Blog – Page 70 – Where is Phil now?

Five months !!

Day 143, Saturday 26 May 2012 – Koh Tao

Wow – five months on the road !

I really cannot believe I have lasted this long, though I am definitely losing enthusiasm for the solo travelling thing. There are many good things about travelling on your own but there are downsides as well . For me the biggest has been the periods of loneliness I have experienced pretty much from the start and as this leg of the trip winds down those periods are becoming more prolonged. Though actually the day today was pretty good.

It was a much quieter night last night and I woke too late to run before the day got too warm Instead I opted for plan B and stayed in bed until 8.00 when I got up for breakie.

The day was a little windier than yesterday and the forecast for the next week is not overly flash either – not inspiring when I have flying (which I hate) and diving (which I love) as the key activities for the next ten days, so I was a little concerned we may not go out today. I was down at Easy Divers for 10:00 and found I was the only fun diver going out, luckily there was a dive class as well or the boat would have been cancelled, along with my dive.

I love being the only fun diver as it means I get the dive master to myself and the dive can be focused around my abilities rather than those of the most inexperienced – which sometimes is me of course !

A mass of dive boats, Koh Tao is a dive school factory !

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The original plan was to dive a site imaginatively named Southwest, but with strong north westerlies blowing in the boat captain changed the plan and we went to Shark Island – not that there are any sharks, but you can guess why it is named that way. It was a bouncy wee ride down to the south side of Koh Tao to Shark Island.

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Dive master Stitch and I. He was a good guy, English – so easy to talk crap with.

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It was a pretty good dive, we followed a pair of decent size grouper for a while, then hit a patch of quite strong current so had to leave the pair and head back towards the boat, visibility at the shallower depths was great, and diving in clear deep blue water with nothing around or below was quite exhilarating ! it was the best dive of the two days.

The second dive was supposed to be at White Rock, but again due to the swell this was changed and we dived at one of the shallow reefs at Hing Gnam.

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It being a shallow dive we managed almost an hour under water and I still had a ton of air left, I really had my buoyancy dialled on this dive, so enjoyed it immensely. Great visibility again and I got to play in a nice school of small barracuda.

The ride back to shore was a bumpy one….

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The afternoon was spent pretty much doing sod all, I had planned to walk back up to Sairee beach for the evening, have a drink or two at one of the bars. However, bad weather set in just before sunset and we had quite a period of heavy rain with some thunder, so I didn’t stray beyond the local cafe, with its bad service – again.

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Once I got sick of that, I picked up an expensive bottle of cheap Aussie shiraz and went to my room to watch TV, type a blog post and celebrate five months of SE Asian solo travel.

A toast to Five Months – cheers !

Koh Tao – first run in 2012 and more diving

Day 142, Friday 25 May 2012 – Koh Tao

One noisy neighbour kept me awake for half the night, I think it was the people from the room below playing the Sex Pistols “great rock and roll swindle” over and over. Normally I would not disapprove of people playing the Sex Pistol, but come on – R n R swindle was an awful album and not to be played loudly – ever.

I had semi-planned on getting up early and getting out for a run this morning and as I was awake at 6.00 I did! I have been talking about going running for a while but have just been able to motivate myself, and to be honest – I was never going to run in Bangkok anyway.

Koh Tao is not that big and there are not too many roads to run, it is also “undulating” as my friend Vicki would say. I ran along the main road to the nth end of Sairee beach and back, probably about 5km at a slow 6 minute km pace. I passed a few stumbling young people walking back from the various all night parties that go on here – not a pretty sight and the stink of alcohol was overpowering in some places. Apart from a sore hip, I felt pretty good, I was sucking a lot of air on the ups, but once I got the hang of it I was running reasonably smoothly. I will plan on a new route tomorrow and try to get a run in each morning before diving.

Even at 6.00 it was still warm enough to make running a sweaty affair so everything was washed as soon as I got back to my room.

After a leisurely breakfast I headed down to the dive shop for the 10.00 Am boat and my first experience of Thailand diving. There was a small group diving today so we were on the boat and out on the water pretty quickly. The ride out to the first dive site Chumpon Pinnacle took about forty minutes in probably the biggest swell I have been in on the way to a site, getting the gear ready was challenging at times – not that it was a huge swell !

The dive was pretty good, shortish as we had a couple of fairly new divers in the group who used a lot quicker than the more experienced of us. The visibility was good and there was no current below the surface. Saw a couple of quite reasonable size groupers, but no whale sharks – they very occasionally frequent the area.

Dive two was at Twins Pinnacle, a slightly shallower (and therefore longer) dive. When we arrived at the site there was a small swell but the weather was pretty good.

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The second dive was about fifty minutes, again- great vis. but didn’t see anything spectacular – lots of life, some nice schools of small fish though. As we were ascending I could see the weather had turned, the swell had increased and as I approached the surface I could see the rain drops hitting the sea. Though the current wasn’t strong staying near the boat was interesting.

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I enjoyed the dives and have booked in for two more tomorrow – weather dependant !

I did bugger all for the rest of the day, mooched and watched TV in my room, dinner at the local cafe, with the most ‘relaxed’ service I have seen since I left Sepilok in Malaysian Borneo in Februrary.

I rang both Dom and Aiden this afternoon (my sons), but neither answered so will give em another go tomorrow !

Koh Tao…

Days, 140/141 Wednesday/Thursday, 23/24 May 2012, Bangkok

Happy Birthday Meliesha ! 🙂

Weird Japanese guy and the snorer really screwed up my sleep, so tired yet again and with another overnight train ride tonight it will be another loooooong day coming. I hung around the hostel until I got tossed out at 11.30, half an hour after check out – OK not really tossed out, but I left then. I did watch the final episode in season two of Sherlock. Awesome – has it been fully shown in NZ – I almost gave away a spoiler !

Scott, is an Aussie guy, my age, staying in the hostel, he wanted to know how to get to the main station so we went together.

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As my train wasn’t leaving till 7.30 PM we decided to hang out for the day and went and checked out Wat Traimit as it was near the station.

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The Buddha figure is 3 metres high, weighs 5.5 tonnes and is solid gold ! Awesome.

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Me wishing for world peace (well not really, but I am not going to say what I wished for : ) )

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A coffin maker, doing a final polish on the footpath.

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It was another stinking hot day, it had been raining on the way to the station was quite humid and in this is part of town the sewers were stinking. Scott and i decided to catch the train to the malls as he wanted to grab a few things I had time to kill and wanted to kill it in relative coolness.

I made it back to the station for 5.00 PM and hung around in the station until it was time to get onto the train. At 6.00 PM the national anthem was played and everyone in the station- westerners and all stood up for the minute, i haven’t experienced that since I was a kid in England. I also got a message from Danny, the girl who had boiling water burns in Pakse, saying she was recovering well and been allowed to go to Myanmar to continue her travels – great news indeed.

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I was fortunate enough to not have to share my seat again and had a nice couple from Melbourne, Kay and Colin over the aisle from me, great to have people to chat to over a beer or two until the beds were pulled down around 9.30.

I didn’t sleep much until the train arrived in Chumphon over an hour late at 5.30 am (we were due at 4.15). this was actually a good thing as the bus from the station to the ferry to the islands doesn’t leave until 6.00, so time for a quick Nescafe before boarding the bus.

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The ferry ride was just under two hours, the ferry was pretty full and most people dozed the trip away, I plugged myself into some music and closed my eyes, but didn’t really nod off.

I am staying at the Ananda Inn on Mae Haad beach, which is pretty much where the ferry docks, the beach isn’t stunning and the village reminds me a bit of El Nido in the Philippines, but not as quaint. After breakfast and a lie down I went for a walk around the town and over to the main tourist are of Sai ree beach. I am pretty glad I chose not to stay there as it is a busy spot with a lot of late night bucket bars+ and I would imagine noisy as heck.

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I also booked my diving for tomorrow – 2 dives from 10.00 AM – will see how good it is. At this stage I am not overly enthused with Koh Tao, so hoping for some awesome diving or it could be a long four days.

+ Buckets are really common, especially in Thailand, they are a (I guess) a litre plastic bucket that serves as a glass for cheap cocktails or more commonly spirit mixes, like whisky and coke. The alcohol content is high, the quality low and they are cheap and aimed at getting the young uns drunk as skunks.

The “sleeper” train

Days 138/139, Monday/Tuesday 21/22 May 2012, Vientiane to Bangkok

Happy birthday mum !

It was a much quieter night last night thankfully so I managed some sleep ahead of the overnight sleeper train ride tonight, though given my poor record I am sure there will not be a lot of sleep happening. I slept in till 8.00 again and mooched around in the coolness of my room after breakfast for the rest of the morning, but I am up to date on emails, blogs and plans are all done – I even glanced at a few jobs sites. And then the internet died again, before I could actually upload the blog post I completed.

I had to check out of the guesthouse by 12.00 mid-day, but the bus to the Thai border and the train station was not until 3.00. I had planned on visiting the last of the key temples in Vientiane and then moving on to the national museum when it re-opened after lunch at 1.00. However with a massive flash and a loud bang the rain came down so I decided to hang out in a cafe instead – and the wifi didn’t work there either. Oh well.

Once the rain passed I wandered up to Sisaket, which houses the oldest remaining temple in Vientiane, the Siamese sacked all the temples with the exception of Sisaket in the late 1800’s
Sisaket had some quite nice frescoes but in a terrible state of repair, though we were not allowed to take photos.

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What it did have that I really liked was a massive collection of buddhas going back to the 15th century in the cloisters, some recovered from other sites and stupas around Vientiane. The bulk of these are small and contained in small niches around the walls, but there are a large number of bigger Buddha figures, some made of wood and some from stone.

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I took a lot of photos…. possibly the last you will see of Buddha figures for a while, maybe ever – who knows.

After Sisaket I went up to the national museum, I had read was largely disappointing and in that I was not disappointed, as it was – largely disappointing. Not a great museum for non Laos tourists – and not even a huge amount of information for the Laos people either. I will say, given the poverty in Laos, a museum is not their foremost priority.

I hung around the GH for a while waiting for my ride to the bus station, to get the VIP bus to the border. This turned out to be van that arrived forty minutes late and took me and some other confused tourists to Thana Leng train station, just inside the Laos border where we joined a large bunch of other tourists and caught a small train across the Mekong and into Thailand.

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Laos – I liked the way the train tracks were in the middle of a road bridge, and they just stop all the cars.

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Thailand

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The ride arrived in Nong Khai before it officially left Thana Leng, where we had an hour long wait for the train to depart for Bangkok.

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I was in a second class sleeper carriage, car no 3. This comprised of two rows of seats that faced each other, that folded down into a single bed, with another bunk that folded down from the wall above. Fortunately – and selfishly, I did not have to share my two seats with anyone so could sprawl in the air conditioning until the train left, which it did nicely on time as well at 6.20 PM.

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The beds started coming down almost immediately, it was far too early for me to even consider considering going to sleep so I drank the two cans of beer I bought at the station and watched the view until the sunset and it was too dark too see any more. The windows were way too dirty to consider pictures – and to be honest it wasn’t all that exciting !

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Once there was nothing to see out the window I popped my current favourite travelling music on my walkman, Japanese post-rockers – Mono and spent the next hour and a half knocking off the last few pages of Haruki Murakami’s IQ84 trilogy. I really enjoyed the books – though cannot explain why, not my normal reading, it was different !

I then spent the next eight hours not sleeping in a train….

We arrived in the outskirts of Bangkok soon after sun up and I was foolishly thinking we would therefore arrive on time at 6.25 AM, but no, ridiculous thought Phil. We arrived in the station at 7.45, having spent most of the preceding hour stopped at various points in suburban Bangkok. I am going to say it is not like the suburban Auckland I lived in.
I decided to stay one night in Bangkok as two sleeper trains in a row is too much for this old man, so before leaving the station I booked my ticket to Chumphon for tomorrow night and then went in search of lodgings. I couldn’t see anything immediately around the station so ended up jumping on the Metro and going to my old haunt the Hostelling International hostel in Sukhumvit. Sadly they are renovating at the moment so I ended up in a dorm room, one night cannot be too bad and at least it is cheap and easy.

As I am in Bangkok and have some nice cheap shopping handy I have decided to ditch a few of my more ‘used’ possessions. I spent the afternoon in MBK mall looking for bright shiny things to buy. My lovely Keen sandals have pretty much given up the ghost, though I am still tempted to get them repaired, though I did grab a pair of $40 Converse sneakers as my new day shoes – when I am not wearing jandals/flip flops/thongs (for the Aussies). I will decide on the Keens tomorrow – they have been faithful friends and I feel bad even thinking about leaving them in the dorm hallway. I am not going to do any more trekking type walking so the day pack I picked up in Miri (Sarawak, Borneo) is goneburgers , it is pretty stuffed and utterly feral even though I have washed it a few times. I picked up another messenger type camera bag that I can use when I am Europe as well as a new wallet.

I loved these shoes in a shop in Siam Centre, reminded me of my days in London in the 80’s.

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I snapped some sticker art as I went.

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I got back to the dorm to find it fairly full, so had a feed and chatted to a young English guy for a while and then went to bed. In the dorm room there is this really weird older (I think) Japanese guy. He was asleep most of the afternoon and kept coming and going for most of the night, when he leaves the room he turns his video camera on – i kept covering it with a flannel. I am not sure what the hell he is doing – but he is one weird dude.

Goodby old friends, hopefully someone will find you useful.

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Vientiane

Days 136/137, Saturday/Sunday 19/20 May 2012, Vientiane

I had a wee sleep in this morning, by my standards anyway and wasn’t up till 8.00. it is pouring down outside which is just perfect as it means I can have a good session of lying down, reading and catching up on emails etc. I was planning on spending the whole day doing nothing except organising the remaining two weeks in SE Asia, but the internet died soon after breakfast – and didn’t get going until late afternoon, bugger.

The rain stopped around mid-day and I ventured out for a stroll under what started out to be cloudy skies, it was quite humid and once the clouds cleared after a couple of hours got quite hot as well. Foolishly I brought neither sunglasses nor sun screen and regretted both of them ,especially the glasses, as the sun got brighter and brighter.

Vientiane has quite an historical relationship with France, the street names, use Rue and Avenue and the main thoroughfares are wide open and shady.

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Vientiane even has its own Arc De Triumphe replica – Patuxai and was built in 1969.

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From there I walked up to Pha That Luangis, a large golden stuppa and the most important monument in Laos.

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The site was started in the 1500’s and there were four wat surrounding it, of which only two remain.

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I loved these small family plots inside one of the wats.

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There must be two lonely people.

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One of the great things in Vientiane, and soe rare in SE Asisa, so many places – including one of the parks are smoke free.

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I walked back to the GH and after a wee cool down then went to a local hair dresser for a light trim – I was not filed with confidence, so didn’t get a full haircut or let her loose on my face with a razor. So I went back to the GH and attacked my facial hair with a razor myself. It took 45 minutes !

It was getting close to sundown so I went for a walk along the bank of Mekong, long with hundreds of the local people and not a small number of tourists. I found a perfect spot to capture some of the people passing by on their bicycles. And again, unusual for SE Asia – motorbikes were banned along this strip – so nice !

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I had dinner on my own in a local cafe and then went back to my room and watched another episode of Sherlock – it is great. It was a very noisy night in town tonight, mainly tourists drunkenly yelling on the street. I didn’t get a huge amount of sleep.

Sunday morning was as slow a start as yesterday. Today the internet was going and I resolved to stay in my room and complete my plan for the next two weeks. With guide book, laptop and smart phone often all being used at once, I spent almost eight frustrating hours trying to come up with a workable plan. At every turn I was frustrated with time tables that did not get me to where I wanted to be when I wanted to be there, so decided to give up on road/rail transport for some legs and fly -which meant then trying to find combinations of airports that worked…. grrrrrrr !

But I finally got there. It was not the plan I started with, I am not going to any more historical sites, just two weeks of beeches and diving, with two overnight train rides to get to my first location – Koh Tao on Thailand’s east coast. Now the planning is done I believe I have made the right choice. Two weeks of mainly relaxation, with some diving – and some healthy living thrown in, should get me ready for my trip to England.

I ran into David and Debbie in the GH reception and they invited me along with them to go bowling, what an awesome idea. And a whole load of fun !!

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David

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and Debbie.

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Bowling shoes – the person who invented them must have had a sense of humour. I mean what self respecting person wears green and gold ?

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You have to love that poise, so graceful 🙂

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And I did kick some ass – it was my lucky night – two strikes !

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This was followed with a very nice Indian meal at a local restaurant and, for me, one more episode of Sherlock in bed.

It was with a sense of relief I closed my eyes – the remainder of my time in SE Asia is all planned and accommodation in most places is booked. All I need to do is turn up.

I have updated “the plan” page with the new plan.

12 hours on a bus, well – make that one and a bit buses

Day 135, Friday 18 May 2012, Savannakhet to Vientiane

Frustratingly I was still awake at midnight so I popped half a pill in the end so I could some sleep. The room was too warm to sleep with the fan off and too noisy with the fan on. I was awake at five and spent the next hour pondering on whether to go direct to Vientiane, which was my intention yesterday or go to Tha Kaek – which was the plan the day before. I want to go to Kock Lo cave which is about half way between both places, and it sounded like a hassle getting from Kock Lo to Vientiane so I will go to Vietiane and hope they have day tours there – which will be fine by me.

With that in mind I was up at 6.00, on a tuk tuk to the bus station by 6.30, and the bus to Vientane by 6.45. Sadly the bus made it about 100 metres out of the bus station before breaking down ! it is now over half an hour later and I am typing this as we wait. The bus has four human passengers and a seemingly endless supply of mosquitoes.

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The King of Bus never moved another inch !

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Though not through lack of effort from the man in the hole.

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And now it is the following day….

After an hour of waiting we were bundled onto another bus which was not quite the standard of the one we left – but at least it was moving. It was pretty much the same as the one I was on yesterday – with a wee bit less leg room and a whole load more passengers, though for the first four hours to Tha Kaek I did have both seats to myself.

We stopped for a break at Tha Kaek and I grabbed a wee, a snack and some water and jumped back on the bus to ensure my window seat for the long leg to Vientiane. As I was waiting for the bus to leave I spotted my Dutch friends from Don Det – David and Debbie, getting out of a tuk tuk and on to the bus, awesome – some much needed company. The journey from Tha Kaek took almost seven hours and the bus was packed, with people sitting in the aisles for most of the way, but I had a seat and a window, which was better than some. I also noticed that even though some were sitting on a plastic stool in the aisle they paid the same price as me.

If you can put it on a stick, its for sale !

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It was a long slow journey, but at least I had people to talk to. We arrived in Vientiane at 6.30 PM – just under a twelve hour trip and my back was killing me.

We found a guesthouse and booked in for the night, and arranged to meet for dinner. The first thing I did when I got to my room was wash my hands and splash some water on my face. The amount of dirt that came out was just amazing – the joys of a long open window bus ride. Debbie had a yearning for pizza and there was no way I was going to argue with that, especially as I had only eaten a bag of crisps all day.

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An early night followed, exhausted.

An interlude in Savannakhet

Day 134, Thursday 17 May 2012, Pakse – Savannakhet

I had booked my bus ticket to Savannakhet (SK) through the cafe on the corner and had to be there at 7.30 for an 8:00 departure – conveniently enough time to spend money on coffee and a basic breakfast. At 7.50 an Asian guy and I were bundled into a small three wheeler and sent in the direction of the bus station. The Asian guy was Vietnamese, but had lived in Germany for forty years, spoke adequate English and good Laotian. We chatted while we waited for the bus.

The bus was a ‘big’ bus – ie a standard road bus, not a VIP bus, no air con for instance, but it was comfortable with the most leg room I have had on a bus for months, plus the windows worked well enough. The bus was mostly empty all the way to SK so I had two seats to myself which was luxury.

I am feeling really dirty and greasy at the moment and some of my clothes just feel disgusting to put on. I am in desperate need of a shave and haircut and the plan was to spend a couple of days in SK, see the sights, get some washing done in a machine (hand washing works OK, but a machine wash is really needed every now and then), get a shave and haircut and plan the rest of my days in SE Asia. I also had my first mozzie bites since I was in Da Nang for the wedding over a month ago.

The bus ride was Ok, a long and very slow (a bit like this blog at times) five hours to SK. I spent a lot of that time reading the guide book and trying plan a trip that would maximise my time, not waste too much money and allow me to do some diving. I have now scrapped my long term plan of going to Chiang Mai in Nth Thailand and going Sth Thailand instead. It saves significant travel time, and money. I may also dive in both Thailand and Malaysia now – wahoo ! Just need to mull it over and detail how it will all work now. I can come back and see Nth Thailand and Nth Laos another year.

However SK was a disappointment, the guide book recommended hostel didn’t have wifi, which I need to do my planning, so I went in search of another. After consulting at the tourism office I discovered that most places had closed down as the season was over and what was left – apart from hotels, had no wifi at all – so back I went to Souannavong GH. It was OK, at least it had a hot shower and I could hand wash a few essentials. I decided to see the limited sights of SK this afternoon and sod off to Vientiane in the AM.

I rented a bike from the GH and rode around for a while, I couldn’t find the main tourist site which is an old stupa, though I later the discovered it was thirteen kms away. As my bike would have suited a small girl more than a large man, I decided to not go and see it. SK is the second largest city in Laos and the old French downtown area does have some faded charms. I enjoyed riding around the old quarter and snapped a few shots as the sunset.

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I discovered Lin’s cafe had wifi, beer and a nice menu so after a shower I grabbed my laptop and settled in there for three hours, consumed a carafe of cheap Chilean wine, ate some lovely food and had a good time.

I got chased by dogs on the way back to the GH, which was a bit tense for a moment, nothing happened mind, but I walked more cautiously after that as there are a lot dogs roaming the streets here.

Wat Phou.

Day 133, Wednesday 16 May 2012, Champasak – Paske

Damnit, I should never have left Don Det ! Crap sleep in Champasak… As always I was up early(ish), I had breakfast and a quick catch up blog post and then took a walk up to the ATM as I was running low on cash. The ‘ATM’ is actually a guy in the bank who gives you cash from your card for a small fee. However, he requires ID – which I did not have in my pocket due to my licence being in the wallet I lost on Don Det. It was a quick trip back to the guest house to get my passport. Seeing as it was already approximately a billion degrees at only 8.30 am, I grabbed a bicycle from the guest house and rode back to the bank. However, my USD debit card was not acceptable as it does not have my name on it (for exactly this reason) so I had to suck up the pain and get cash on my visa.

Once I had enough money to pay my room expenses I settled up with the guest house and took my recently borrowed cycle and pedaled off in what I hoped was the general direction of Wat Phou – at this point there really is only one road, so it was 50/50 ! The ride took about half an hour under scorching sun, frustrating at times as there are no road signs – to what is the only reason that people come to Champasak. The only sign I saw on the ride suggested Wat Phou was on the Mekong, about 100 metres before the road took a sharp right inland. The ride was great and I found a lovely roadside Buddha.

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as well as some awesome shutters 🙂

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and of course, a wat.

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I finally made it to Wat Phou with only having to double check directions once at a un-signposted intersection. Wat Phou is a Khmer religious site and dates back to the 5th century, pre-dating Angkor by a number of centuries. The site is built into the base of a small hill range, which makes it quite different to the sites around Angkor. It was originally constructed as a Khmer Hindu temple, but in the 11 – 13th centuries it was rebuilt as a Theravada Buddhist site of worship and the remains today are mainly from that period.

And now I am going whinge, like the pom I am !

This is the most significant Khmer site in Laos, it pre-dates Angkor – so it is old, really old, and in terms of SE Asian architecture, quite important. It is a major tourist attraction – why do none of the staff speak even rudimentary English as so many Lao people do? Not meaning to be the arrogant/ignorant English speaker, but come on – even the French speak some English. It was embarrassing for me and the staff as I tried to understand why I needed to pay more for a golf buggy to drive me to the site. I ended up with the buggy – a waste of money.

The two largest sections of ruins are under re-construction, and I mean with cranes and stuff, so not accessible, and hardly photogenic. And yes I agree with the rebuild – if it is to Angkorian standards.

It was noisy, lots of construction noise and as there was an extraordinary number of vendors in the site playing radios, full of awful Lao pop music.

There was not a bit of signage as to what was what – and stupidly I grabbed a French guide – that was my fault.

Whinges over, the bad things….

Ok some of these are good things, just wrapped in bad things, I mean who cannot resist a centuries old stone guard draped in pink !

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Ok, they may be half hidden in modern tat, but they are still cool, this elephant carving and Buddha foot carved into the hillside were just amazing !

There was some good stuff to see, but probably bad timing on my behalf with all the work going on, maybe a sign before we handed over our $$ advising that reconstruction work was being carried out would also be good. I would have visited anyway, but you know – customer service. There were some awesome carvings here, which I really liked.

The good things….

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The carvings – awesome to see some Khmer carvings on site again.

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Vishnu riding Garuda – carving on the sanctuary.

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The Elephant, the light was terrible for this shot

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The crocodile. This was possibly the site of human sacrifice, in the very early days, pre conversion to Buddhism.

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A Buddha figure, where it lay- I loved this.

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Don’t get me wrong I enjoyed Wat Phou, just not as much as I should have, given how much I love ancient sites, especially those of the Khmer – and how long it has been since I have been to one.

I had a quick ride back to town, now I knew the way, but it was stinking hot and I was glad to get back into the shade of the GH and sink a large water and a Beer Lao over a quick lunch. After lunch the GH owner took me to up to the main road so I could get a mini-van the hour or so back to Pakse. Turns out the wait was more middle of the road than roadside.

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And the mini-van was more back of truck – at least it was air conditioned ! The Keen’s are looking a wee bit shabby.

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To be fair I think I was supposed to be in the back of the cab, but being a six foot westerner rather than a five foot Laotian, it wasn’t going to happen. I was dropped at the market bus station and met what was possibly the only honest tuk tuk driver in Pakse, his opening offer was half the price I was advised was fair – I accepted on the spot and got a ride back to the Sabaidy 2 hostel – the warmest in town, and got my old room back.

I asked after Danny when I arrived and was advised she was still up at the hospital, so I hung around relaxing for a while in the warmth – watched another episode of Sherlock – loving it. I caught up with Danny later in the afternoon and she was glad to see an old face again – Mike had been through yesterday and Laura the day before. We shared a curry for dinner and she borrowed my laptop to Skype her parents and give them the news about the crash and the burns. While they are not life threateningly bad, I think she has finally realised she may not be able to fully continue her travels, and that infection is a probability, scarring is a definite and things wont be easy over the next few days that she has to stay in Pakse. Now that Laura, Mike and I have all left town for good, those of us who were there at the time of the accident. The people that come through the GH in the future, though I am sure they will help out, they wont be the same as those of us that were there and had that ‘bond’.

We said our farewells early, I wished her all the best, and regrettably I never got an email address : (

Canoe across the Mekong

Day 132, Tuesday 15 May 2012 – 4000 Islands to Champasak

I was awake early again after another pretty good sleep, awesome ! It will be such a shame to leave, but it is time to move on – so today I head back north to Champasak to visit ancient Wat Phou.

The mini-bus leaves at 11.00, but I still wanted to get to Khone Phapheng falls as I missed visiting them the day I lost my wallet. I sunk a quick coffee from the guesthouse, rented a bike from next door and pedalled off to Don Khon Island.

The falls are only a couple of kilometres away and I was there before 8.00 Am, early enough to beat the bike park security guy (though he got me on the way back and i had to pay the parking fee – few cents) but not early enough to not have to pay the entrance fee to the falls area.

I was the first tourist there and way too early for all the vendors to set up shop !

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There are a large number of vendors who live here and sadly the place is just one big rubbish dump – the falls are stunning, but behind every bush there is garbage, so terribly sad. I realise that this is not the west and an environmentally friendly garbage disposal system is not at hand, nor is any garbage collection. However, this is a stunning area – one of Southern Laos key tourist attractions, the local people earn most of their income from the park – they should respect it.

Anyway – the falls…. they are not tall, but they are huge, water entering from every direction – I would love to see this in the wet – and I am planning on a return to Laos to see the river when it is full. It is an awesome beast.

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After the falls I rode back to the GH for breakfast and then packed up my stuff for Mike to ferry me along with my Dutch and Czech companions from the past two nights over to the mainland to catch our buses to the different places we are going. I had a good time on Don Det !

I was in a full mini-van of people going to Pakse, I was the only one to be dropped off in the village of Don Muang on the edge of the Mekong. Back in the dark ages+ of my early travelling I would be almost terrified to be dropped off alone in a new town, especially the remote edge towns where long distance buses deposit tourists so they can get local transport to the tourist areas – where people don’t speak English. Nowadays, while not exactly ecstatic about the whole thing, I am at least comfortable with it and do relish the challenge of my next goal – in this case getting over the river to the town of Champasak.

I was walking down the towards the river, staring at this massive storm heading towards me, I wondered if anyone was making the crossing giving the pending storm but some guy came up to me and asked if I wanted to go to Champasak – not that I could think of any other reason some falang with a backpack would be heading down to the river ! I said yes and he guided me across the littered beach to his canoe – yep a wee fishing canoe, I was expecting at least a large canoe, but at least he had a motor.

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Once he cleared all the fishing nets away I was bundled in and we headed out across the river with a lovely cross wind building as we left!

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There was a couple of tense moments as we approached Champasak as the wind got quite strong and the waves were splashing over the side on to my pack and day bag. My pack had a waterproof cover on it, but naturally my day bag with everything important in it had nothing – and neither did I. I really thought we might go over, I was very confident I could swim to the shore as the current was not strong, but after the experience of losing my wallet I was terrified I would lose everything ! luckily nothing happened except I arrived on the beach at Champasak soaking wet – to the amusement of many of the locals.

I staggered up the hill to the main street and was picked up by a tuk tuk driver – who just happened to have a guest house, I agreed to check it out and got in – luckily as it hammered down.

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The gueshouse was pretty cool, a few westerners so I agreed to stay, decent price and it had a Mekong side restaurant and bar which was cool.

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I hung out there for a while, waited for the rain to stop, had some lunch, dried off and then went for a walk around down town Champasak. Champasak has some lovely old, fading and dying colonial buildings, as well as the more traditional Laos homes and temples. It is pretty much a one street town.

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I loved the buildings, sadly, like the one above, a number of them are derelict and abandoned.

After the walk I settled down on the deck over the Mekong with a bottle Beer Lao and leached wifi from the hostel over the road – like everyone else was doing.

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A while later Laura, who I met in Pakse and a French girl arrived at the GH, and it was great to have some company. She had just been in Pakse and had gone for a hospital visit with Danny (I now know it is not Dani), which was cool.

Laura gave me this photo she took of the four us in Pakse hospital. I am the one who is twice the age of any combination of two of the others…

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It was another pretty good – if damp day.

+ I refer to the dark ages as a long time ago, not that it was a dark time ! (I am loving these things that I don’t know the name of )

Day trip up the ‘Kong

Day 131, Monday 14 May, 2012 – 4000 Islands.

I had another good sleep, Don Det is quieter and cooler than most places I have been to, the bed is not the most comfortable but I am sleeping so well for some reason, long may it last.

Mike was going over to Ban Kasang on the mainland to pick up some supplies so David, Debbie and I went with him to hopefully get some cash from the single ATM in the area. If I could get cash then I would do a day boat tour with Mike up the river to visit the real 4000 islands area, if not then I was going to be spending the day trying to find money so I could pay Mike for the accommodation and food I have had over the past few days.

Fortunately I was able to get cash (YES !) but for some reason David and Debbie couldn’t, at least they had some Euros they could change – I had used all my meagre USD supplies in Luang Prabang. We were the first people into the bank for David to change money, they got it out of the safe in A4 paper box lids…

Dan Kasang waterfront.

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So, I was on for the river tour and one more night on Don Det. Mike bought a great looking fish for lunch and we were back on the island for an hour while Mike and his wife prepared food for the trip.

We left at 10.30 and headed up river. Mike has told us that the real 4000 islands do not start until further up stream, that there is really between 8000 and 10000 islands at the moment and that it will be all totally different after rainy season – when most of the islands will be under water.

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About fifteen minutes up river, and past Don Det, lies the gateway to the 4000 islands, a fairly shallow section of river that changes almost daily, we motored slowly though this section hitting the bottom once and getting stuck up a channel and having to back track another time. Once through there we were in fairly clear water and motored up through the islands. The area is about 60 kms long and at its widest point is over 15kms wide, that is one big river and though you cannot see its vastness from a boat it is still an impressive sight.

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Mike was taking us to his favourite island for a bbq lunch and swim, however when we arrived it was populated by a few guys who were living there for a few days while fishing.

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Mike was a bit ticked by this as it was a perfect spot, nice beach with a shade tree – and there are not too many of those combinations around, as we found out while searching. In the end we just pulled up at a beach. Mike made a fire and BBQ’d the fish.

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While his daughter, Joy made a quick sun shelter.

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We spent a couple of hours lounging, swimming, drinking beer and eating that lovely fresh fish – and then the weather starting to come down.

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We could see a large storm front moving down the Mekong, so decided to run slightly ahead of it – enjoy the clouds and the pouring rain in the distance but aim to stay dry and safe at the same time. It was a good ride back to the guest house, it was a shame it was only 3:30 PM rather than after sunset, but it was not going to be safe in what is basically a big canoe on the river and there was going to be no sunset anyway.

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