Laos

(11/1/2007-25/1/2007)

Because there were only four of us going on the boat, it meant we didn't have to get up too early. Once we'd had breakfast we went down to the river to our "speedboat", which was a rickety looking, narrow boat with one of the weird long stemmed motors they have in South-East Asia. With our bags in the front, we sat in two abreast and set off down the river for two hours. At first it was fine, but soon it it got narrower and wilder on the riverbank, trees with huge root systems and all looking as if they were facing a constant strong wind, probably because they're half underwater in the wet season, and the water got choppier. It was probably actually quite dangerous, but pretty fun, and we got to the border in about 2 hours. This part was quite fun too, as on the Cambodian side there was just a small village, and when we gave the officials our passports we all had to slip a $1 note in so everything would go smoothly. We did the same on the Lao side, a half hour walk along a dirt track to a wooden house and a cabin that was the checkpoint. We then had a brief wait before someone came to pick us up in a nice big van to take us to our boat across to the Si Phan Don (Thousand Islands), a group of islands in the middle of Mekong.

More specifically, we were taken to Don Det, the backpacker island, and therefore full of restaurants with western food and stuff, and the entire economy centred around tourism. All the accommodation was in small bungalows, we got one for $3 a night with a concrete bathroom separated from the room by a plastic sheet, the shower consisting of a bucket of water, which was also for flushing, although at least the toilet was a western one. There's no electricity on the island apart from petrol generators at a few of the cafés. Once we'd found somewhere to stay and had something to eat, we went for a walk on the sunset side of the island, almost reaching the other end we discovered later, but it meant we missed the actual sunset, although at the bar we went to see it we met a bunch of people from Perth...

The next day we rented bikes so I could try to learn to ride as there were no cars, but the paths were still lined with barbed wire fences, and we started shortly after noon, so obviously I got overcome by the heat and gave up pretty quick. Instead we went for a swim in the river on the sunset side, as all around the island there isn't a strong current, probably due to all the other islands. After sunset, which was always pretty impressive from Don Det, we had dinner of laap, a local dish of minced meat, then spent the rest of the evening drinking beer in our hammocks on the porch of our bungalow. The next day was pretty similar only without the bikes, just a short walk, we managed to catch the whole sunset for once, and for dinner I had tom yam soup, a kind of sour soup with lemon grass. For our last day we decided to walk to the other island, connected to Don Det by an old railway bridge, the only one the French build during their occupation, which seems a bit pointless. On this island there is an amazingly waterfall, which comes as a bit of a shock on such a tiny island, and also a nice beach where we went for a swim. You can also go for boat trips to see the Mekong dolphins, but we didn't bother. We learnt afterwards that Nina, our Finnish friend from the Mongolian trip, was also on Don Det at the same time as us, but we somehow managed to miss each other.

From Don Det we got a boat and then a kind of truck to Pakse, the nearest large down, which was alright to wander around for a bit, though nothing special. I had guava juice there, but they did something odd, possibly put salt instead of sugar, anyway it was undrinkable. We had to spend a night there and then get a bus following the Mekong (which is the border between Laos and Thailand) to Savannakhet, a nice crumbling colonial town by the river, where we also had to spend a night. If we go back I think we'd want to spend a bit longer there, it was very nice to wander around. The next day we got up very early and managed to get the bus before the one we were aiming for at 6.40 to get to Vientiane, the capital. An hour or two before we arrived, the bus broke down, so we had to all squeeze into a local bus, which had baggage guys climbing on and off the roof as we went along, coming in and out the windows, and walking about on top, we could see their shadows. Once we managed to reach the centre we stopped for donuts at the Scandinavian Bakery, and discovered from other travellers that nearly everywhere was full, so we went straight to the one they recommended. At $10 a night it seemed a bit pricey after where we'd been before, but it had hot water for the first time since Saigon. We had a dinner of chicken and beef hotpot by the river on cushions around a table made of a tractor tyre painted gold. For our only full day in Vientiane (we hoped) we did some washing in our room, then got a bus to Xieng Khuane, a park built by some mystic loon full of statues from Buddhist and Hindu mythology. One was particularly cool as it was shaped like some kind of giant fruit and you could climb up inside it, entering through an open mouth.

Heading north once more, we got the bus to Vang Vieng, even more of a tourist resort than Don Det, with the crazy phenomenon of TV bars, where instead of normal chairs there are kind of sofas to slouch back on, all facing TVs, most of which seemed to play Friends. We managed to find a nice cheap hotel room behind one of them that played the Simpsons instead, had a walk about down by the river (not the Mekong this time) and had beer in hammocks until after sunset before going for dinner at the tasty Organic Farm Café. Vang Vieng's main attraction though is tubing, which we tried the next day once we'd both bought flipflops with skull and crossbones on them. You rent a giant inflated inner tube, get taken by tuctuc to a launch point a view miles up river, then float back to the town, admiring the scenery (kind of similar to Yangshuo again), and stopping at bars on the river bank, some of which have flying foxes and swings landing you in the water. It was great fun, if completely free of health and safety regulations (though it was dry season, so not too dangerous, in wet season it would be), and we met a nice Australian couple from Sydney who like us hung about too long and didn't get back until after dark, and we had dinner with them at the same place as the night before. They even offered to let me stay with them, as at the time I was planning on going to Sydney at some point (not any more though).

Unfortunately or usual tactic of just turning up to get a bus to our next destination didn't quite pay off, as the main bus was full so we had to get a pricey mini-bus. Probably there would have been a local bus soon enough, but the bus station staff were unhelpful, so we just took it. Quite a few people had raved about Luang Prabang, but once we got there and eventually found a (comparatively pricey) hotel, it didn't seem like anything special. It was nice enough, and they had good pancakes with brightly coloured fillings, but I thought Savanakhet was nicer, although I suppose if you have a romantic notion of Buddhism all the monasteries might appeal. The setting was very pretty though, amongst mountains at the meeting of two rivers (one of them the Mekong), it was quite relaxed, with locals playing boule (the French version of bowls or however you want to describe it), and we discovered the delicious Cornetto flavour that is Black Forest Magic. On the evening of the second day we went to the market full of local stuff for tourists, Sally bought some presents for family, but as I'm not going home any time soon I just got a cool monster doll thing, and then chicken and rice, Sally's favourite meal. For our last day we spent a while negotiating with tuctuc drivers, eventually finding an America girl to come with us to bring the price down, and we were taken to the waterfall. In wet season it must be impressive, but when we went it seemed fairly standard really. Swimming in the pools was fun though, if a bit cold, on the way back we saw buffalo who'd had their horns painted pink, and we had a really good meal in the evening.

The next day we'd made the mistake of booking through a travel agent, as we'd decided not to go to Chiang Mai after all but go straight to Bangkok, which meant going through Vientiane and we wanted to make sure we could get the bus to Thailand the day we got to Vientiane, 24 hours of buses in total, but the guy assured us we could, phoning up the office in Vientiane about 8 times to make sure. First problem was at the start. The bus didn't leave until 6.30, but apparently we had to be there at 5.30, the only reason we could see being so we had to pay more for a tuctuc, but we did that anyway, but the bus didn't leave until 8! Once we got to Vientiane we phoned the number we'd been given to get the pickup we'd been assured we would get, but apparently it didn't exist so we had to get our own tuctuc to the office, he then didn't know where it was so we had to ask at a hotel, and when we got to the office they told us the bus had already gone and there was no way to catch it that day. Sally phoned up the office in Luang Prabang, but they were unhelpful, refused to give us any money to pay for the night in Vientiane we now had to or in fact do anything. One of the hazards of travel in the Third World I suppose.

Luckily the hotel we'd stayed at before had room, and they recognised us so let us have a bigger room for the same price as the time before. We spent the next day have beer, coffee and ice cream then went to the office an hour before we were meant to be there just to make sure. 15 minutes after the time we'd got there the day before, someone arrived and took us literally around the corner to another hotel to wait for another half an hour, when someone else brought us around the next corner to the bus, a horrible mosquito infested thing that would take us to the border. only it wouldn't for another half an hour, so how we couldn't have got it the day before we didn't understand. But eventually we did get to the border, paid the Laos officials "overtime fee" and got across to Thailand and our nice VIP double-decker bus. 40 minutes later we stopped for dinner, but finally at 8.30 we were heading for Bangkok, unfortunately with some stupid, irritating, loudmouthed English girl blathering most of the way keeping us awake. At 6.30 we finally arrived, only 24 hours later than we wanted to...