Advertisement
Published: December 5th 2010
The most photographed
building in SavannakhetFirstly, sorry for not posting for ages, the main reason for this is that when you are paying £2.50 a night for a bungalow on an Island on the Mekong River, free (or any) internet is rather scarce, but more about that later.
When we last posted we were off to Laos, and given some of the things we had read about the bus journey were a tadge nervous. However it does show that a little research can make the journey a lot easier. We managed to buy a ticket on a decent bus that goes all the way to Savannakhet from Hue rather than dumping you at the border. It was helped by the fact that there were only about 8 people on a 28 seater (and no chickens). Passing through the countryside in Laos you are reminded of the poverty that is still prevalent. We had been travelling for a good couple of hours before we had seen a house made from bricks, although the sight of wooden (or even bamboo) huts with no running water but with a satellite dish still amazes. It’s as if life is good as long as you can watch “Lao’s got Talent”
The town square
all 5 buildings that are still standing anyway or the latest Thai soap opera.
We arrived in Savannakhet and surprisingly no con with the bus station being miles out of town leaving you to the mercy of the Tuk Tuk mafia. The main reason for staying here is to get our Thai visa as we are going to be crossing into Thailand by land it’s best to arrange it before hand. We booked into our very small, clean and cheap guesthouse and set off to explore the town. 10 minutes later we had finished that task so found a café. I jest a little bit, Savannakhet clearly used to be a prosperous town, the French influence very evident. There are some charming old buildings dating from the time when it was an important trading town on the route from Thailand to the Vietnamese Kings’ court at Hue. Even now it is Lao’s 3rd largest city. When, and if, things pick up then hopefully the buildings will be restored to their former glory and the town will once again be a bustling hub. There are plans to turn the area just north of the city, by the bridge to Thailand, to a large “duty free” enterprise zone but
The drum tower
at yet another Wat if corruption and greed are allowed to take hold all that will mean are more casinos for wealthy Thais, if done properly the economy could take off. We’ll see.
What’s immediately obvious is the pace of life, as we were wandering round the town, the Lao are more laid back than their Vietnamese neighbours, almost proudly so, you can clearly see the French influence. While we waited for our Visas we just spent time chatting to people. A lot of people use the town to renew their Thai visa, the famous ‘Visa Run’, and we met an interesting assortment of people. A young, wealthy French Canadian with a PhD in Political Science who was there with his Thai partner and is currently living in a rural village with his partner’s family, and their son, helping to bring the rice crop in and repair the family shack. He was great to talk to because his in depth, and independent, observations about British politics kept the chat flowing for hours. The next day we were sat in our guest house while Lisa spent a few hours chatting to an elder gentleman married to a Thai woman who is a high class
Local Bus
a real boneshaker pimp. Yep, she ‘introduces’ Thai women to wealthy Asian and Middle Eastern chaps, how chilled is the new Lisa?? With him was a Scottish chap who, having made a fortune in South Africa, we never asked what he did, is now determined to donate said fortune to the owners of Thailand’s major distilleries. You never seem to get these conversations at Weatherspoons.
Visas collected, we headed off to the bus station the next day at stupid ‘o’ clock for our journey south. The choice of transport was a private mini bus (3 hours & £100) or local bus (5 hours & £2.50), guess which we chose. The local bus seemed OK at first, because we had arrived early and gotten on first we had managed to grab the best (or least worst) seats. And it left the bus station on time and only half full. Within 30 minutes though it was packed to the rafters and seeing as the busses are also the Lao version of DHL the sacks of rice in the aisle became extra seating for those unlucky enough not to live near a terminus. We stopped a number of times, the driver and his helpers certainly
Local Bus
and yes those are live ducks on the roofrack enjoy their breaks, and each time we were invaded by gangs of women selling BBQ’d sparrow or minced rat on a stick, needless to say we weren’t tempted. The old lady with the fruit stall seemed happy to relieve us of our Kip in exchange for some lovely food that wasn’t likely to kill you.
We arrived in Pakxe at the northern bus terminal, needless to say too far out of town to walk, and ‘offered’ a tuk tuk ride into town for 40,000 kip. Hang on the 5 hr bus journey costs 35,000 kip and the 5 minute taxi ride more, oh joy. Luckily a songthaw turned up and we hopped on for 1/8 of the taxi price. ‘Same Same but Different’ as they say out here. Arguing with transport providers in Asia who are always looking to rip you off is the most tiring thing about this part of the world, oh well. We checked into a rough guide recommended hotel, or hovel would be a better description, and set out to book our onward transport. They’ll be more about Pakxe in the next blog because we only stopped for one night (or maybe there won’t because
Hammocked Out
Not a bad place to stop it’s not very interesting). The next morning, relieved, we left the hotel and continued our journey in a good minibus to Si Phan Don or the 4000 islands.
Just above the border with Cambodia, the mighty Mekong is spread into a huge bell shaped 14km wide series of rivulets and this has created a landlocked archipelago called Si Phan Don. It’s a labyrinth of tiny islands, rocks & sandbars that mean the villagers living here have preserved their way of life well away from the influence of the French or American wars. It’s also these islands that show why the Mekong hasn’t been a major trading artery that you might expect, it’s because the river drops a 100 or so meters in a series of waterfalls and rapids that no ancient (or modern) mariner could traverse. We headed for Don Det, one of the most southerly islands and where numerous backpackers choose to rest before entering or after leaving Cambodia. And the reason for that is well, I’m now sat on a lovely bungalow patio overlooking the Mekong while Lisa snoozes in a hammock next to me, the sun is shining down, the beer is cold and the cost,
Asian Bike
and Lisa on it ;-) yep £2.37 per night. Planning to stay a couple of days then move on and explore the bigger islands, quite quickly the place grips you, it’s got such a lovely chilled out feel, everyone is cycling around during the day, snoozing the evening in the hammocks and then meeting and swapping travel stories in the bars in the evenings it’s easy to stay longer than planned.
It wasn’t all rest though as we hired a couple of Asian sized bikes to cycle round the island and neighbouring Don Khone. As soon as you head inland from the riverside you are cycling through the paddy fields and all during the daylight hours people are out harvesting their crop, no machinery here, just scythe and back breaking effort. We crossed the old French railway bridge to Don Khone and headed off to see the ‘Little Waterfall’ which is actually a very impressive series of huge rapids which put all thoughts of hiring a canoe firmly to bed. We then headed off to see ‘the beach’, well we tried anyway because Lisa misjudged the amount of ducking required to successfully negotiate a bamboo archway and one of the very sharp instruments of
Don Det
another lovely sunset torture that remained after they cut the Asian size arch managed to pierce her hat and then her head. Bugger. Yep, splitting your skull open on an island in the middle of the Mekong, a few thousand miles away from any world recognised health care is only something she could do. Luckily, the hat saved us from having to have her airlifted to Thailand, we managed to stop the flow of blood long enough to make our way back to a t-shirt stall where a beerlao t-shirt became an impromptu bandage. After the bloodloss stopped sufficiently we headed back to Don Khone and was directed to the Island’s doctor, a lovely woman, who cleaned and dressed the wound and told us in Lao “you need to go back, lie down, eat lots of chocolate and have your husband obediently do your bidding for the next week” well that was Lisa’s interpretation. Chris’s was “that was a flipping stupid thing to do, duck next time”. And what did the doc charge us for this care and using up her precious sterile dressings, £1.20. Obviously we tipped!!
Fully recovered we set off the next day to finish exploring, following the same
Having never been there
Ted is looking longingly out over Cambodia route and really ducking though the bamboo, the beach was a pleasant surprise but probably not worth the pain. We eventually made it to the southern tip of the island, this is the kicking of point to go and see the endangered Irrawaddy Dolphins, a freshwater dolphin that’s fast disappearing. We decided that was the plan for tomorrow and sat down for some lunch with a couple we had met at various points on the island. Turns out that what a bonus as Claire’s brother opens the batting for Durham and England were just in the middle of a great fight back, Chris finally had a chance to talk cricket with someone who knows.
(Travelling note: When in Lao get a TigoLao sim card as the rate for data is stupidly cheap, consequently, BBC mobile and Facebook updates cost about 30 cents per hour)
We finished circumnavigating the islands and headed back to the bungalow for a rest before meeting our companions to view the beautiful sunset from their bungalows on the ‘Sunset’ side of the Island. Watching the sun go down drinking a cold bottle of Laos best known export ‘BeerLao’ and the less well known and
Found the bar
the very cheap local spirit means it's safer not to use chairs extremely potent LaoLao spirit, a rice spirit that tastes a bit like a flavoured vodka and sells for $1 a bottle. After a few of these there was nothing to do but do what has become natural in the UK when inebriated, go to the local curry house, and very nice it was too (we think).
Slightly less than 100 percent the next day we headed off on our bum numbing bikes back to the south of Don Khone and hired a boat to go Dolphin tracking, unfortunately this required landing in Cambodia, nooooooooo thought Chris. And yep our memories hadn’t played tricks, the Cambodian customs officer/ Dolphin protection officer wanted a $1 fee for ‘endangered species protection’ and demanded a $1 bribe. 100% bribe, welcome back. We were given 3 plastic seats and he pointed us to look at the river we had just crossed and he said ‘Dolphin’, this seemed like another scam coming on. After 10 minutes out boat driver pointed to his boat and eventually we headed out into the Mekong, and after a few minutes there they were, the lovely fresh water cousins of our favourite animal. They weren’t doing the New Zealand dusky
The lovely Mekong
after spotting the Dolphins dolphin leaping (typical Kiwi show offs) they were the Lao version, they glided through the water at a leisurely pace, you half expected them to stop for a café and croissant at any moment. Their fins were slightly smaller and they had a smaller nose and much more pronounced forehead but otherwise are the same graceful, beautiful creatures we have been lucky enough to see all around the world. All too soon our boatman headed back and we slowly made our way, via another waterfall, back to the comfort of our bungalow. We’ve missed a few things this trip but we’re glad this wasn’t one.
So all plans out of the window for visiting the other Islands, we’ve stayed 5 days on this lovely, peaceful Isle but must now head off as there is the rest of lovely Laos to explore.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.092s; Tpl: 0.021s; cc: 14; qc: 28; dbt: 0.0411s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Jo
non-member comment
Cheaper than Oz/NZ!!!
Sorry, haven't been to Vietnam and China so have been reading your blogs with interest and not really able to comment on them. You're sure having a brilliant time and seeing loads. But Laos and Cambodia is another story. Same same but different - god that brings back such good memories, all these kids trying to sell the same things "same same but different!". The Islands are amazing and I completely understand why you were going to spend a couple of days there and ended up spending 5 - very easily done. The way of life there is so laid back it's horizontal! Accommodation's a lot cheaper than Oz and New Zealand hey?!!