds were a cramped single but the bus was half full, ever the optimist, so we could spread out and get a bed each. We set off at eight and I had a great couple of hours listening to Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier talk rubbish in a SModcast on my iPod watching the incredible lightening off in the distance and decided to get some sleep. Imagine, if you will, you are lying in a cozy human being sized shoebox with a pillow and blanket trying to doze off. Now take that box you are lying in and shake it. A lot. For 10 hours. We eventually dropped off for about twenty minutes and then we stopped and the bus lights went on. All in all I think we slept for a few hours before arriving at half six in Pakse. We decide, along with M&S that we'll soldier on and do the last three hours down to the 4000 islands which is where want to get to for a few days of relaxing.
It's a VIP bus, no really it is this time, and it has the added bonus of a screen at the front showing Thai or Laos karaoke DVDs. You wouldn't think the bus had a decent sound system but it does. iPods it is then. We stop at a terrace of shacks where the driver can get some breakfast and Martin and I witness what looks like a big wasp like creature that is sat on some strips of beef drying in the sun. It cuts a chunk of beef off a little bigger than a pea and then flies off with it. We were amazed by this as it just didn't seem possible that this thing would be able to carry it's bovine bonus.
Slept through second half of the bus journey and arrived at the boat stop. We then cross the Mekong again to our first of the 4000 Islands, Don Khong.
Sunday, 5 September 2010
Vang Vieng and getting down with the kids.
Luang Prabang with it's night markets and culture stacked up all over the town is a stark contrast to the sleepy and yet at the same time party town that is Vang Vieng. It's all about the tubing and buckets here.
The first night we got there, we sat having "The coldest beer in town, guaranteed!". This promise was made by the owner of the Aussie Bar. Would you believe he also had a BBQ out front? Course you would. No shrimps though. We saw a number of people returning their tubes after a day out on and indeed in the river, some in better states than others. This went on into the early evening and even later. There was a Rave night promoted over the road where we were promised free shots and free rave paints by a girl who wasn't even born when the rave scene was in effect. In my day... No wait... Must... Act... Younger.... So, like, what I meant like was like oh my god thats so retro and like we were just totally wasted from like the journey and like we heaed home to catch some zees.
That's enough of that. We got up the next day, had a hearty breakfast and got in line for our tubes. We then got squished onto a tuk tuk with eight other people and talked nervously among ourselves about what the day had in store. We get to the drop off point and can't quite believe what there is laid out in front of us. There are bars up on stilts dotted along the river offering free shots along side the normal fare of buckets and beers. The bars also have all manner of slides and rope swings to attract their clientele. We had such a laugh and didn't care that we set off home late, lost a tube as well as a flip flop each and Jo's sunglasses. We got back and showered but Jo was not for heading out as she was a little tired and emotional. I went out and joined up with our new best friends that we'd only met that day and shall probably never see again.
The next day was a sombre affair as we counted the cost of our exploits. It wasn't a financial cost that was the issue but more the physical one. Jo had slipped and came down with a bump on a pointy rock which has now developed into a cacophony of purples and yellows. She also grazed her knee and elbow in the same incident. I wasn't quite so efficient and can't place all of my injuries. I've got a wonky knee that is slowly getting better, a bruised arch and a blackened big toe. Then there's the aching chest and stomach muscles from the rope swings, sore back from a hard hit off a slide and a constitution that has been knocked bandy with a taste of the Nam Song river. We have, so far at least, avoided one the more popular souvenirs from tubing which is Pinkeye. Speaking of which, I'm due a set of preventitive eye drops. Toodle pip.
The first night we got there, we sat having "The coldest beer in town, guaranteed!". This promise was made by the owner of the Aussie Bar. Would you believe he also had a BBQ out front? Course you would. No shrimps though. We saw a number of people returning their tubes after a day out on and indeed in the river, some in better states than others. This went on into the early evening and even later. There was a Rave night promoted over the road where we were promised free shots and free rave paints by a girl who wasn't even born when the rave scene was in effect. In my day... No wait... Must... Act... Younger.... So, like, what I meant like was like oh my god thats so retro and like we were just totally wasted from like the journey and like we heaed home to catch some zees.
That's enough of that. We got up the next day, had a hearty breakfast and got in line for our tubes. We then got squished onto a tuk tuk with eight other people and talked nervously among ourselves about what the day had in store. We get to the drop off point and can't quite believe what there is laid out in front of us. There are bars up on stilts dotted along the river offering free shots along side the normal fare of buckets and beers. The bars also have all manner of slides and rope swings to attract their clientele. We had such a laugh and didn't care that we set off home late, lost a tube as well as a flip flop each and Jo's sunglasses. We got back and showered but Jo was not for heading out as she was a little tired and emotional. I went out and joined up with our new best friends that we'd only met that day and shall probably never see again.
The next day was a sombre affair as we counted the cost of our exploits. It wasn't a financial cost that was the issue but more the physical one. Jo had slipped and came down with a bump on a pointy rock which has now developed into a cacophony of purples and yellows. She also grazed her knee and elbow in the same incident. I wasn't quite so efficient and can't place all of my injuries. I've got a wonky knee that is slowly getting better, a bruised arch and a blackened big toe. Then there's the aching chest and stomach muscles from the rope swings, sore back from a hard hit off a slide and a constitution that has been knocked bandy with a taste of the Nam Song river. We have, so far at least, avoided one the more popular souvenirs from tubing which is Pinkeye. Speaking of which, I'm due a set of preventitive eye drops. Toodle pip.
Wednesday, 1 September 2010
Ta-ra to Thailand!
Can't believe it's been a week since I wittered on last time!
We had a whistle stop tour leaving Chiang Mai on a VIP bus that had more leg room than Business Class on a flight. We also had a stewardess and an inflight video! Of it was in Thai and made no sense whatsoever.
A night in Chaing Rai and then we hopped on the 6am bus to Chang Khong, got our passports stamped as we left Thailand, crossed the Mekong in Laos and got visa'd up. Bit of faffing got us to the slow boat which took two days to travel down the Mekong to Luang Prabang stopping overnight at Pak Beng.
As we docked with the jetty at Pak Beng, the boat was boarded by a dozen hawkers trying to flog their guest houses which meant no-one could easily get off the boat. we hopped out a side window and kept brushing people aside. I'm surprised no-one had a cutlass held aloft.
Boat trip was amaizing if a little hard on the buttocks. A wooden bench was our friend for the two day trip and thankfully we'd invested in cushions that did little but and the same time did enough to keep paralysis at bay. The view was incredible. Took lots of photos but none of them do the view any justice. Met some folk who we bump into around LP but probably won't see many from here on in.
We've had a few days in Luang Prabang now and are heading to Vang Vieng for tubing and opium dens in the morning. Can't decide what to have for tea though, there's a cracking curry house round the corner that might warrant a visit...
We had a whistle stop tour leaving Chiang Mai on a VIP bus that had more leg room than Business Class on a flight. We also had a stewardess and an inflight video! Of it was in Thai and made no sense whatsoever.
A night in Chaing Rai and then we hopped on the 6am bus to Chang Khong, got our passports stamped as we left Thailand, crossed the Mekong in Laos and got visa'd up. Bit of faffing got us to the slow boat which took two days to travel down the Mekong to Luang Prabang stopping overnight at Pak Beng.
As we docked with the jetty at Pak Beng, the boat was boarded by a dozen hawkers trying to flog their guest houses which meant no-one could easily get off the boat. we hopped out a side window and kept brushing people aside. I'm surprised no-one had a cutlass held aloft.
Boat trip was amaizing if a little hard on the buttocks. A wooden bench was our friend for the two day trip and thankfully we'd invested in cushions that did little but and the same time did enough to keep paralysis at bay. The view was incredible. Took lots of photos but none of them do the view any justice. Met some folk who we bump into around LP but probably won't see many from here on in.
We've had a few days in Luang Prabang now and are heading to Vang Vieng for tubing and opium dens in the morning. Can't decide what to have for tea though, there's a cracking curry house round the corner that might warrant a visit...
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