Chau Laos!

As I sat thinking about how badly I wanted to jump into the Mekong, to allow my feet to dangle where unknown things lurked, a chicken below my bungalow clucked “bokbokbokBOK!” as if taunting me. Under my breath so no one could hear me chastising poultry I said, “I’m not a chicken… you’re a chicken.” And made up my mind, my mind that was full of nothing and everything all at the same time, that I would indeed grace the Mekong with my presence, unknown things be damned!

So the day finally came when Ally and I said, it’s time. We rented a tube for 10,000kip each and met up with our new Aussie friends, Sarah and Chris. We waded into the warm water and awkwardly fell onto our black, sun soaked tubes. At first it seemed like we’d have to do all the work to get down the river but sooner than later the current caught us and away we went. As we floated past our bungalow we called out to our porch dog Grizz to see if he’d react. Well he didn’t just react he followed us down most of the river, crying the entire way! Don’t get attached to animals on your travels the experts say but what about when they get attached to you?

Tubing was more enjoyable than I thought it would be. Before when people would talk about getting into a tube and floating lazily down the river I would sit there thinking but why do that when swimming is so much fun! But now I get it. I get the appeal of lying back chatting to friends and allowing the sun to molest my skin that I didn’t apply enough sunscreen to!

After floating for about an hour we all awkwardly got out of our tubes and headed into a restaurant for some grub before grabbing our tubes and walking back to town. We figured a tuk tuk would come along and we’d be back by 5, (when the tubes were due back) with plenty of time to spare. Yet no tuk tuk would have us, they all drove past going the opposite way showering us in dirt road debris. 2.5k isn’t that far but when you’re thirsty, carrying sun satellites and your skin is beginning to audibly crackle it seems like the end will never come! I am pleased to say that we made it back and after a few days the front of my legs is almost matching the back of my legs again!

Days pass rather slowly in Don Det and while at first relaxation mode is enjoyable cabin fever mode soon takes over and the thought of doing just about anything is more appealing than the thought of another hour of nothing! We were lucky to discover a rather pricey yet very nice bungalow/restaurant with a beautiful view, debit machine and wifi and made it our do nothing but do nothing with wifi “retreat”. We met an English girl named Charlotte and hit it off with her quickly. She’s a writer and was excited to discover other writers… not that I’m much of a writer but I do enjoy it! Anyway check out her blog http://globe-jotters.blogspot.com/. So days of sitting on our deck and doing nothing turned into sitting at Little Eden, eating expensive yet delicious meals, catching up with news and entertainment from home, making a new friend and playing several rounds of the traveller favourite Shithead. 

The remaining days in Don Det which seemed to never end, were spent writing, reading, swimming (yep I said screw it I’m way too hot I’ll risk being eaten by some mysterious river monster if it means I get to cool down!), meeting new people, researching our Cambodian adventure and surviving the most extreme thunderstorm I’ve ever witnessed.

Laos is a beautiful, mysterious country full of lovely, joyous people and it should not be missed. If you do head over make sure you pack, anti-nausea medication, swimwear, a waterproof camera, books and an open mind. Follow those simple suggestions and your Laos adventure will be brilliant just as mine was

They've Got that Something!

There is something about the Laos people that make them incredibly cool. I don’t mean cool in the same way we do in the west or in a Fonzie sort of way, but I mean cool in a “Yeah that dog just peed on my leg so what, dogs need to pee!” kind of way. I’m not saying every single Laotian is cool. That would be like saying all American’s are loud and all Canadians are polite. There are several mute American’s and I’ve flipped several people off on the highway in Canada. I’m just saying that collectively they seem like a pretty cool bunch. This coolness also seems to be transferred to the animals. Seemingly feral cats climb into your lap the second you sit down and happily sleep away while you drink your tea. Dogs that in another part of the world may make you think twice about putting your hand down to give them a pat nudge you and run off ahead as if to lead you to a secret place or a drowning child ala Lassie. Even the chickens have a coolness to them that makes you feel kind of bad about that chicken burger you had for dinner last night but then you remember how delicious it was and think “Yeah these chickens are cool but so what, I need to eat!”

I’d like to take a bit of this coolness back home with me but I think my neurotic tendencies are too, as Yoda would say “Strong with this one.” Also I truly believe that the Laos cool could not survive the literal cold of a Canadian winter! No one would be able to say, “Yeah it’s April, it has been snowing for 6 months straight and it’s -20, so what it likes to snow here!”  No, no, no we all turn into depressed miserable SOB’s, especially when all the summer clothes have come out as if the stores are purposely taunting you with things you COULD be wearing but wisely should not be wearing.

Anyway what was I talking about… oh yes Laos people! So in conclusion they are cool, their animals are cool and after it rains it’s kind of cool!

(Mom and Dad I have actually never flipped off another motorist… I’m never fast enough!)

Nothingness on Don Det

If there is anything I have learned on this journey it is this, roosters are huge assholes, and I have way more than I need to be happy and despite what I have told myself for years, I just may be one of the “lucky ones”.

Our time in Laos is rapidly coming to an end. Our last destination is the 4000 Islands in the south. But before we could get there we had to get from Ba Nah Hin to some kind of bus station in some place we’d never heard of! Our friendly guesthouse matriarch told us that a tuk tuk would arrive at 9:30 to take us to the bus. Low and behold at 7:45 the next morning she was tapping on our window telling us the tuk tuk was actually arriving at 8:30. A fact that she was afraid to inform the Spanish couple of and so she begged me to do it for her. I’m happy they were so nice because not everyone would be happy to hear they only had 15 minutes to pack, dress and get out of their room.  We jumped awkwardly into our packed transportation and headed towards some unknown location. In the end we easily survived our 3-hour tuk tuk ride with a large group of lovely small town Laotians, who marveled at our height and the whiteness of our skin while a small boy covered himself in the Canada stickers I had given him as a consolation for having to sit beside the scary falang (foreigner).

*side note*(You’ll be sitting in a tuk tuk with locals who stare and at times rub your “white” skin in amazement while trying to express that their skin is different, sometimes I get the feeling that they are trying to rub the paleness off me and onto them. Go right ahead my friend you’re more than welcome to take the colouring of a corpse that I have been “blessed” with. You’ll probably be happy to learn that this skin does not brown like yours it remains the perfect camouflage for a blizzard! I’ll leave out the part about having to wear spf 75 in order to keep from turning into one big scorch mark because that’s what any good sales pitch would leave out!)

So after our tuk tuk ride we arrived at the bus station in Thakeat and purchased our tickets to Pakse, the jewel of Laos. No no I’m totally kidding, Pakse is merely a layover kind of city like Minneapolis or Baltimore before heading somewhere better. For the record I have nothing against Baltimore, I hear the crab is quite delicious there and I love crab. Minneapolis… well there isn’t enough space on the whole of the internet for me to go into why I included it… but I’m sure it’s not as bad as its airport!

Our bus to Pakse cost us a whopping $6.50 (7.5hrs) and it offered luke warm air con, seats that went all the way back by just sneezing at them and an interior that had obviously been the training ground for drug dogs before it was shipped from Korea. Still we weren’t complaining we got 2 seats each, which makes everything tolerable! Oh and to boot a mix CD of Thai, Khmer and Korean pop songs! It is times like these where you look down at your iPod and think, thank-you for being invented!

I don’t have much to say about Pakse… there are some large hotels, several ATM’s, some restaurants and guesthouses… people live there, drive there, work there and probably eat there too. We arrived late and left early and stuck to the same route both ways. At 8am a van arrived to take us down to the 4000 Islands. It was a pretty comfortable ride. There was great air con and I was able to sit back, listen to some music and read Tina Fey’s book Bossypants (Perhaps the funniest book I’ve ever read, if you read it and don’t laugh out loud at least 50 times you clearly have the sense of humour of a deflated inner tube!) So there I was enjoying my time, happily being entertained audibly and literarily when I looked up just in time to see a dog crossing the street and then BAM…BUMPH… BUMPH and GASP/AAAHHH. All I could do was stare ahead with my hand clasped over my mouth; my body replaying the feeling of the wheel beneath me as it hopefully quickly ended a life. Every passenger sat slightly traumatized as the driver continued forward at the same pace before pulling over to fix the front bumper that was now rubbing against the right wheel. Still I sat in a bit of shock, thinking “OMG our driver is clearly a psychopath, get out of the van, get out now.” A little while later we came across some cows lazily crossing the street and what did our driver do… well he honked. In the half an hour between the man had committed 2^nd degree dog slaughter and the cow crossing the genius powering our 2 ton vehicle had managed to find the horn.

When we arrived at the “port” we got our “ferry” ticket and headed down to a beach that resembled a landfill and climbed into a teetering boat that would take us across the Mekong to Don Det. When our boat nudged its way onto shore we hopped out to collect our bags and I promptly sliced my hand open on the edge of the boats rusty aluminum roof. Bravo me! If you’re looking for something pointy, sharp and crawling with disease I’m the girl to find it for you! No worries though I sprang into action with some antiseptic wipes, iodine stuff and a band aid and I’m happy to report that each side of the cut agreed to a reconciliation and has since called off the separation! Who needs a doctor when you’ve got yourself a mom knows best first aid kit! (I do not condone performing a major procedure on your self with or without a mom knows best first aid kit)(The kit I was using was not in fact called Mom Knows Best so please don’t get upset if you can’t find it at your local Walmart or Canadian Tire.)

We managed to find ourselves a pretty sweet bungalow perched on the river with a nice deck equipped with hammocks and a cozy cat and dog infested café. One of the cats chilled out with us for our entire first visit and after removing several fleas (yeah I’m one of those people) from his body I named him Marty McFlea. So Ally, Marty McFlea and I sat and enjoyed each other’s company while lunching on delicious tuna and egg salad sandwiches. We threw our crumbs into the Mekong and watched as fish of all sizes… ok not all sizes like 3 sizes, tiny, small and small-medium, fought over them. Just a small side note, the fish do not like tomatoes or lettuce but seem somewhat fascinated by onions. And also monkeys may in fact prefer coconuts to bananas.

The bungalow itself cost us 30,000, 15,000k each that’s like… $1.78! It has a mosquito net, a fan and a great view. To say this place is luxurious would be stretching the truth well past its breaking point but describing it as rustic and the embodiment of easy living would be adequate.

Don Det, despite its “party island” description makes the rest of Laos look a bit hectic! It is the Laos equivalent of Ontario cottage country… before the rich got wind that cottaging was a good time and turned it into one big country club! During the dry season there is a sharp contrast between the lush green banks of Don Det that gently slope into the Mekong and the islands parched brown interior.  It presents itself as a good place to relax but there is something scary about a place with not a lot to do! I have really begun to notice more of my mother in me especially when it comes to downtime. I’ve always been really good at doing nothing when there is a lot to do but when there isn’t much to do I don’t know how to do nothing!

We have ample time to explore Don Det and some of the surrounding islands and we are desperately hoping to see the elusive and critically endangered Irrawaddy Dolphin. For now it’s island walking, island sleeping, island biking, island writing, island reading and sunning ourselves on a tube as we participate in island gazing while we float lazily down the mighty Mekong!