Category: Blog

Day 129, Saturday 12 May, 2012, Pakse – Don Det

Ok – scene set here… I am sitting on my bed in a Mekong riverside bungalow on the island of Don Det in the far south of Laos. The bungalow has a light and a fan and a mosquito net over the bed. There is no power outlet and the bed takes up most of the space in the room. I do have half a bottle of whisky and will have the occasional nip, though I have had a great meal and a couple of beers with the four other guests in this guesthouse. It is 11.18 (right now) and there is some moderately loud old old school electronica coming from the owners place, sounds vaguely Orb’ish or Tangerine Dream maybe, there is lightening outside, but it is not raining, so yeah – it is weird but kinda cool.

Right – on to the day. In the download frenzy the night before last I grabbed series one of Sherlock and after posting last night I watched the first episode in my room – wow, it was really good ! I am a big Sherlock Holmes fan, so a modernised version with a great cast and a crisp as all heck script – I was a convert. Will have a few Sherlock sessions I suspect.

The night was a bit cooler than the last couple so i managed a wee bit of sleep, though I was up early and off to the local cafe for 7.30. I grabbed a couple of coffees and some breakfast foods and took the ten minute walk to Pakse hospital. Dani was pretty much coma’d when I got there so I ditched the food, took a coffee and wandered back to the cafe for more coffee and my own breakie – I should mention the coffee in Laos is just awesome : ) sorry Vietnam, but theirs is better. I had a wee lie down and sauntered back up to the hospital at 10.00.

After a wee bit of shagging around and hunting down the right people Dani was released just before 11.30. She has to go back in a couple of days and will have to really look after her foot. Her bill for the stay was sooooooooooooooooo much less than what I get nailed for when I was sick in Hong Kong, in fact if it was me, I probably wouldn’t even claim it on my insurance. But then she had no meals apart from what we delivered, and minimal care – so different situation I guess.

Once she was safely back in the hostel, and at least able to tap into the backpackers coming through for assistance, and with Mike and Laura dropping by in a day or so, i was happy to move on. I packed my bag, grabbed a coffee, said my farewells and took a (now I know I was ripped off) expensive tuk tuk to the bus station to get a bus south to the 4000 Islands area.

The bus is a open air covered truck with bench seats, not a bus bus, but luxury compared to a Burmese pick up – even with the sacks of rice up the aisle so no one had leg room – and the Laotian idea of full has nothing on Mynamar either !

At I wasnt on this one, I am wondering if the four motoribikes are the transport for the four fridges !

The ride was interesting, it was supposed to be two half to three hours, but took four – I discovered that the bus that left an hour after mine arrived at the ferry before me ! I think I have some kind of bad luck thing going on. Sadly we passed what was pretty obviously a fatal vehicle accident on the way, the driver of the van was still in the remains of his vehicle – life is hard and medical facilities rare down here. We also drove through a large electrical storm, which had some of the Laotians on the bus in some state of concern/fear – i was the only westerner on the bus.

I was starting to get A – frustrated, B – pissed off and C – concerned as the trip dragged on, the bus was limping a bit at the end and we started to visit obscure villages to drop off hardware and I was wondering if I was going to make it to the ferry in time to get to Don Det Island as there are limited options for sleeping on the mainland side. We arrived just on 5.00, it was raining and I took a hurried walk down to the wharf where I vacantly stared at some mud for a while before spotting what looked liked some western legs getting onto a canoe off in the distance. I hurried in that direction and was welcomed with a big wave and realised I was probably just getting one of the last boats over. I joined an Aussie and Belgian couple (who had been on the 2:00 PM bus). Our boat driver is Mike a German guy who has been living here for a while and runs a guesthouse with his Laos wife (and may or may not feature in more posts, but I am in his bungalow tonight). The five us checked out some of the guesthouses around here and decided to stay in Mikes for at least the first night. It is dirt cheap, with rudimentary bungalows on the edge of the Mekong, however he has a restaurant which was the big appeal as it was getting late and Don Det is a basic island, to say the least and the walk to the main part of town was twenty minutes.

I can say the food was outstanding ! – I had a pumpkin burger – a pumpkin based vege pattie with (OMG) mashed potato – it was devine, and I mean so so good. Mashed spud – I missed you : ) We all had great food and chatted over a couple of beers till 11.00 or so and went to bed. Where I took a photo of my feet in the mossie net and wrote this blog post.

PS. My go at being vaguely intrepid by catching a local bus to Don Det while successful in that i arrived safely, took two hours longer than an air conned mini-van plus cost a fair bit more !!! DAMN

Days 127/128, Thursday/Friday 10/11 May 2012, Pakse.

Pretty rough night, it is very hot and humid here in Pakse and the fan in my room is next to useless as it appears to be pointing at the floor, when I try and adjust it to point at me it just flops back down to pointing at the floor again. Oh well !

I had breakfast at a cafe over the road as it was cheaper than the hostel, but the guy working there was so miserable I am not going to go back again, though the good thing was the coffee was drinkable.

I will introduce my new travelling companions, who like me are solo travelling and have been on the road for a while. Mike – 27 from New York, Dani – 22 from Jerusalem and Laura – 18 from Quebec. A rather diverse group, especially me, but Mike and I have some similar music tastes – it seems to be my saviour at times ! Our plan was to meet at 9.00 with some French people, rent motorcycles and then ride up to Tat Lo in the Bolaven Plateau for a day or so. After waiting around for a while the four us of gave up on the French and went to the bike shop. Mike was the only one of us with recent experience on a bike, so Laura was going to ride with him and Dani and I were going to ride solo. The shop did not have any full automatic bikes so we were getting the inappropriately named Suzuki Smash – a 110cc clutchless manual bike. My bike – about $9 a day to rent.

I got mine first and took it for a tentative ride up the lane behind the shop, it was a bit weird but not too difficult. Mike and Dani had theirs soon after, as Mike had ridden before we decided to go for a quick scoot round the block to get used the semi-manual bikes while Dani had a lesson from the shop guy. Mike and I got a couple of blocks away when he ran out of gas – not such a good start. I rode off in search of a gas station and found one a km up the main road, they would let me fill my bike but would not sell me a container for Mike, bastards ! I got totally lost trying to find Mike; the streets are reasonably straight forward here, and not a lot of traffic so easy to ride. But when your focus is on riding you tend to pay less attention to directions. I went back to the bike shop to retrace my steps and was shocked to find Dani had crashed her bike out the back, hit a stove and poured boiling water all over her legs and feet. Laura was with her in the shower, soaking her in cold water. I raced back out to find Mike and then found a gas station about 100 metres up the road from where he had run out of gas. We shot back to the shop and handed all the bikes back and Laura took Dani to the hospital on a tuk tuk.

Mike and I went up to the hospital a couple of hours later, there is a fairly new extension to the main hospital which appears to be private, it was clean and tidy and not crowded. They had gotten a staff member from the other hospital who spoke good English to come and help out which was good. As we arrived Dani was being put into a room on her own, which was even gooder. She had been covered up with bandages and was on a saline drip, and I am assuming antibiotics. We all pretty much spent the rest of the day hanging round the hospital or the hostel with the odd feed mixed in.

After dinner Mike and I joined half a dozen French people for a few drinks,that turned into a midnight chat and music/movie swapping session and half a bottle of whisky for me….

The room in the hostel felt about 500 degrees and i could barely sleep, even the whiskies on board didng help, so lousy sleep and a mild hangover in the morning. We had arranged to meet at 7.00 am and then head to the hospital and see how Dani was, seems she probably had a better night then we did, well at least until 5.00 am when they came in to change her sheets for some weird reason.

I tracked down the doctor and it sounds like they will let her out tomorrow if there is no infection on her foot. They changed all her dressings this morning and apparently it all looks good, which is great news.
Mike decided to join the French people and get a bike and make the trip we were going to do yesterday up to Tat Lo. I am not so bothered as it was not on my plan anyway. Laura left later in the day on the same trip and I decided to stay in town for one more day to get food and drink to Dani and keep her company in hospital and then the others will take over when they get back if she is still stuck there.

I drifted to and from the hospital a couple of times during the day, took some lunch and dinner in at appropriate times and hung round a bit. I ended up with an early night in the stinking hot hostel lying on my bed listening to music and typing this post.

I know how miserable it can be on your own in a hospital in a foreign country where most of the staff do not speak English, it is incredibly isolating and can be very confusing when the nurses come in to do something that you do not understand – like change the sheets at 5.00 AM. So, happy to be paying forward a bit.

One of the things that has really impressed me with a lot of the young people I have met on my trip is how smart , worldly and considered they are. Though my kids do have one or two truely amazing friends, my views on the younger generations in general have not been entirely positive. However these views are changing for the better as I get to spend time chatting to people like, Mike, Laura and Daniela, along with some of the others I have spent time with over the past few weeks. Travelling really does broaden ones mind – in ways you do not necessarily expect.

Beer Lao delivery vehicle.

Day 125, Tuesday 8 May 2012, Luang Prabang

Wow, those long island ice teas really had some effect – I didn’t really wake up till 9:15 this morning, awesome – though mildly hung over. I got up and had breakfast, with Bettina gone I am now the only person in the guesthouse !

My stomach is back to playing up again and I spent till lunch time in the room, but did get three days of photo editing done, good to have a catch up. I went to saffron cafe for lunch as it was nearby, and the coffee was fantastic ! Lunch was great too but went through pretty much immediately : ( I am so pleased I got through yesterday unscathed as I would have been gutted to miss that experience through being sick.

I waited till late afternoon and was pretty convinced there was not much left inside to come out and then took a walk up to the main drag and hired a cheap push bike so I could do a bit more exploring. I wanted to find this big golden (painted as it turned out 🙂 ) pagoda you can see from Phou Si. I only got misplaced a couple of times before finding Vat Phanpao up a small hill, there were great views from there, but the vat was closed which was a shame.

I rode around a bit more and found these at a temple that I cannot name. I have never seen these before, they are funeral pyres, I am reasonably sure they just burn offerings in there rather than bodies. There had been a funeral that day so one of the three was burning away, out of respect I didn’t photograph it.

I rode over the bike bridge to the other side of Nam Khong river and looked at another couple of vats, but am pretty over them now, and they were not worth photographing – three days of them is enough !

My stomach was starting to cramp again so I made a hurried trip back to the guesthouse and it wa a close call – guess it wasn’t so empty after all.

After a wee lie down out to get some more water and decided to have one dark beer at the Big Tree cafe above the Mekong. It’s my last night in Luang Prabang and it is a shame to not be able to celebrate with a nice meal. I sat and read IQ84 for a while. I am not really a dark dark beer fan, but am loving this Beer Lao Dark beer, and at 60c a bottle I am not going to complain at all.

And if you read it too (all 1173 pages) then you will know why I took this photo – apart from it looked good : )

I only had one beer – and one imodium just in case – and was back in my room by 7.30 and caught up with blogging and emailing 🙂

Day 124, Monday 7 May 2012, Luang Prabang

I woke rather pensively this morning, elephant tour today and I was not sure how my insides were going to be after yesterday’s bout of belly issues. I had a small tester breakfast and felt Ok, but still popped an Imodium before getting on the van for the elephant park.

I am in two minds about the whole elephant riding thing, one part says its cruel and should be banned and another says it would be great to spend some close up time with these lovely giants. I had chosen one of the supposedly ethical elephant parks for my ride and bathing session. Elephant Village was started in 2003 by a German guy and only uses rescued elephants, often ones that have been injured working in the logging camps – which is what elephants are mainly used for in Laos, and it is a hard life for them. Being used in tourist villages means that the elephants can pay their way as they are expensive to keep. The only other realistic options for them is being destroyed or released into the wild where they starve to death.

There were four of us in the group and soon after we arrived at the village we were being shown some basic commands for controlling an elephant, mainly stop, go, left and right. Though I am 99% sure the elephant will just do what she wants…. The elephant driver is called a mahout and a mahout will stay with the elephant for many years, a mahout only has one elephant so they do form a bond and understand each other. The mahout and the elephant train on up to 150 commands.

Climbing up on the elephant is quite tricky, its a long way up, and obviously you cannot use her ear as a lever, though they are incredibly tough. Her name is Mae Uck and she is 36 years old.

It is actually quite hard to stay balanced on their necks, her skin is very thick around the head and neck, and she has short bristle like hair. Elephants give out a lot of their body heat through their ears, and flapping ears generally means they are happy !

After a bit of a wait while other groups had rides we were off for an elephant walk for about thirty minutes, Bryan and I shared an elephant. The mahout sat on the neck and we were in a seat, we stopped for a few snacks on the way.

When we got down to the river we each had a go sitting on the neck and trying to give the elephant instructions – not very successfully either… The mahout was taking photos for me.

After the ride we each bought a bunch of bananas and got to feed the elephant. It was hilarious, trying to walk from one end of the shed to the other to feed my elephant with all these trunks weaving and poking and sniffing out food just had me in stitches. They are very gentle creatures and have incredible small motion control with their trunks.

After the feeding we had what was probably a pretty good lunch, though I only had small amount of rice and some vegetables, I feel Ok, but definitely not 100% so wasn’t going to take any risks.

After lunch it was the highlight of the day, we got to choose an elephant, and then ride her down to the river for bathing time. I chose first and picked the biggest : ) probably a mistake as she barely listened to any instruction from the mahout, and was a bit of a trouble maker ! Her name is Kham Khoun, she is 46 years old and has been in the village for a year. She stood on a mine while working as a logging elephant and was bought by the village, an injured elephant is no use to a logging company and would possibly have been pushed out into the jungle where should would likely have died. She is lovely.

The ride down to the river was challenging to say the least, it is quite steep in parts and balancing on an elephants head is no easy task – especially for a clot like me !

Once in the river, we were given scrubbing brushes and scrubbed away, the elephants appeared to enjoy it.

Once we rode back to the village the elephants job was done for the day and they were led away to be properly fed. I was pretty happy with it all.

We all had a swim in the resort pool, Bryan and I got talking to this great couple from Australia, and was recommended this cocktail – though I cannot remember its name.

And then the trip was over and it was back to the guesthouse. I arrived just as Bettina was leaving for her flight and she has told me to look her up when I to get to Brussels – thanks 🙂

After a wee lie down I wandered back to Utopia bar and lay down with my book and my headphones and drank cocktails for a couple of hours.

Once it was too dark to read I got up to leave and ran into the Aussies from this afternoon, who invited me to join them, so I did – and drank three more long island iced teas. I was very wobbly when I left….

Another good day !

Day 123, Sunday 6 May 2012, Luang Prabang

Grrr, another lousy sleep, feeling quite tired now, will have to medicate if I don’t sleep tonight. It rained quite heavily a couple of times during the night so it was significantly cooler this morning. I was up, packed and checked out by 8.00 am, as it was still raining lightly I took a tuk tuk the couple of kilometres to the new guest house.

It appears Bettina and I are the only people staying here. It is past the end of the peak season in LP and there are very few tourists around. A lot of the accommodation is family run guest houses where the family also live, so they remain open whether guests are there or not. I was very grateful to be offered breakfast when I arrived, an unexpected bonus – that I accepted. As I was finishing Bettina arrived for breakfast so we arranged to rent bicycles together (and get a better deal) do our own thing in the morning and meet up late afternoon and try to get to the temples on the other side of the Mekong.

I needed to do a supermarket trip as I had just about run out of toiletries and the very helpful young guy in the guesthouse – he lived in California for fifteen years, told me where to get the best deal. With that as my first goal i set off on my trusty rented mountain bike.

After the market, where I found everything in one stall! I resumed my tour of the local Vats. With the first stop Ban That Luang. A lot of things were closed today, I am assuming because it is a Sunday – though of course being a Buddhist country Sunday has less traditional relevance than Christian ones. Yes, the stupa is at an angle !

I really liked the slowly fading designs on the doors and shutters.

It was then on to Vat Aham, I paid the 20000 kip to enter but was a bit disappointed!

I did like this bike though.

I stopped for an iced coffee at the food stalls at the end of town, though ended up rushing it down as there was some annoying young Irish “hippies”,who for some reason felt they had a right to sit and play a guitar and sing their bloody awful songs while the rest of us suffered, no one seemed to stay longer than necessary.

I then visited Vat Pah Ouak, which has some lovely murals from the 1870’s inside. This is one of the very few of the vats that were not sacked by the Chinese in the late 1880s. I loved the murals.

The museum

A random building, but I do like the steps.

And some random doors.

I stopped for an early lunch as it was getting hot and it was time to head back to the GH and get out of the sun for a couple of hours. I’m not sure if it was the lunch or the iced coffee, but a few minutes later – as I was at my final vat for the morning I had to quickly jump on the bike and ride back to the GH to get to the loo. Where i pretty much spent the next four hours.

I ran into Bettina at the GH and she invited me to join her and two American women she had met for dinner at Utopia bar. I said if I was able to walk far from the loo I would join them!

I was feeling OK by 5.00 so returned the bike and walked to Mt Phou Si a hundred metre high hill in the centre of LP so I could visit Vat Chom Si on the top, this time before it closed !

The view from the top overlooking LP.

At the top visitors can buy these small bamboo cages containing two tiny birds which can then be BBQ’d released back into the wild carrying your wish.

I was still having minor stomach cramps but didn’t feel an urgent need to rush to the loo so decided to carry on to Utopia bar and meet up with Bettina, Jane an Kirsten for at least a drink, and then if all was well, dinner. Utopia sits above the Nam Khan river and has all these cushions and things to lounge on at small tables out in the open, it was a really nice spot with reasonably prices for food and drink. I felt pretty good so had three beers and a very nice chicken laap, which is one of the local specialities. We stayed there a few hours, watched the “super” moon rise spectacularily through the scattered cloud and then moved onto a wine bar in town to share a bottle of NZ Cab. Merlot. We are all wine drinkers who have been on the road for a while and missed a decent red. It was very nice !

Being a bit sick in the middle of the day was a shame as I had a good day, and still really like Luang Prabang. I have two more full days here and have booked a flight to Pakse for Wednesday morning.