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