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Published: December 24th 2008
Sunset over Tha Khaek
At least one nice thing in this dump of a town...I left Savannakhet for Tha Khaek just to go to a good jump off point for the famous Tham Kong Lo cave. So I went from one shithole to another... Tha Crap was a real piece of shit town and I stayed in the worst dump so far. I wanted cheap and I got cheap - a crappy and dirty room for 35 000 kip with a shared "bathroom" with the dreaded squat toilet and filthy floor. I prayed to unknown powers that I wouldn't get the "urge"... Luckily my prayers were answered.
While in this crappy town I tried to get some info on going to the cave as I had nothing of the sort. I noticed a place where a bunch of buses were parked and walked in. A happy guy greated me and stuck a glass of beer (with ice - heathens!) in my hand. This was nice as I just was thinking of getting myself a cold one. My ass was sat down amongst a group of guys enjoying beers on this Sunday afternoon. A young guy started to chat me up in half-assed English and he told me there was a bus going the next
View 1
Here's what I saw when stepping out on the porch in my guesthouse in Ban Phou Ngeng (right view). day at 7AM. The guys at the table were all busdrivers or involved in the business somehow. They kept filling up my glass and that was nice, but honestly, this interacting-with-the-locals-thing isn't really my cup of tea. It's not that I dislike laotians, it's that I dislike interacting with people I can't communicate with in an interesting way. Yes, I'm an anti-social fuck! But seriously, is it really rewarding when the guy doesn't understand half of what you say and you can't understand half of what he is saying?
Here comes a creepy part: we were talking sports and he was explaining that they liked soccer, volleyball and something similar to boccia in Laos. He started to go through the files on his cellphone and I thought he was about to show me what he was talking about. He shows me the phone and all of a sudden I see this scene from the Iraqi war where some prisoner gets his throat cut! What the fuck!? What a goddamn moron! I'm not the squeamish type, but I don't really enjoy watching people get killed for real on camera... "What the hell is that!?" I asked. "Iraq war" he answered
View 2
The left side view from the porch. without any sign of joking or revealing why he, out of the blue, had shown me this shit. I let it pass as I was enjoying the beer. Wonder what that says about my charchter..?
My mind was a bit clouded by the beer when he asked me where I wanted to go next and as I was hungry I said "to some restaurant". Big mistake when you want to be a cheap ass... So he took me to his brother-in-law's joint on his motorbike (no such thing as DUI exists in Laos... apparently) and while we were going there his girlfriend suddenly showed up alongside us on a motorbike. THEN it dawned on me that "Shit! I'll have to buy these people dinner!" Of course I was right but luckily it only cost me half of what I counted on. So the beers didn't come that cheap after all... I don't mind buying people drinks or food but I'd like it to be on my initiative... During dinner the weird guy told me how fat and ugly his girlfriend, sitting right next to him, was. "You shouldn't say that" I told him but he explained that he still
Guesthouse
Distant view of my place in above mentioned village. Sweet huh? loved her. Charming fellow...
NEXT DAY
I got up earlier than the locals for once to catch the "7AM" bus. No breakfast in sight until I came to the bus station/market. I boarded the bus and the "7AM" bus left at 7:35. No sweat, as I'd been told that the trip to Na Hin would only take two hours. I figured that it'd maybe take three, knowing the truthfulness of laotian timetables, and this would still be enough to catch the latest (in a while) sawngthaew at 11AM from Na Hin to Ban Phou Ngeng, which was my last destination. I chose my seat carefully, not to be directly under one of the ceiling speakers, knowing I was in for some dreadful karaoke again. Turned out those speakers were turned off in favour of a couple of GIANT speakers right next to my ear, that I'd missed... So I changed seats... From the get go they blasted a truly loathsome CD with some guy moaning out the EXACT same song 12 times or something!!! Ultra cheesy shit with cheap ass instruments (sounded like some 100$ Casio keyboard and some cheesecake drummachine...) being played and this asshole wailing on
Neighbour
This fellow, at least as big as my really big hand (I got long fingers), was sitting right infront of my porch. I hope it's deadly! Yeah probably... top of it all. There was only a slight difference in the arrangement of the song. Was this some mix album from Hell? My poor musical soul was ripped to shreds by this ungodly shit. What is wrong with these people?!?!?! Now I know how Noriega felt when American troops blasted him with rock music or the poor prisoners at Guantanamo Bay who were tortured with Christina Aguilera. When you really enjoy good music and you're subjected to utter crap you suffer - BAD! At least they changed the "music" to some karaoke shit that was more like Western sleazy love ballads, still awful but not as painful to listen to as the first shit.
After more than three hours I was getting a bit frustrated by not knowing when the trip would end. By this time we were craaaawling up winding mountain roads and everything went in slow motion. Even though I knew I could do nothing about this I got agitated when thinking of the sawngthaew I was about to miss. Naturally NO ONE could tell me anything dispite my efforts of asking with sign language and phrases from the "Lonely Planet"... AAARRRRGGHHH! The mountain scenery was
Tham Kong Lo
Ahh! Here it is, da famous cave (yes, it's down there)! I never found the creature of the lagoon though... awesome, but I couldn't quite enjoy it in this state of mind.
We finally got to Na Hin and of course there was no need for my worries, even though we arrived after 11AM, as a sawngthaew dude came up to me instantly. I was packed in with a load of food, other crap and some people and off we went. We picked up a bunch of Aussies on the way so I could finally speak to someone and exchange info. I now got to know that this uncomfortable ride would take about 1,5 hours, going 40km's... Nice... When we arrived the Aussies got a head start as I wasn't told this was my stop. When I caught up with them at the guesthouse, they'd been given the last rooms - my usual luck. It's not the first time this has happened. However, there was another guesthouse in this tiny village and I got a really nice room (MUCH better than the dump in Tha Khaek!!!) for 50 000 kip. Turned out I was lucky (!!!) as the Aussie family paid 27$ for their rooms! What a rip-off! And I would've taken a room there as I would've thought
The mouth of madness..
err... I mean of the cave! there's no other place in this village...
I was planning on going straight to the cave after dumping my big backpack at the guesthouse but as I was hungry and didn't want to rush (had to find a ride get to the cave before 3PM) I decided to relax and stay for two nights instead. As this place is BEAUTIFUL, it's not a bad place to be stuck in! I did some walking around, chasing butterflies with my camera down by the river and just enjoying the peace and beauty of nature. After this I was chilling with a Beer Lao on the porch and really, really, really enjoying myself when all hell broke loose... All of a sudden some cro magnon piece of shit cocksucking local assshole started blasting the EXACT SAME HORRIBLE PIECE OF SHIT that had tortured me on the bus!!! Ripping through the peace and quiet of nature was now this SHIT destroying my nirvanic enjoyment. Oh, the loathing that came over me! Not even in this piece of Heaven can I get away from that shit. I truly wanted to hurt that fucking scumbag blasting this "music", conjuring up images of shoving broken bottles
Flashy interior
Look how they upgraded the cave for us tourists! For once it's pretty nice. into his anonymus face... Who would've thought this? The sounds of Hell came from some fucking "hut", maybe ten yards away. I had not much choice but to get my laptop and blast some music of my own. So much for enjoying the stillness and beauty of nature...
Dinner cost me three times as much as usual as the place (the Aussies guesthouse) didn't have any competition. On top of that it wasn't as good as the meals in Savannakhet. The "pork" seemed to be ill prepared beef and I got some cold rice aswell. Icing on the shit-cake was that they wanted to overcharge me, not by much but still - nice gesture...I didn't let them!
D-DAY
I had decided to go to the cave by sawngthaew as the boatride would be too costly when going by myself and the Aussie head of the family had told they'd do the same. When I got to the restaurant to have my breakfast the owner told me the Aussies would take a boat really soon. Really? After I'd finished my breakfast I met the Aussie father and he didn't say anything about a boat and when parting ways
Pit stop
On the other side. A bunch of vendors but this nice view aswell. he said he'd be seeing me at the sawngthaew. Okay... guess the restaurant guy was wrong. Later when I was waiting for the sawngthaew there was no sight of any Aussies and I jumped onboard by myself. You see, dear reader, I was really eager to share expences with these guys as everything is so goddamned expensive when you have to do it by yourself. Each boat that goes through the cave takes three passengers and costs 100 000 kip. Every passenger pays an additional 5000 kip for a ticket. So of course you want to share a boat with preferably two more people. Since the Aussies had left me in the dust I looked around in the sangthaew and counted five tourists and a local. Hmm, that makes two boatloads... But maybe the local dude won't take the ride? When we got there I asked if there was room for me in one of the boats but naturally the local was their guide and would ride with them, so no luck with them either. The guide suggested I should wait around for other tourists, "there will be plenty". So I did. After half an hour or so the Aussie
Gorgeous!
No, not the dude in the boat but the scenic ride back into the cave. father and his daughter showed up and he explained how they'd gotten lucky and stumbled on a boat ride to this place. I guess he "forgot" to mention that earlier in the morning, so the restaurant dude was right! And now they'd be only two persons in the boat but as he was so "claustrophobic" they'd only take a short ride into the cave so no need for me to tag along... Swell! What a lying sack of shit! So I was a bit bitter sitting in my loneliness and waiting for someone to MAYBE show up. It seems that everytime a try hard to catch a break I get shot down. The only times I get lucky is when something just falls in my lap (and that sure as hell ain't often!) I waited around for 75 minutes but naturally no sight of any tourists. "Fuck this shit!" I said and paid up the entire 105 000 kip and got my own boat.
The ride soon changed my somber mood and I really enjoyed it, gliding in darkness through this 7km nature made cathedral. Only the boat guys' headlights spread some light in the vast darkness. I had
The light at the end...
A really nice and cool ride is over. Sigh... to get out a couple of times so they could haul he boat over some shallow ground or rapids. We made a longer stop not quite halfway into the cave and one of the guys led me up into the darkness. He turned on some switch and all of a sudden there were a bunch of spotlights bathing the stalagtites (?) in colored light - beautiful! The ride through the inside of this mountain continued and after an hour or so we came out on the other side in a gorgeous river setting. We stopped at some place with booths selling expensive snacks and beer. I passed on it and as I was getting hungry we turned back pretty quickly. I now kept a lookout for any tourists that might come in the opposite direction and of course: a girl by herself (with the boat guys) showed up right after we'd re-entered the cave, so I figured that if I'd waited 10 more minutes I could've gone with this girl and cut my expenses in half. Well, it wasn't meant to be AS USUAL! This didn't hamper my enjoyment however. After we got back I thanked the guys and started the loooong walk back to my guesthouse. I didn't feel like waiting or trying to haggle with some asshole as I knew it would be MUCH more expensive going back the 7-8km. Unfortunately I'd forgotten to bring my proper shoes for the walk and I only had my surf slippers which are tourture to walk in for longer distances, especially on hard surfaces like the asphalt road I had infront of me. So I was pretty beat when I arrived an hour and a half later.
Mission accomplished: I'd seen the fantastic cave without having known shit about getting there or how to do things. I still have no clue where Na Hin or Ban Phou Ngeng is on the map... Next up: celebrating X-mas on a stinkin' bus...
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You are such a little girl
You are the biggest fucking sook I have ever met. Whinging about everything you came across. It's all part of the experience brother.