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Published: February 25th 2006
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Sunset on the river at Si Phan Don
This is the view we got as we were just on the way to Don Khon - nice innit? To be fair, I was constantly on the move for the next week so I can't really pin this blog down to one particular place but I was in Si Phan Don for 2 nights so I'll put it under that. Anyway, as I was saying...
If you read the last blog I did then you'll know that I got on a bus from Siem Reap absolutely shitfaced still and having had 1 hour kip so wasn't the most pleasant journey I'd ever had but I got to Kompong Cham by dinnertime and form there I got a share taxi with a Cambodian bloke and an Ausie couple (she was actually from Gosford in Sydney where I used to live years back and all, small world innit?!), to Kratie to get me closer to the Laos border. I had a wander round Kratie and decided there was pretty much no nightlife whatsoever so I booked my bus ticket to Si Phan Don that night. Got on the minibus at 8am next morning with 2 Swiss girls, 2 Dutch blokes and a German couple but 4 out of the 6 spoke good English so the journey was pleasant enough. Now at Stung
A Buddhist temple in Vientianne
There were shitloads of these around where I was staying, bright as fuck but quite impressive still Treng we were suppose to be getting a boat down the Mekong River to the border for some reason they put us in a boat across the river then banged us back in another minibus donw a ridiculously bumpy track to the border which took 2 hours, was nearly as much fun as the bus from Siem Reap but for very different reasons. lol.
At the border the Cambodian officials charged us $1 for paperwork fess and the robbing bastards on the Laos side wanted $2 but it shouldn't cost anything really but I couldn't be arsed arguing so I just paid. The trip to Si Phan Don from there was pretty uneventful apart from the boat ride to our island which was really nice. For all my mates reading this, Si Phan Don is a place in Laos where the Mekong divides up to make lots of little islands that you can have a look and stay on. Si Phan Don actually means 4000 islands so you can probably imagine the scale of it. I decided to stay on Don Khon which is one of the quieter places with guesthouses on it - no electric, no nightlife, just stunning
The waterfall on Don Khon
It was huge this thing but I couldn't fit it all in one pic coz it sprawled out all over the place views and lazy days by the river drinking Beer Laos - proper back to basics shit. Me and one of the Swiss girls checked in at Khampeng Guesthouse for only $1 a night although the place was as basic as it gets I had a bed and a mozzie net so it was sound. Me and the Swiss girl (I'm convinced she was called Chantelle but if I'm wrong and you're reading this then I'm really sorry, my memory is absolutely shocking though!), went for food at the restaurant down the road and spent the night chatting and drinking then we crashed out around 12ish or so. Was looking forward to watching United vs. Portsmouth game that night but not a lot you can do with no electric eh? lol
Got up at a decent time next day, rented some
proper shit bikes out from our place then we headed out on a tour round Don Khon and Don Det which are connected by an old French railway bridge from back in the day. Don Det was jsut full of guesthouses selling "happy" food in the restaurants (I'm not a big fan of eating weed so I gave that a
The view from my guesthouse
With a view like that and only $1 a night you can't really complain eh? Good shit even if I hated the bucket shower... ;o) swerve), so we went back to Don Khon to see Somphamit Waterfall and to try and spot some endangered Irrawaddy freshwater dolphins. No joy I'm afraid on the dolphin front but the waterfalls were pretty stunning (see pic), so it wasn't a wasted journey.
That night was spent getting leathered on Beer Lao and Lao Lao (Laos rice whiskey that's got about the same alcohol content as meths but is quite nice with honey and lemon added), and chatting to Chantelle and two Dutch girls then finally got home about 2am.
The next day I realised how low the cash supply was getting and since there are no banks or exchange places on either of the two islands we were near I had to get the boat up the river to Don Khong otherwise I'd be screwed. I said my goodbye's to people, paid my $3 hotel bill for 2 nights and one days bike rental (lol), then I was off on a rickety little longboat to sort my cash flow out. The journey took 1 hour 20 minutes and we nearly capsized when we hit some rocks but we arrived safe adn dry so no worries. Lost my sunny's
A Buddhist temple in Vientianne (part 2)
Same sorta stuff as the last one but needed some pics to pad this blog out so there ya go! getting out the boat but they only cost a quid in Siem Reap so it wasn't the end of the world. Bank was right by the boat drop off point so I was sorted with changing $100 in travellers cheques (god am I glad I brought an emergency lot of them just in case!), and was instantly made a millionaire in doing so (10000 kip to the $1 you see). lol. I checked in at Done Khong guesthouse for $5 a night but after a quick wander round the town of Muang Khong I decided that this was probably the dullest place I'd been to yet so started making plans to move on to Pakse the next morning.
The bus was 8am next morning and surprisingly I was up and about with time to spare. Paid my bill, picked up my "bus ticket" then jumped on the pickup that I assumed would take me to the bus. Half an hour driving later I assumed that this was the bus and to make matters worse, 100km's into the journey this girl starts taking money from people for the ride and when I ahnd her my "bus ticket" she just laughed at me and said that we weren't going to see the dolphins or waterfalls, 35000kip please. Taht numpty at Done Khong guesthouse has just scammed us outta $10 the f-ing bint! At least I could laugh about it at the time though so my temper must be easing off a bit. lol. We got to Pakse around lunchtime but the 1st guesthouse I tries, Sabaidy 2, was full but I as I was contemplating what to do I noticed a sign on the wall saying that there was a night bus to Vientianne @ 8:30pm so I bought that straight off I didn't really wanna stay in Pakse anyway and it'd save me a day or so for the future. The rest of the day was spent doing two of these blogs and having a really nice curry at Jasmine curry house then when it got to 8pm I got a moto from the guesthouse and was sorted on and on the bus piece of piss. I got seated next to this fat Laos bloke who snored like a fucker for the entire trip even though he wasn't properly asleep, god it aws stressful! 6am finally came round and we were in the capital. The tuk tuk driver was making a bit on the side by knocking weed out to people he met so decided on another bag full and got him to take us to Syri 2 guesthouse coz I was in desperate need of some kip. 4 hours later I was pretty much recovered so went straight out to get some scran and check the city out a bit. When you walk round you just can't believe this is a capital city - there's just nowt there! fair do's, it's got lots of noce temples but apart from that I couldn't see much that was gonna keep me here. It wasn't till alter that night that I actually made the decision to go next morning but that was coz I found out there were late buses going around 2pm so I thought that suited me fine. Although I didn't rate Vientianne for drinking, a bar called Khop Chai Dai was where I spent most of that night playing pool and chatting to two lads from Kent and it was pretty nice in there.
Next morning I sorted my bus ticket (definitely no dolphins this time. lol), took a couple of pics of the temples then before I knew it I was on my way to Vang Vieng to do a bit of tubing and lazing in the sun - good stuff! :o)
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