Blitz of Southern Laos and into Cambodia

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AHHHHHHH! Cam-bod-ia!! What a first impression!

First I suppose a major update is in order seeing as Vang Vieng was my last entry! Looking back, we enjoyed the north of Laos more than the south, but still had a ball travelling south from Vang Vieng to Vientiane, the capital, to Savannakhet, Pakse, Tadlo, and Si Phan Don before leaving Laos.

We called Vientiane our "business trip". The city itself is busy with activity including the morning market, which runs all day by the way, and an awkward duplicate of the arc de triomphe on the main boulevard. The city offered lots of very french-influenced architechture and we made the warm, fresh, baguettes a staple in our diet in Laos in general. We stayed 2 nights in Vientiane and filled the days with extending out Laos visas 5 days and getting our Cambodian visas at the embassy there, which is the cheapest way- this was the business part! We explored on bikes in the day, our new favourite activity. We found it unbearably hot there though and spent the hottest parts sipping a cool drink in a cafe or on the inertnet where the air-con kept us cool.

Onto Savannakhet, a 7 hour bus ride from Vientiane. I think there were only about 10 other foreigners in this town. We liked the friendly-ness of the people who always looked up from what they were doing- including turning heads on motorbikes!- to say Sabaydee (hello) to us. EVERYONE said "sabaydee!". Very friendly place! Like all the towns int he south, Savannakhet is situated on the Mekong River and we spent our 2 days there biking along the river, relaxing and reading at riverside restaurants. We even ventured to the local swimming hole where it seemed every kid in town was playing in the river- it was Sunday after all.

In Pakse, one of the bigger towns in the south (meaning it has an airport). We arrived in mid-afternoon and the blazing heat. We went to find some eats and were surprised and delighted to meet up once again with out pals andrew and tess. we thought we wouldn't see them again and we had last parted without exchanging emails! Needless to say that was the first thing we did! We napped that afternoon but met up with them and a group of kiwi boys for dinner and a few drinks later that night. The next day andrew, tess, brookes, and I borded a local bus to Tadlo Falls. It is located just east and a bit north of Pakse, about a 2 hour bus ride into the Bolaven Plateau. We stayed in a quiet village right next to the wide waterfalls. We spent our day swimming in the river, relaxing and socializing. The town there was full of children- so cute! We dont seem to see many teenagers here, mainly babies and kids upto about 10. They were not shy either and love to have their picure taken!

We loved it there, but decided to head back to Pakse to catch a bus south to Si Phan Don and the 4 thousand islands where we could stay put for a few days. We took another local bus to Pakse, this one lined 2 or 3 high with rice bags down the isle!! After parting with Tess and Andrew, we caught a pick up to Nakasang, the jumping off point for Don Det, our island of choice. Let me tell you about this pick up. It's one of the converted ones i've talked about with the benched along the side. The difference is that this one also has a bench down the middle and is a bit longer than the usual ones. We estimated it would be suitable for about 20 people comfortably. That's not the way they do things in Laos though. We shoved about 28 people in, watermelons, suitcases, and who knows what else. It was PACKED! It was funny for me at the time because i had a decent seat, but for Brookes it was only funny a day or two later! There were many stops along the way and when we stopped more people and stuff got on (is it possible?) and once and a while some got off- it was not an equal tradeoff though! Also at these stops about 20 women and girls rushed towards the truck selling everything from aggs on a stick to chicken and fish and who knows what else on a stick, to water and pop, to vegetable, curry, and rice!! A woman next to me bought a bunch of what looked like jumbo white radished and smelled like potatoes. She motioned for me to rip one off. After i did, she showed me how to peel it and told me to take a bite. It tased like a potato only a bit sweeter like an apple. The texture was also of an apple, but i have no idea what it actually was. About 3 and a half hours later we got off the truck and boarded a longtail boat for a 10 minute ride to Don Det.

We arrived on the island and immediately noticed how peaceful it was. lined with bunglaow huts with hammocks, restaurants, local farms and fields, copius amouts of livestock and chickens and cats. We found a nice set of bungalows a bit out of the way and settled in for 4 days of pure relaxation. We layed on our hammocks, read our bookes, visited the beach, swam when we were hot (which was always) and ate when we were hungry. One day we rented bikes and visited the nearby waterfall. It was a huge, powerfull waterfall. It was very rocky and wide and all the different streams met in a gorge. There was a beach not too far away but the current was too strong to swim. It was a good day outing, but we needed to get back and swim!!

That brings me to February 12th when we reluctantly packed up and set out to cross the border into Cambodia. The journey was composed of a boat trip to the mainland (very smoothe), a pickup ride to the Laos border (ok except for the last 5 miutes when I thought we were driving through golf bunkers- that's how big the potholes were!), a 1km walk with our packs to a mini van let by the nerdiest asian person i have even seen in my life, and ride to the Cambodian side of the border on a dirt road through the bush that was there for the sole purpose of the border, and continuing on in this same van after the driver discretely changed the tire while we waited for our stamps. This is where things got interessting. We all piled in, me in the front not feeling well from combined motion-sickness and stomach not liking something i ate. After about an hour we stopped- not because we had reached our destination, but because we had another flat! This time there was no spare to fix it so we waited in the heat for the next "bus" to drive by. right.

The next bus was a pick up, seemingly empty. No, not empty at all. As we drew closer a horrible stench came to our noses. We peered in the back to fing 3 HUGE PIGS!! Oh well....we piled our stuff on top along with 4 people. 4 other climed in with the pigs and 2 of us rode on the back with our van driver and the tire. Luckily we had only 10 miutes or so of road to go. Only in Asia!! We boarded another boat which took us to the town of Stung Trang, Cambodia, had lunch and got in a somewhat more roadworthy-looking van for the remaining 3 hours to the town of Kratie, our stopping point for that day.

Whew! what a day! i lost my breakfast, couldn't bear the thought of lunch, and spent that night and the next day recouperating, yikes! glad that's over but it does make a good tale now. Things can definetly be funnier in retrospect. Welcome to Cambodia!

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