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Crossing the border from Cambodia into Laos was a happy moment. Some people were peeved about paying the $1 bribe but I was over the moon after our 4 day saga of being stuck in the cess pit of Cambodia so we (me, Emma and Sarah from Brisbane) marked our crossing with a celebratory can of beer. I instantly had a good feeling about Laos despite not knowing what to expect from 4,000 islands but I reckoned one of them had to be good seeing as there are 4,000 of them* Everything was more appealing - the landscape more breathtaking and tropical, the music more reggae and the people less in your face - you pass the street sellers by and they give you a nonchalant "sabaidee." You don't feel like you're sticking out like a sore thumb. A sign up in our regular haunt in Don Dhet really encapsulates the relaxed attitude of the Laotians: "if you want fast service, go somewhere else!" We made our way to Don Dhet after a few recommendations from people we met along the way and got a typical Asian longtail boat over to our destination. Most Westerners feel a little anxious as a
longtail virgin but the guys who drive these things are seriously talented. You want to see what they can pack on these things and you never see anything falling in! On our way across I even witnessed a boat carrying motorbikes (not a longtail though, I think that would defy the laws of gravity somehow). It was so great being back by the water. After being landlocked for a month, I think I experienced the equivalent feeling a junkie does when they get their hit when I saw the sea* for the first time. Like two lovers reunited I ran over to it, looked at it, caressed it and was grinning from ear to ear for the rest of the day. I think the other travellers thought I was a bit odd and using the lover analogy, it was probably a bit like ("I don't know what she sees in him"). Ah well, I didn't care because I was knee deep in the Mekong (a.k.a. my new best friend).
If Cambodia is full of beeping cars then Laos is full of animals. Everywhere you turn you are trying to avoid cutting the life short of a baby chicken. It
There's no price on a sunset
...well apparently there is at 10,000KIP is like a current day Noah's ark except without the animals going two abreast. I could give you a long list of what I saw but that would be boring but I will say that my friend Arne narrowly missed stepping on a snake when we were going through a building site and that I got the fright of my life when I was walking home one night to see a water buffalo grazing outside a shop on the main road! It's nice though, I really felt like I was going back to my roots with all this nature surrounding me. The island is so small you can cycle around it and to the other one in a couple of hours and see some nice stuff like a huge waterfall and the only train track in Laos that the French put down when they were over here, they must have gotten bored though because it wasn't very long! All the guesthouses give you pushbikes for a few dollars a day so you spend your days cycling around. It was a bit weird going back to using my feet after spending a week zipping around like speedy gonzales. Don Dhet was
Start on the new year's celebrations at the temple
They're washing the bhudda with scented water before a massive 4 day non-stop waterfight the first time I really felt like I was on a holiday from Ireland - we had many lazy days on the beach, sitting in the water for hours on end drinking beer Laos, eating amazing pumpkin burgers and having water fights. It was the first time I got to be in bars and restaurants where you sit on the floor - if you are not relaxed after that then nothing will chill you out. I can see how this could become really overrun by tourism in a few years - we even met a guy who likened himself to Richard from "The Beach." He went on about how he never tells anyone about this place unless they are cool enough - only then will he divulge his secret information (I'm afraid the Lonely Planet empire may have surpassed you on this one - get over it). We spent most of our waking hours in Don Dhet outdoors seeing as our bedroom was a mosquito infested inferno and there was no electricity meaning no way of keeping cool. The only bone of contention I did have with the place was the 10pm curfew meaning walking around with a torch if
Hawaiian tropic, Laos style.
He might look adorable but he meant business with that supersoaker you do decide to break the rules. And mine was a headtorch so I had all sorts of bugs flying at my face. You can't even sit outside in your hostel grounds at ngiht and have a beer. I felt like I was at summercamp again when the hostel owners asked me where I was going every time I left the place. And there is a big fine demanded by police (and a bigger one for us falang) if they do so fancy doing a quick swoop on the beach or wherever you might try and have a late night beer. It is a bit of the double-edged sword because it means you go out to eat/walk etc. at the same time the government decide to give the islanders a few hours of electricity. It is hard to believe that such a laidback place is still under the iron fist but it is ever present and things like this serve as a reminder of the fact that Laos is a communist country.
It was the ideal time to be Laos because we got to celebrate the "Songkran" - the Bhuddist new year which consists of three to four days of constant partying. On the first day we went to the temple and after the ceremony everyone washed all the Bhuddas outside from head to toe and then started the waterfight. And when I say waterfight I don't mean a couple of water balloons but a constant waterfight - no exaggeration. They put all sorts of things in the water: suds, oils and dyes. For this time I barely left my room with anything valuable because no matter what, I was going to get soaked. One day our group of friends decided to go on a bit of a pub crawl with our bikes. After about 15 minutes the pub crawl was discarded and the beers were put to the side after an impromptu waterfight in one of the bars with the local kids. They were experts at this, when there was no water supply they used the not so clean mekong water. I felt like I was 10 again, we were going for about 4 hours and the only reason we stopped was because it had started to get dark. It was one of my favourite days of the whole trip. Not once did the bar owners bat an eyelid or tell us to be quiet and the place was completely waterlogged - it's a Bhuddist thing after all. Another night, another impromptu waterfight commenced in an Indian restaurant and people were running into the kitchen to use the industrial sized pots to soak people. Not a word was said - even the people working there stopped working and starting soaking people. Our very last day in Don Dhet was another lazy day spent in a bar playing cards. Beside our table there was a plank with a big drop where people fish from or jump off into the Mekong. All day, resulting from my aversion to heights I refused to go on the plank and jump off but by the end of the it I lost a game of snap to which meant the loser had to walk the plank. I still think they cheated me but I'm glad I did it to shut them up. It didn't surprise me when I got really ill a few hours later after 4 days of being soaked in dirty water- unfortunately I didn't get to enjoy my last few hours in Don Dhet due to spending my time talking to God on the big white telephone. I swear I was a stone lighter after that episode. After a week in Don Dhet, I was looking forward to seeing what the north had to offer...I was already head over heels in love with Laos.
* not really true
* I must add at this point that the Mekong delta does not constitute as the sea but also hasten to add that an adequate amount of salt in it and the wave motion is good enough for me. Let's not be picky here- beggars can't be choosers and all that
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