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Published: December 16th 2010
Laos Border Post
Cute Laos border post.Happy Easter and Happy Lunar New Year, which is tomorrow in Thailand and here in 2 days.
I didn't get to leave Banlung on the intended day due to the tour shop failing at securing me a ticket so I had one last day to pass the time with - this led to me cycling 15km through the villages and down the dusty red dirt roads to another waterfall. On arrival the skies turned unbelievably rapidly into a swirling mass of dark damp clouds. Then the monsoon started.
Incredibly heavy rain and brutal wind combined to slap my face and blind my vision. On top of this, as I said I was 15km away on a stinking push bike who's capacity of being a mountain bike failed very quickly into simply being a one gear plough, wheels digging deep and cutting grooves through the red mud. Finally on reaching the main road (still dirt road of course) I encountered a newly formed river looking scarily similar in colour to a river of blood. Me being me I bombed into it in my attempt to cross and got promptly dragged downstream a couple of metres before escaping.
Whilst cycling
through the torrential downpour with the fantastically bright lightening directly overhead you really see Cambodian village life strike into action. Children soaking outside dancing in the rain, kicking puddles, firing water pistols (odd) and generally having a pretty fantastic time. Parents on the other hand are seen throwing buckets and buckets of water out of their homes; a lot are built on stilts for reasons now even more obvious to me, but some unfortunately aren't. Along with the buckets, other adults grab any digging implement they can and head to the front of their land with optimism of extending the trench in front of the house to divert any of the water flow they can. Children and parents still wave and laugh as I slowly churn my way past, I wave back and smile at them in return.
On arrive at the guesthouse having a shower felt like getting dry compared to outside, it was brutal hard hard getting back, but fantastic fun and great getting to see that side of the life. Plus, at least I wasn't spending the night of monsoon in the jungle like some people I know!
Crossing the border into Cambodia was a
fairly mixed thing, a bus then a taxi took us to the Cambodian border post - I was with a German couple at this time. After they asked for a dollar for the visa stamp (corruption of course) the German girl, Corrine refused to pay flat out and the big Cambodian officer picked up our passports and put them in his briefcase (left open) and walked off. Of course we just grabbed them and left the country with our stamps and having not bowed to the feeble corruption. Of course the same thing happened at the sorry looking Laos border-post for the entry visa and we paid this one, obviously when you want to enter a country you are slightly more obliged to pay. Corrine did put up a good fight though, even asking for a receipt though the officer simply pretended he didn't understand - an expert defense in almost any situation!
After waiting in the middle of nowhere for an hour we were picked up and sat cramped in a tiny mini-van as part of a total of 19 people, proper Asian travelling! Took the boat to Don Det and welcomed the 4000 islands of south Laos.
The 4000 is a bit crap really, they count everything and anything that sticks out of the water as an island in this part of the Mekong.
Spent 7-8 days (not really sure to be honest) lounging in a hammock, swinging away, drinking a BeerLao here and there, smoking weed (brought from an American who's been there for 4 months with his wife and has a truly epic ponytail style white beard) and swimming in the river whenever cooling off was required.
We had a mini full-moon party on 'Tribbiani Island', named after Joey from Friends on account of one of the cities up north's obsession with the program that leads to almost all of the cafes playing it constantly (so I'm told). This included 'tubing' (a term you'll all get familiar with me using over the next month) to the island with a bag of beer and joining everyone else, some of which had managed to set up a BBQ with 3 hefty chickens! After falling asleep half in the water, half lying on my tube I decided to retreat.
Saw some beautiful waterfalls on Don Khong and a pathetic train built by the French during
their rule of the country.
Not really much else to say about Don Det, it's as chilled as a naked Englishman at the North Pole, extremely beautiful and the locals are so laid back you could almost call them lazy, except you never do anything there either! All the riverside bungalows have hammocks and a mini farm roaming about them. We have two troops of ducklings, 1 chicken group, 3 pigs, 2 dogs and a couple of scrawny cats as well. Ate cheaply courtesy of the infamous celeb of the island, 'Somosa Lady'.
In Pakse now, couple of hours north. Not too much here except some crusty old French colonial buildings in an otherwise fairly modern looking place. Going to chill here for the day, eat some chocolate as it's Easter and hopefully find a working cash machine before I run out of money completely.
Will hopefully head a bit further up North tomorrow, hanging around with 3 British people at the moment and we all got a wee bit tipsy watching Liverpool thrash Blackburn and United luckily get a result again Sunderland. This was definitely a luxury as the 4000 Islands don't even have electricity
Water Buffalo
Most definitely not rocks as I initially thought. yet, so nice to see a TV!
Happy Easter All, enjoy your eggs and fat tasty tasty dinners whilst I eat crappy noodles with stinking chopsticks and M&M's! Also, if you didn't notice yet, you can click on the pictures on here and see them full size, go on - why not give it a try?????!
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