Life in Cambodia

Southern Laos (July 4th-9th)

Hey guys, I know its been a long time since we've updated the blog, but now we've got some better stories to tell than dead geckos and what not! We've finally begun our much vaunted and highly hyped trip and the first stop is Laos. But wait, first we had to get out of Phnom Penh, which proved to me a much more difficult task than either Maggie or I were expecting. Work, shipping, etc woes, and after a bit of sickness delay, we were off. First though, the night before we left town, we wanted to have a few drinks with some friends, but that turned into an all night drinking party fest which lasted much later than it should have, knowing that we had a 7am bus ride the next morning. We played (and won!) the little trivia game, though admittedly we had to cheat and steal answers off some Aussies the next table over. Our first leg was PNP to Stung Treng, kinda the last Cambodian city before the border and what a jewel of a town that was! The bus ride was punishing, though nothing that Maggie or I haven't seen before. But you guys don't want to hear about Cambodia, so I'll fast forward to the Laos border crossing, where we had to bribe this border guard to stamp our passports. The entire time this guy was whining "I want a receipt, I want a receipt!" meanwhile I am praying that I get my passport stamp before this guy pisses the border guard off too much. Hey man, I don't like corruption any more than the next man, but I am also not going to stand there and cry on a border guard's shoulder to get my dollar back either. If this guy wants to see corruption, he should go to Africa! Anyway, one passport stamp heavier and one dollar lighter, we were across and on our way to the sunny 4000 Islands of southern Laos in the Mekong River. Billed as a must see by many a traveller, we decided to "must see" it ourselves. A little boat ride took us to our new home of Don Det and never in my life had I seen sooooo many dirty wanna-be hippies crawling all over the place like vermin. "Dude, you mean you've only sat here in this hammock doing nothing for only 3 days man, I've been here wasting My Life for nearly 3 weeks, Dude." " Hey man, I don't want to visit Vientiane, too boring, too much actual culture yeah." And the like. I have little tolerance for this, I taboo them and speak poorly of them publicly, but admittedly, when eavesdropping on some, I heard one or two practical or interesting comments. Hippies aside, the little island was really nice once you got out of the ghetto. Our little bungalow wasn't conducive for hanging out, so we spend most of our free time wandering around the island, hiking among the rice paddies, along old railway tracks and found an abandoned steam locomotive along the trail. It was nice because though our island was flat, it was surrounded by mountains on other close islands, which gave it a bit of a tropical island-esque look. The Laos people seem quite friendly in that just about everyone you pass will greet you with a smiling "Sabaydee!" Anyway, we crept around the island, fending off Sabaydee's and giving them as good as we got and generally had a good time. We came across far better guesthouses and bungalows and we felt bad because we were staying in a dirty shack. Off all things though, we found an Australian man who baked bread and donuts, and he was good...real good. I wondered how an Aussie ended up on some little island with his serious baking oven, making donuts for tourists and I decided I was jealous of this man. Had we not been staying in The Ghetto, the island would be a nice place to hang out, but admittedly, a bit too much for us. Not that we were looking to live with the locals and eat crickets or whatever, but at any rate, we headed out. Our next stop was a place called Champasak, just south of Pakse, which is kinda the southern transport hub. Anyway, just outside Champasak is a Angkor-era temple that apparently is the jewel in the crown of many folks' Laos trip, so we had to see for ourselves. We thought about biking since it was 8km out of town, but decided the Moto was more our style (we would be proven wrong here)...especially since I (now it's me, Maggie writing) was elected to drive because of my fine moto-driving skillz (that's right, with a 'z', uh). We made it to the ruins, enjoyed an hour of so of hiking around, discovering a carved Buddha foot in the base of a cliff, babbling brooks around the top of the ruins and an amazing number of butterflies resting around the moss covered rocks. After our hearty hike up the steep steps of the temple we headed down, deciding to go to another temple just down the road. I reved up and "POP!" I thought it was a little glitch in the moto, so Matt jumped on the back and we were off...only to quickly discover a flat. We pushed the moto with long faces, then mimed and signed our way through a few shop keepers to find the 'moto-tire-flat-repair man' who saw our weary faces in the heat of the afternoon and hooked us up for only a small 5000 kip fee ($ .40). We weren't but 5 km down the road when we started wobbling again, facing a similar glitch...repeat above situation (and same price!), but now Matt was driving and we looked a bit more down for the count...OK, not so interesting anymore right? Well things did slow down a notch. We hit the road by foot, sampled some nice street food in our little Champasak and headed to the bar just above the Mekong on bamboo stilts for a beer Lao and grilled chicken.

We headed out of Champasak the next day for Pakse, a larger town, with not much happening except a brusque business in transport; although a large man wearing a ten gallon hat with rubber galoshes was spotted milling about the market, surely with a southern drawl. Anyway, the hub of transport offered us many options: mini buses, 18-wheelers, pick-up trucks, mini-trucks, tuk-tuks, motos, VIPs and our final choice (cause we feel we've earned our crappy-transport-experience stripes long ago), the lovely 'KING OF BUS'...no joke, airbrushed in blue, hot pink and yellow on the front of the most souped-up double-decker touring bus I've ever seen; we were riding in luxury for $13.50 and it felt right. The 'King' included a bathroom, rice and pork snack, a wet nap, A/C and a blanket, oh and of course the requisite Laos karaoke, but that was easily blocked out. They even washed the windows before we got in and I think the blankets were clean. After chatting up a local monk and his novice in tow, also heading out on the 'KING OF BUS' (see, we up there with the monks now) we shared our 'Off' (they loved the 'fresh scent') and some snacks with them and got settled in our seats. 9.5 hours and we would be in Vientiane. Lovely. No chickens or chicken poop, mud, hacking and spitting or smoke in your face or intermittent rain to give you a chill. 8:30 pm we were off and made it, although a bit groggy, but to another hole in the wall guest house by the morning. More to come on the standard of tourism in Laos and some other strange things seen after only 5 days out of Cambodia.

posted by Life in Cambodia @ 6:28 PM