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Published: October 2nd 2009
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Don Kong was spectacularly peaceful, dirt roads in every direction, a few houses, kids, chickens and goats milling about, people riding bicycles, no cars. The few guesthouses were all within 500 feet of where I arrived so I compared a few and found a nice room with a fan and a bathroom for 50,000 kip a night (about $5.50). I appeared to be the only tourist currently visiting the island, which was fine with me. Don Kong is 15 miles long by 5 miles wide and is almost entirely inhabited by rice farmers, who mostly eat the rice they grow, as well as the fish they catch and the vegetables from their gardens and from the small outdoor market. I biked around the flat island and saw huge fields of rice, looking as it does like grass growing submerged under a few inches of water. In the midst of the fields, there'd be a house set up on stilts, made of whatever the people could find, scrap metal, wooden boards, thatched bamboo. The windows were either open, covered in thick rice bags or wooden scraps. There was no glass in the windows. Some of the houses were well constructed but others
looked very shoddy, as if they’d fall down if the wind blew. I think it all depends on the construction ability of the family, as the house is built by them, with help from friends and neighbors. Water buffalo, cows, goats, chickens, turkeys and dogs roamed the fields and the roads. The smaller animals come home in the evening but sometimes the bigger ones wander off, and must be retrieved by the sound of the bell they wear around their necks. The pigs, enormously fat and lethargic, were tied to trees. Funny that they, the only animals held captive, seemed the least likely or able to run away.
The kids all yelled “hello!” before I’d even see them. They’d yell from windows or fields or run out to the road to meet me, even though I’m not the first foreigner they’ve seen. In my travels by bicycle across the whole island, I came across about five other tourists but I think in the winter time many tourists visit the island. All the adults easily offer a smile and a hello too. These people are so poor but they do not seem sad; this is their life, they are used
to it, they make the best of it. It's sad to see though.
If you visit Laos for one day you care about the people, because they are so generous, kind and caring, and you don't want them to be living in such basic conditions. Power lines were set up all over the island, bringing electricity, but there was no running water for the farmers. They have wells, and they pump the water in to buckets and bring the buckets to the house for cooking and cleaning and washing. Usually all this is done in the area under the house, because remember, the house is up on stilts. The under-area is cooler than the house, so that’s where people hang out during the day if they are not working in the fields. Many people were out plowing their fields with the help of a water buffalo. One person guides the buffalo, the buffalo pulls the metal plow, and another person directs the plow. This all happens in a few inches of mud, making it a hard and exhausting job.
The first day on the island, I walked along a street in town where the houses are closer together,
because many of these people are shop-keepers. Everyone wanted to chat. There was a soccer field in front of the high school covered in huge muddy ruts, but boys were playing anyway. I think the boys must be used to it because I didn’t see a single person slip and fall. I was invited for a Pepsi with the former director of the high school, an excellent English speaker, who is now enjoying a relaxing retirement sitting by the side of the road with his friends, chatting. Then I was invited to stay for some lao-lao (homemade rice whiskey) and then I was invited to stay for dinner. All this from walking by the house! Can you imagine this in New England? Never; but I’ve heard the South of the US is incredibly hospitable, similiar to Laos.
Dinner was Korean-BBQ style, a very popular way of cooking in Lao these days. A table-top size cement pot is filled with wood, lit, and a metal grill with a moat is placed atop. Then everyone uses chopsticks to cook meat atop the grill, and cook vegetables and noodles and soup in the moat. These guys were having a meat fiesta; pork,
chicken, beef, buffalo, I couldn’t eat meat for days afterwards. And the lao-lao was consumed continually, lao-style, which means each person takes turns being the host, which means each person takes turns pouring shots for everyone present. The lao-lao on this island was reputed to be the best in the country and it lived up to its reputation. The party broke up early, about 8:30, because people here get up REALLY early. (I woke up at 5:30 every morning and it felt like people had been up for hours!)
Continued in Don Kong Part Two...
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donnie
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you are absolutely right.lao people do get up hella early in the morning when others tend to go to sleep.heck no,it never happen if you're drinking lao lao. lol...even you're got the biggest hung over from the booze they still drinking again.we lao are crazy when it comes to drinking but we drink in a nice respectful matter for fun and for our guest to enjoy our hospitality.