Praying mantis

The bus was a bit overloaded, which meant that my bag and Fabrice's had to come inside and roll about the aisle, and I was squashed in at the back between loads of children. I was expecting Ban Lung to be as hassle free as Kratie and Kampong Cham had been, but as soon as we got off the bus there was a massive scramble for the "barang" by the moto dup drivers, each of whom pushed one or two guest houses. Surprisingly this was the most hassle we had yet endured, but the guest house owner in Kratie had recommended a place called Tree Top, an "eco lodge", which we soon found a driver for. At $4 for a double room it seemed like a good deal as well. When we arrived there, after a rather scary journey on the back of a bike with my thirty kilo rucksack still on my back, Fabrice was already there, and had taken the last double room, leaving us with a choice of a twin room (not suitable for a honeymoon) or a bungalow which, at the massive price of $7 we decided we
couldn't afford on our Cambodian budget. We really wanted to stay there though, as it looked lovely, so we were very pleased when Fabrice agreed to swap for the twin room. The eco lodge was a little out of town, so we just ate in their restaurant, which was a little over-priced, and got chatting to an Israeli guy, who seemed to be a mine of travel information, largely related to money saving; he scoffed at our $25 per day per person. He was trying to get by on $10. He had just arrived from Laos and I didn't think he'd be able to do it in Cambodia. After a bit the conversation went down hill when he told Joanne she was ridiculous for not eating dog when she is happy to eat pigs which, he insisted, are much dirtier animals than dogs. What a silly discussion!

We were woken at 7am by the building site, where they are building the lodge owner's house. It seems like everywhere we stay in Asia there is a buliding site just outside our window, which starts at 7am. In Banlung it was much cooler than the lowlands of Cambodia. When we went into the restaurant in the morning, Fabrice was sitting with a Canadian guy called Bobby, saying that they had been in town and found a trek that was cheaper than the one offerred by the lodge and they were going to meet the guide later to go over the details. We had arrived too late to organise any trekking for that day, so we hired the worst condition moped so far, from the lodge owner and zipped off to take in the local sights, stopping in town to have a baguette. Baguettes are for sale from street vendors everywhere in Cambodia, but this was a national speciality we had somehow hitherto missed. We hadn't been missing much, but they were OK.

Waterfall

Children at the elephant handlers' village

Volcanic lake

Joanne's elephant

That evening we had some drinks with Fabrice and a girl from Somerset, called Charlie. She had been working in Botswana in conservation, and wanted to live in South Africa. She had an aeronautical engineering degree, but hated it and completely changed careers. The next morning she was leaving for Don Det, where we planned to go next, so we agreed to bump into each other there.

The guide picked us up at 7.30am as agreed and we got driven to a ferry port. After we crossed the river we would be trekking. The guide, a guy he called his brother, and the car driver all sat around in a cafe at the ferry port having lunch, even though it was only about 10am when we arrived. Just when it was reaching the hottest part of the day we caught the ferry, which had been going back and forth for the whole hour and a half we sat there. The three of us had been sitting asking each other what on earth is going on -- after all didn't we have some trekking to be getting on with. Then when it was time to pack the bags I really started to wonder if they had any idea what was going on themselves.

The previous day when we had discussed the trek, we had asked the guide what we need to take with us and he had said not to worry, that they would carry everything; all we need to carry is clothes and our own water. We didn't need to take any mosquito nets or food, because they would organise all of that. We had decided to take one bigger bag to take turns with just in case. But when we got it out he put all the water in the one bag, then he put a huge bag of food, then he put another big bag of food in on top. I picked it up and said "it's very heavy", meaning that we could perhaps share the weight around; or at least the water, but he said "ok I'll take it" and put on the big rucksack, "you take this", and handed me a large, heavy, nylon sack. Fabrice was also given a sack to carry. Keo set off without tying the waist strap of the large rucksack as the midday sun beat down on us.

By now I was convinced they had no idea what they were doing. I'm no expert in hiking, but the last thing you want to do is carry anything in your hands, least of all an awkwardly shaped, heavy, nylon sack, which was dripping something slightly slimy from one corner; it really tires you out, puts strain on your back, and puts you off-balance. As for Keo not doing up the waist strap, he can't have known how the gear works, after all it's only the waist strap that really makes rucksacks sit where they should and takes weight off your spine. I don't think you need to have the highest tech gear to go trekking, but Keo was just wearing an ordinary pair of leather shoes, which seemed odd. Finally, setting off in the middle of the day, after sitting around doing nothing for nearly two hours was crazy, especially when the path turned out to be more of a road than a forest track, so there was almost no shadow from trees, most of which anyway had been cut down,
and the land burned. So we were walking along a large path through a scorched wasteland in baking sun. Not exactly a great start.

Soon it because clear that Keo and his brother weren't even very fit. OK, Keo's bag was heavy, but the two of them stopped and sat down for a rest every fifteen minutes, while the customers stood around waiting for them to get on with it. Surely the guides are supposed to be really fit and able to cope with carrying a heavy bag? Keo's brother didn't even have that excuse and seemed to need the rests just as much. Eventually we reached a section where the road narrowed and some of the forest had been left alone, and it started to look a little bit pleasant, however we were still being passed quite frequently by vehicles. Finally it narrowed even more, so that only mopeds were able to drive along the path. Which is about when we stopped at a clearing with a couple of wooden structures. Our home for the night! It was actually quite nice, so I started to cheer up. Keo got the hammocks we would be sleeping in out of a bag and tied them up under our shelter.
That was when things got worse! Joanne had gone over to inspect the hammocks, which had integrated mosquito nets. One of them had a huge hole in it, the zip did not work at all on one, and the last one had lots of small holes. When we complained to Keo, he told us not to worry, he has repellent spray and there anyway is no malaria in Cambodia! Needless to say we were not very happy, because we could have brought our own.

Our sleeping area in the jungle

Keo and his brother lit a fire and cooked the fish that turned out to be the thing leaking from my bag in the hot sun all day. It tasted OK, if not exactly delicious, but it made me worry how fresh the following day's meat would be. The meal was cooked with loads of rice; "Cambodians don't feel good unless they have rice in their stomachs Keo explained to me". When the sun set, the two Cambodians lit a fire for us and went to their hammocks to sleep, at about 7pm, leaving us wondering what to do with ourselves, and also we realised, nowhere to sit, because it was the tree trunks we were using as benches while we ate that were now the fire. Eventually I volunteered to take the zipless hammock in exchange for Joanne getting the best one and we also went to bed. I've tried to sleep in a hammock once before and found it very uncomfortable, and this one was no different. After drenching myself in mosquito repellent, I realised that the hammock was a bit short for me and it seemed like it would only be comfy if my knees bent the wrong way. I may have got two hours sleep, but when I gave up trying to sleep, it was actually really nice just lying there in the jungle, listening to what sounded like an elephant rustling around, although it really couldn't have been, listening to hundreds of gecko calling, listening to all sort of birds and millions of cicadas, and watching loads of fireflies floating past our shelter. All night an electric storm rumbled around us, although it only rained on us for a short time and the shelter kept us completely dry. Even if the hammock had been comfortable, I think there was actually far too much noise for me to sleep! It was a very interesting experience, though, just not much use if you want rest because you are hiking the next day.

The following morning, I discovered that neither Fabrice nor Joanne had slept either; I had seen Fabrice got up in the middle of the night and sit in the other shelter for a while. Apparently he had given up sleeping and intended to read, but when he put on his headtorch he was attacked by lots of insects, which is why he returned to bed shortly afterwards.

This day's hike seemed to consist of us following Keo around, visiting people living in the forest so he could have a long conversation with them, while we just stood around, waiting. He also took us to a clearing to show us where he used to work for an international gem company as a local expert and advisor, prospecting using lots of wooden aparatus that was still lying there, abandoned to the jungle. Apparently the company had pulled out of Cambodia at the start of the economic downturn. After this diversion, we walked to the village where we were to stay the second night (Etop), again carrying stuff in sacks, and the guides resting every fifteen minutes or so. It was about halfway back along the route we had walked the day before. We had taken so long to get going in the morning that it was already late afternoon by the time we arrived.

Minority village children

Inside house we stayed in at the minority village

House we stayed in at the minority village

Minority village

Fabrice

They really crammed us into this minibus, and stopped to pick up some locals after it was already full! One by one, the bags from inside the minibus we taken up onto the roof and tied with rope. In Stung Treng, we stopped for lunch, where we swapped minibuses and Thalia noticed that one of her bags was missing. Stolen? Fallen from the roof seemed most likely, but the other minibus was called back to search it. It wasn't there, and after phoning the guesthouse we found out that the bag was there. Apparently it had got left behind at the market where one of the locals got off, or it hadn't made it onto the roof or something. Somehow someone knew to take the bag to the Tree Top guesthouse, so Thalia had to stay overnight in Stung Treng and wait for her bag to come on the next day's minibus.

For those of us who continued to the border, we had to pay a bribe of $1 to each side of the border, as we had been told we would have to by countless travellers. One Israeli couple had refused to pay, and the Lao side let them through anyway, whereas the Cambodian side had kept them waiting there for about five hours before letting them through. We had all decided that $2 wasn't worth a five hour wait so just paid it when they asked us to. A German couple, coming in the opposite direction, were being asked for $20 to get through, on top of the visa fee. Apparently they alter the amount depending on how wealthy you look, and they were on quite fancy-looking motorbikes. Luckily for me, it's never been that hard for me to look scruffy, so it was only $1 per side as expected.

Welcome to Laos!

First sunset on Don Det

Lao Lao just means Lao spirit in the Lao language. Coming into Laos [note the adjective relating to the country is Lao and the country is Laos, where the "s" is pronounced in English -- sounds a bit like louse] meant that we were back in a tonal language speaking country again, so it would be tricky to learn much. Anyway, the two words "Lao" in Lao Lao are different because they have different tones. After a while and some time with my phrasebook I realised that Lao is really quite easy: there are six tones which is at least easier than the nice Cantonese has, but not as easy as the four in Mandarin. But aside from the tones, which I think are pretty tricky to master, there is the alphabet, which is very strange if you are used to Roman characters. Apparently it's derived from the original Thai alphabet, which in turn is derived from the Khmer alphabet, although Thai had since been redesigned, so Lao is closer to the original Khmer now. Anyway, once you've learned the alphabet it gets much easier because Lao is phonetic. Apart from that, the language structure is very simple: the verbs have no tenses, they don't change depending on the person, or if plural; the pronouns are the same whether subject or object; nouns are the same whether plural or not, in fact all the time, so the adjectives never change either. There is more, but I can't remember now. Mostly the language is trivial, but there are one or two areas where there is extra complexity, like knowing how to address people: older sibling, younger sibling, aunt, uncle, etc etc, and a specially respectful address for monks and people in high office.

Fishing in the Mekong

Fish laap

On our first morning there we were woken before 6am by some cocks crowing very loudly and persistently. Given the hangovers we had we were not particularly grateful for this service and wondered what difference the sun can possibly make on sunrise side, considering you are woken before it anyway. So we spent a lazy morning becoming accostomed to our hammocks, taking a dip or two in the Mekong. Later in the day we discovered the mistake we had made. After about midday the sun beats down on the hammocks on the sunset side, making it nearly impossible to tolerate, whereas the people on the sunrise side are in the shadow of their bungalows, having been woken up at the same time by the cocks, the morning after watching a beautiful sunset by simply buying a drink on the sunset side.

View from my hammock

Quite quickly we noticed that the Lao are as obsessed with rice as Cambodians: rice, usually sticky rice, is offered with whatever you order from the menu. Burger: would you like sticky rice? Sandwich: would you like sticky rice? Ice cream: would you like sticky rice? Another odd thing we noticed is that the cats had no tails; not like siamese, but apparently docked. And a nice difference from Cambodia is that all the kids, who are just as cute, say "sabaii dii" everywhere you go, which is the usual greeting in Lao, instead of in Cambodia where all the kids say "hello". On the third day we met up with Charlie from Somerset, who had now arrived, and got very drunk again. It seemed like Laos was not going to be very good for our health. But at least we were absorbing the culture: Lao are known for being very laid back. The Lonely Planet says in the introduction that the collonial French used to say "The Vietnamese grow the rice, the Cambodians watch it grow, and the Lao listen to it grow". Apparently the Laos was always a loss-making venture for the French.

The following day was my birthday! But I was really hungover and didn't feel like doing much, however since we'd not really done much since we arrived I persuaded myself and Joanne to hire a bike and cycle around, and to the neighbouring island, Don Khon, which is connected by a bridge. In another nicer-than-Cambodia moment, we realised that foreigners only have to pay three times as much as locals to cross the bridge, a massive improvement on the forty times we had to pay in Kampong Cham. Don Khon was quieter and dearer than Don Det, but the same idea: bungalows on legs, although mostly made of wood here. We visited the water fall there, but it wasn't very impressive; too dry at this time of year probably. We cycled back a bit uninspired and still hungover. I managed a few drinks for my birthday, we went to an indian restaurant, and Joanne gave me a krama, which is a Cambodian scarf, used, for example, for protecting your face from dust when on a motor bike in the dry season; also some nice incense we'd been smelling everywhere in Cambodia, an incense holder, and a bracelet, which I'm sure will grow on me ;-)

Grumpy tied up pig

That night there was a massive electric storm and the island was lashed with rain. A bit odd, I thought, since the dry season still has quite a while to go, but I suppose you do get occasional downpours. After the storm eased off we were woken again by a couple of English guys two bungalows along, who arrived back really drunk. We'd chatted to them a bit over the previous days. They were biking over the difficult roads in Laos on dirt bikes, neither of them ever having riden even a moped before. They both had several injuries from the journey, and one had a really nasty burn from the exhaust pipe (apparently known as a "Thai Tattoo"). Anyway, after a while the dutch girl in the bungalow between hours and theirs spoke up, in a bid to quieten them down. Instead she just roused their interest: "where are you from?"; she replied "Holland"; then a few minutes later, "where are you from?"; "Iceland", she said. "We're from England" they responded; "oh really we can't tell" was the last thing she said.

Could it be another sunset?

The next day we watched from our hammocks as the female owner did our laundry in Mekong. I wasn't too worried, since everyone washes in it, as had we since we arrived there; and I think what came out the communal shower (which I never used) was just Mekong water anyway. The Mekong seems really quite clean and fresh. Later someone in our bar told us that the cats were missing their tails because baby cat tail is a delicacy and the Lao remove them when the cat is still young. That night loud music was blasting out long after most places close, and most have turned their generators off (there is no mains electricity on the island). We thought it must have been where the English boys had been so late last night, so we tracked the place down to have a look. It was locals having a party, being true to character as we'd been told: drinking Lao lao and dancing to loud music with very loud bass being played by a band playing music that sounded quite like ska. That night there was another huge storm and downpour. We decided we had to leave the next day, as we were becoming too lazy and drinking too much there.

Tubing into the sunset

When I tried to take a couple of photos in Pakse, I realised that the beer I spilled on my camera in Don Det had actually done a bit of damage. It had seemed OK at first, but now it had dried off it seemed like all the mechanisms were a bit sticky.

My camera was taking strain

There's not really anything to do in Pakse. It seems to be full of people just using it as a base for trips to the Bolaven Plateau, so we decided to do the same. Wandering around the streets, I spotted someone selling more banana leaf parcels, and not being able to resist unusual things, least of all surprises wrapped up in banana leaf, I bought one, maybe expecting pickled fish again, but not really sure what to expect. I unwrapped it and it still wasn't obvious what it was, but it looked a bit like raw pork. I bit into it and, yes it seeemed to be raw pork, wrapped around some herbs, spices, and a big chunk of raw chili. It tasted very nice, but I couldn't help worry about worms, although the meat did taste like it might be cured, which I hoped would take care of any parasites. Oh well! I finished it off. I had read that the Lao have a taste for raw meat. Their main national dish, laap, is traditionally made with raw minced meat of fish, but it is usually cooked these days.

I tracked down a half bottle of lao-lao in the hope it would kill anything not killed in the curing process nad we finished the day in an indian restaurant, which was packed with falangs, probably more of them than we had previously eaten with.

written by  The Happy Couple on March 21, 2009 from Pakxe, Laos
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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Buddha Park

According to the books Vientiane is actually pronounced something like Wang Chan, but because the Roman transliteration was done by the French, it doesn't really come out right if you say it as if it's an English word. The LP says that it starts with a "V" because French does not have letter "W", although I'm sure I remember a letter called "doobleh-vay" so I don't know what they are talking about. Maybe it's a recent introduction into the French alphabet, because of imported words from English. "Whisky" comes to mind. The same goes for the "ch" sound: does not exist in French, so they chose "tia" as the next closest sound in French. Anyway, everything in Lao seems to have several different spellings, because there is a move to the Royal Thai method of transliteration, which the LP assures us is much more understandable by everyone, although I think it just makes it easier for English speakers. Having said all that, I only ever heard people saying itas
it looks in English, so maybe the spelling has led to a difference in pronunciation between the Lao and the English versions of the city name.

Our main goal in Vientiane was to obtain a Thai visa. We had only recently discovered this would be necessary due to a recent rule change which means that, while people arriving by air get the usual thirty day visa on arrival, people arriving overland are only given fifteen days, which is nothing like enough for what we want to do. Apparently it's something to do with the airport protests last year and they are also trying to discourage people from doing the Thai "visa run" where people spend a day just over the border in Burma, for example, simply so that they can get another thirty days stamped on their passports when they return. Well not any more they can't! Only when we arrived did we discover, to our delight, that for a limited period only, they are giving away sixty day tourist visas and waiving the fee. I think they must be trying to make up for the additional inconvenience they are causing people. Despite this good news it was still a real
painto get the visa. It was very hot and humid, there were hundreds of people waiting, and it took more than half-a-day just queue to hand our passports in and then queue again for the receipt. I sneaked off for a quick beer while Joanne was waiting for our number to come up and ended up the only person in a strange biker bar (I think), playing old French music. The town seems to be a bit more French than anywhere else in Laos so far, and it shows in some of the architecture.

The arc de triomphe or "vertical runway"

On the way back from the Embassy, we stopped in at the post office to get information regarding our other mission in Vientiane, which was to post home some of the stuff we really should not have brought with us. The post office appeared to be in the middle of being built, but we managed to find a way in anyway. The prices for posting a parcel was far more than we had anticipated: about 10 quid a kilo. After an unsuccessful attempt at finding a shipping company instead, we returned to our hotel to estimate which of the items we wanted to send were worth enough more than a tenner a kilo to send rather than bin. Most things passed, so items like my linen suit, which I hadn't worn since the wedding despite huge intentions of playing the colonial part, we put aside for parcelling up. Also on the list were my jeans, my second, thick fleece, and loads of other stuff that seemed to be taking up far too much space, but not tooo much weight.

Local speciality of Vientiane

Side dish for local speciality

Weird dish of wobbly rice paper, nuts, and sausage

The following day we spent another half day collecting our passports from the Thai embassy, complete with our brand new (free!) Thai visas. Later in the day we got chatting to a couple from Australia, who were heading towards Cambodia: in the opposite direction from us. They had just come from Vang Vieng and had had to part company with a friend, so he could be flown to Bangkok on account of the injuries he had sustained while "Tubing". Since Vietnam people had been telling us about the injuries that they or their friends had endured whilst involved in this activity. I still wasn't very sure exactly what it was, but it involved floating down a river in a big inner tube (the type we'd seen people floating in, in Don Det we reckoned), stopping off at various pubs for drinks, then returning to the water via various flying foxes and shutes. So a watery pub crawl. The dangers are obvious, but the sheer number of injured people we had seen was unsettling. We had initially decided to give Vang Vieng a miss as it just sounded like the gap year crowd going wild but, despite all the injuries, everyone we'd spoken to told us it was not to be missed. This Oz couple were no exception, even though their friend had been having seizures two days after cracking his skull off some rocks, and now appeared to have fluid building up in his increasingly swolen head and face. Not nice! We had initiated the converstation by asking whether the girl's obvious nasty scrapes were down to Tubing, but apparently it was only a moped accident. Her boyfriend had allowed her to drive for once and they had both come off, so I learned a lesson there from them.

Tom yum soup with heating coals

"Laogria"

We had another storm that day and I started to worry about the warm clothes I'd just sent home, as it seemed much cooler and we actually felt cold. I asked a few people, but everybody said that this was not too unusual and it was still months before the monsoon. The following day it still felt cold. A quick check online confirmed that it was indeed much colder than we'd become accomstomed: only 30 Celsius! We found a really good value foe (noodle) place for breakfast, where they seemed quite surprised to have falangs turn up, but then we had to go for coffee and ended up in a falang orientated coffee place and blew all the gains we'd just made on coffee, but when we were tempted into buying a brownie we'd effectively spent our lunch money as well!

Our third and final mission for Vientiane was to visit the strange sounding place known as Buddha Park, so we got the very cheap local bus out to the location, but just as we got off one of my flipflops came apart. This was the same pair I'd had repaired in Siem Reap, although the guys repair was still good: now the strap had separated from the base. Some people would admit defeat at this point but in the interests of sustainability, the environment, and stinginess, I was determined to keep the shoes going. I tried the same trick as the shoe repair had done, by setting fire to the rubber, then pressing the loose bit in place. It lasted long enough to get us round Buddha park, but I was no expert and it was clearly not going to last much longer. I still had a pending repair to my hiking trainers after the trek in Cambodia, so I was nearly running out of shoes. Anyway, the Buddha park was indeed strange. I think only pictures can adequately describe it.

When we returned to town, we bought superglue, which worked much better in the shoe repair department. That night we re-discoverd a restaurant we'd stumbled on a couple of nights previously. It described itself as modern Lao cuisine, which I fancied the sound of, and this time we noticed that it is also a community action project, run by Friends International (http://www.friends-international.org/whatsnew.html#makphet), so we could feel ethically warm whilst indulging ourselves, which we wanted to do since we decided that we were leaving Vientiane the next day. The idea seems to be similar to Jamie Oliver's restaurant Fifteen. The food was outstanding, easily the best we'd had thus far in Laos, even though the food has in general been excellent. If anyone reading this is ever in Vientiane you must go to this restaurant. Amongst our orders were buffalo and vegetable rolls, lao-lao marinated steak, and a durian and coffee shake (I couldn't help it -- Joanne said I would get no kisses for the rest of the day).

We were very pleased with our meal, after all it could have been our last; the next day we were going to Vang Vieng for Tubing!

written by  The Happy Couple on March 26, 2009 from Vientiane, Laos
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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