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Published: October 25th 2007
SUNSET OVER THE MEKONG RIVER AT SAVANNAKET
THE LONG BOAT WAS BEING PRACTISED FOR THE END OF RAINY SEASON FESTIVALi have finally arrived back in thailand, from pakxe in laos, this morning. about to take a 12 hour overnight train from here in the city of ubon ratchathani, in north east thailand, to bangkok. i went straight to the station to book the ticket when i arrived here. they only had 1ST CLASS AIR CON SLEEPER left, which is still only about 14 GB pounds, so just had to take that!
spent 5 days in southern laos, id been to the north twice before, but never to the south, so it was somewhere new. savannakhet was extremely laid back, spent 2 nights there. no much to do apart from wander around. lao people are very friendly, will say hello to you in the street and, unlike certain other countries, it is not a pre cursor to a sales pitch! their geniality and laid back nature certainly is infectious. i indulged in a massage in savannakhet, only 60,000 lao kip (about 3 GBP!), for 90 minute full body massage.. felt i needed it, as i was a bit travel weary in the last week, having been on the move for 6 weeks. i think i reached my travel time
limit., though quiet provincial laos was just what was needed, after the constant blare of motobike horns in vietnam, and before i hit cosmopolitan bangkok. will glad to be somewhere for longer than just a few days, plan to be there about 5 weeks!
thailand is only the 2nd country on this trip that isnt communist/ex communist, the other one was the netherlands right back at the start. i think it shows in the quality of the shopping, ever here in far flung Ubon! it is also good to escape the scrourge of the french tour group, which is all too prevalant in the old indochina countries...
from savannakhet took a 5 hour local bus journey down to pakxe, the southernmost town in laos. bus was a lot better than slow, noisy and dirty bus we ended up on from the vietnam border! it was a 4th hand korean bus, like everything else in asia it seems. sat next to a chatty austalian women, who was on a preaching tour of laos and cambodia, preaching christianity. i dont think i see the point of that, since they have a perfectly adequate, if not superior, religion already, ie buddhism,
didnt let my views known to her though!!
passed through some very poor rural villages en route. quite depressing really, and also makes you realise how lucky we are in some respects. although there is poverty here, the people still seem full of life, especially the children. all the rural houses in laos are still of woood and bamboo and raised on stilts to keep cool. there are only 5.5 million people in laos, compared with 117 million in vietnam, quite a contrast in densities for countries of similar size. laos would probably be my favourite travel destination if it wasnt for the constant fear of getting bitten by a dengue fever or malaria carrying mosquito, especially after nightfall. also i always seem to get the shits everytime i go there. getting contstantly bitten and having a bad stomach is why i left pakxe one day earlier than planned..
pakse was a bit livelier than savannakhet, and was also preparing for a big boat race festival which all lao mekong towns celebrate each october full moon, to mark the end of the rainy season. the full moon was on friday, so just caught the start of it before
i left. managed to catch the "miss mekong" contest, in which amazingly all the contestants seemed to be actual women. whereas if it was in thailand, it would be pretty certain that half of them would be ladyboys!
while i was at pakxe, i took a long boat down the mekong to champasak, which was the capital of the ancient champa kingdom about a 1000 years ago. the boat was scheduled to leave at 8am, but a french family held the boat up for an hour and a half while they faffed around at a travel agency, trying to change there flight date. when they eventually got on the boat, not a word of apology for keeping us waiting! was hard to hold my tongue, but managed. luckily the scenery and weather were soothing. the lao crew just laughed it off as lao people tend to do!
anyway, the 2 hour journey down was beautiful, with naked children waving at us every 100 yards from the riverbank... it was then another half hour my tuktuk to Wat Phu, the centre of the ancient kingdom, and a UNESCO world heritage site. The setting was magnificent, a word i dont
often use. it is set into the east face of a 1500metre high mountain, overlooking the mekong plain. met a group of 8 gay thai men at the restaurant there, they were on a week long tour to south laos from bkk. they were 'sticky rice" though, but very friendly...
i lot of the temples were crumbly and overgrown, which added to its appeal. because of the delay caused by the inconsiderate french, we arrived at the temple at the height of the midday sun, but there were pleny of trees for shade. shared the tuk tuk with a female korean backpacker. she had recently been to china too, so we could exchange horror stories, mainly about the toilets!
i reccomend anyone coming to laos, to visit the south, as i could easily filled a week down there. and now that you get a30 day visa on arrival, as opposed to the old 15 days, there is no excuse. there are not many places in the world where the people are just as impressive as the scenery...
so this particular journey by this small person in a very big world has ended. over 10,000kms, 12 countries, 17
ROAD BRIDGE OVER THE MEKONG TOWARDS THE LAOS/THAI BORDER
THE RIVER ISN'T THE BORDER IN THESE PARTS, IT WAS ANOTHER HOUR INTO THAILAND, THEN ANOTHER HOUR TO UBON RATCHATANI TRAIN STATION.... different trains, 7 different buses (all in the last week), and its over. reading my blogs again, they seem quite negative and selective of the bad points. i think though that makes the blog more interesting than me just saying how wonderful everything is and what a great time ive had. i speak as i find, and what ive written has been what ive truly thought as a gone through a real mixed bag of countries and experiences.
it makes you realise when you travel so far, how many people there are in this world, and what insignifcant beings we all are as individuals...
looking forward too seeing ekk again in bangkok, where "sanuk" is the name of the game. (look up "sanuk", if you dont know already, its what thais are all about).
take care everyone whos read down this far!
bye, its been fun!
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