Southern Laos - The Most Relaxed Place on Earth

Once again, it's been a while.

I know how much you crave these tardy blog posts, so I've sat myself down at a computer in Cambodia and started with the catch-up. No, I'm no longer in Laos. But I will be typing up a blog post about everything I have yet to blog about in Laos. I've only been in Cambodia for 20 hours so I can hardly add anything of worth.

I believe I left you all (waiting with baited breath, no doubt) about a week ago in Vientiane. So, here begins my catch-up, or rather - yours.

Wat Mixay, Vientiane

Vientiane, the capital city of Laos, home to only 300 000 people, is one of the smaller cities in Southeast Asia. It is a beautiful city, but for some reason I didn't really like it. It lacks the charm inherent to Luang Prabang and it isn't nearly alive enough to be anything like Saigon. Sadly this makes it fall somewhere in the middle, a bit of a grey zone. The French influence is very apparent and you can't help but wonder, when wandering, if Vientiane is an Asian city trying hard to be French or a French city striving to be Asian. It was a puzzling phenomenon to say the least. Next to a French-style bakery one can find a mobile shop selling distinctly Asian dishes, my favourite being deep-fried mango (Yes, they have that and yes, it is amazing).

Haw Pha Khaw museum

Schizophrenic though it may be, Vientiane had a lot on offer in the sightseeing department. Being a tourist it was my obligation to see sights and so I did. I donned my finest farang tourist gear and headed out, taking photos like a Japanese tourist. My first stop was at an old wat which had been converted into a museum, housing over a thousand buddha images. The museum building was, for me, more interesting than the buddha images. It was a fantastic, old wat with beautifully adorned windows and doors and a flowing garden out front.

After the museum, I did a quick hop across the road to Wat Sisaket, the oldest wat in Vientiane. It was, sadly, just another bleeding wat. I've seen so many. It did have a 'library' which used to contain buddhist scripture. The scripture has long since been removed, and the library (which is nothing more than a cramped room) has been gathering layers of dust over the years. The library is outside the main wat compound, around a corner and virtually no tourists bother to go there as it isn't immediately visible. It was by chance that I stumbled into it on my way out. The reason I was heading out was the Arc de Triomphe. Vientiane has one. An Asian version of the French monument, actually called Patuxai. It is apparently a few metres taller than the actual Arc de Triomphe, which is typically Asian. Perhaps you're starting to understand why I thought Vientiane was schizo... The views from the top of Patuxai are the best on offer in Vientiane. A full 360 degree view of the city is gifted to all people who climb the seven stories to reach it. And the view truly is fantastic. The city unfolds around you, monuments can be spied off in the distance and the buzz of cars drifts up to you from the main boulevard.

Patuxai, Asia's Arc de Triomphe

I left Vientiane behind after just 2 days. I left on a night bus to Pakse. My plan was originally to spend a day in Pakse and then head to Champasak the next day. It was early morning when I arrived in Pakse and I knew that buses and sawng thaew (converted pickup trucks with 2 rows of seats in the back) leave every morning for Champasak from the new market. Pakse didn't look too charming so I headed straight to the new market to find transport on to Champasak. I found a guy who was taking his sawng thaew to Champasak and asked when it departed. He told me 10 AM. It was 7AM. I spent the next 3 hours in the bustling morning market, it was a distinctly Asian experience and was truly brilliant. At 10 o'clock I (and 22 other people) climbed into the back of the sawng thaew and headed for Champasak.

About an hour later I arrived in the sleepy town of Champasak. There is only one road through the whole town and the main traffic on it is herds of water buffalo. It was such a perfect place to be. There were almost no other tourists.

The nearby Wat Phu Champasak was the main attraction. It is a very large temple which predates Angkor Wat and is believed to be the blueprint from which Angkor Wat and other Khmer temples were built. About an hour after I arrived I went to find a place from which to hire a motorbike. I found a guy who would rent one out and bargained for a half-day price. Fifteen minutes later I was on a motorbike, cruising to Wat Phu.

The main walkway to Wat Phu

Wat Phu blew my mind. It is a powerful structure, built on a hill to overlook the Mekong and its flood plains. It is almost unimaginable to believe that it has been standing there for over a millennium, in a constant battle with the ravages of time. It is being restored, but much of what is there has been standing since it was built. A brisk walk up to the top of the hill gifts you with fantastic views of the Mekong River and surrounds. The vastness of the compound becomes apparent when you look over it and see the massive barays (man-made lakes) stretching out in front of you. Walking around the upper complex you will find intricate carvings of an elephant, a crocodile and buddha's footprint in the rocks. There is an aqueduct which brings water from a spring near the peak of the mountain and buddha statues protected from the elements in little caves.

What was also mind-blowing was that there were almost no other tourists there. There were some local tourists from Vientiane and an Englishman who was cycling in and around Southeast Asia.

A view from the top. Those square lakes are barays.

A crocodile carved into the rock

The main temple building

A look down on the main temple building

The next day in Champasak I spent doing the only thing one can do in such a place, read. The town is always quiet and once you've found your spot on the Mekong, under a tree you're sorted. I arranged my ticket to Don Det and just relaxed the day away. There was nothing else to do, it was superb.

Don Det possibly the most relaxed place on the planet. It is a tiny island in the Mekong River, part of Si Phan Don (4000 Islands). I arrived on Don Det just before midday and the whole place was silent. There was not a breath of wind nor the sound of a car. Boats puttered around on the river, but everything else was still. This was Don Det life. I walked down the sunrise side and found a place to stay. Almost all accommodation on Don Det is in the form of single-room, wooden bungalows over the river. On the balcony of each bungalow there are hammocks for lazing around in. I did what any sensible person would do, I lazed.

Don Det bungalow, hammocks are a necessity

On day one I lazed and read. On day two I lazed and read and booked my ticket to Siem Reap. On day three I lazed and read. I was almost finished both my books and was trying to read slowly to make the last pages stretch to the next day. On day four I rented a bicycle and pedaled my way over to Don Khon, the island directly south of Don Det. On Don Khon I went to the spot where one can see Irrawaddy dolphins, there weren't any. I then pedaled my way back to Tat Li Phi (Spirit Trap Waterfalls) and was instantly amazed by what I saw. Tat Li Phi is a series of waterfalls, not tall but long. They stretch for almost half a kilometre and thousands of tons of water cascade down every second. They are some of the most fantastic waterfalls I have ever seen. I chilled out at the waterfalls, just listening to the water crash down. It was a perfect way to bring my time in Laos to an end. A beautiful place in a beautiful country.

A small part of Tat Li Phi

The next morning (yesterday, as I write this) I picked up my bags, jumped on a ferry and left the island. 2 hours later the bus arrived to take me to Siem Reap. At 11 o'clock I was out of Laos and into Cambodia. At six in the evening the bus dropped all the passengers who were traveling to Siem Reap off in the middle of nowhere. 75km from Phnom Penh, 250km from Siem Reap. We waited for 2 hours. Another bus came and picked us up and took us to Siem Reap. 16 hours after departure, at midnight, the bus arrived.

Oliver

P.S. During those 2 hours stop over I ate a grasshopper. Here's a couple of pictures:

Stage 1 - mental preparation

Stage 2 - execution

My Tho and the Moto

Howzit

It's been a while, hey. I blame backwater syndrome, you know, when you get off the beaten track finding the interwebz can be a bit tricky.

So after Can Tho I headed to a little place called My Tho, considered the entrance to the Mekond Delta region. On the bus to My Tho I met French couple who were planning on doing a stay in My Tho similar to mine. Fred and Carine were their names and we decided to try the same hotel for a room. The hotel we wanted to get to was the Rang Dong Mini-hotel.

We hopped off the bus in My Tho and were surrounded by moto taxi riders. We told them where we wanted to go and settled on a price and were whisked off to the Rang Dong Hotel. The idea was to find a cheap room, something the Rang Dong hotel doesn't offer, but the Rang Dong mini-hotel does. We'd been taken to the wrong place and ended up walking about 4 kilometres in the heat of the day to get to a cheap place.

The incredible dragon fruit

After settling in we spent the rest of the day wandering around the markets. A local recommeded a place to eat that evening and we went to check it out. On the walk to the place that evening I bought some dragon fruit which would serve as my dessert. And as an added bonus, I took a photo to share with you. At supper we planned to hire motorbikes the next day to get to a snake farm (where Fred and I were going to sample snake blood) and then Ben Tre.

After enjoying our really cheap meal we headed back and arranged to collect the motorbikes the next morning. We went to the place we'd arranged to fetch the motorbikes from and got two motorbikes. One for Fred and Carine and the other for me. It was the first time I have ever driven a motorbike and doing it in the craziness that are the roads of Vietnam just added to the intensity of the experience.

That poor monkey, chained to the tree by its neck

I quickly got the hang of it and soon we had arrived at the snake farm. The snake farm turned out to be more like a zoo and was possibly one of the most depressing things I have seen in my life. The snakes were kept in tiny cages, too small for their size and the other animals were treated even worse. We saw a tiny monkey chained to a tree by its neck, bears in cages only twice their size and otters pacing  around a cage with only mud where water should have been.

To give you an idea of the roads and bridges

Shocked by the terrible conditions we dashed off to have some coffee and breakfast, just wanting to get as far away as possible. After breakfast we crossed an 8km long bridge to get to Ben Tre. Ben Tre itself was a disappointment as we didn't have a map to guide us around. Instead of wasting our time getting lost in Ben Tre we thought it better to get lost on the back roads around Ben Tre. It was on these tiny roads that the motorbike (actually a scooter) came alive. We rode on thin strips of tar and gravel and ducked off the roads onto tiny paths. We crossed bridges only just big enough to fit a scooter and bumped and bounced our way past tiny farms and houses.

After hours upon hours of driving on the back roads we headed back to Ben Tre for a snack. After the snack we agreed to head back to My Tho as we had given up trying to navigate Ben Tre. On the way back I had an experience which would be remembered above all others on this day. My first motorcycle accident.

That's me, on the bridge back to My Tho

I was in a turning circle, turning to get onto the right road to reach My Tho when another motorbiker gunned it past me through my blind spot and clipped my front wheel. My front wheel straightened up and I came off. Unsurprisingly, so did some skin on my elbow, knee, ankle and hip. No major damage was done and I was able to get up. The police arrived on the scene within 30 seconds and I thought 'Fuck, I'm going to get arrested!' Thankfully the police were absolutely useless and left without even helping me to get my bike up and off the road. As road acidents go this was very tame and I was up and on my bike again in no time.

We headed back to My Tho, dropped the bikes off and had an overpriced, but welcome, stiff drink. All in all my first motorbiking experience was one for the record books and I loved every minute of it. Even the crash, especially the crash. It somehow rounded off the whole experience. I now have my first war wounds from Nam.

Get your dong out for a motorbike ride
Oliver

Battle scars.

The Mekong River

Before I get to the crux of this blog post let me show you a little something I've been wanted to show you for a while:

The (in)famous bia hoi

And now for the crux.

I spent most of today on the Mekong River. I had to get up at a ridiculous hour this morning to get on a boat that would be taking me (us, as it turned out. A Canadian couple was also on the boat) on a trip along the Mekong River. The idea was that we'd catch the sunrise while on the river then head down to Cai Rang floating market followed by another floating market and then a meander back to Can Tho through the mangrove-lined canals.

I just killed the crus of my blog post, I've managed a synopsis of the day's events in a single paragraph, which happens to include the world's most ungainly sentence. But I digress.

The sunrise.

We set off really early, cruising down the river in the early morning light, waiting for what was supposed to be an amazing sunrise. Needless to say the sun rose, but certainly not amazingly. Something about it rising over construction cranes and steel pipes nullified the effect a bit. The sun definitely was a striking orange hue, but the setting let it down a bit. Honestly I blame bad timing on the sun's part, really. It was like timing a stage entrance to collide with one of the moving props. Sloppy, really.

Vietnamese madness on water. Cai Rang floating market.

With the sun letting the team down a bit, Cai Rang floating market needed to make up the lost ground. And it did just that. Cai Rang came out of nowhere with a stunning entrance to the sound of outboard motors and lapping waves (I'm extending my stage metaphor by the way). Hundreds of boats had moored near the bank of the river and their owners were peddling their wares to the surrounding boats. The market itself was incredible, but I must confess a little disappointment in the variety of wares available. Most boats were selling pineapples, watermelons and other fresh produce. With the exception of a few boats selling crabs or fish there was very little on offer besides fruit. Our guide bought a couple of pineapples and we navigated through the market for a while before heading off.

We ducked down a little canal shortly after leaving Cai Rang. It was in this fated place that I had an epiphany of epic proportions. We moored at a little Vietnamese coffee shop/sitdown place with coffee and tea... I don't know what you would call it. Restaurant certainly doesn't fit the bill. Anyway, we moored at this little place and got out of the boat. Our guide then took us to see how the Vietnamese people make the fabled Pho. We were able to see all the steps in the process and were quite amazed by how much work goes into making those delicious noodles. After gawking like idiots at the process we went back to the coffee shop. I'll call it a coffe shop from now on, it makes life a little easier for me.

An epiphany in a glass.

 So we sat down and a menu was produced. I'd heard that Vietnamese coffee is good, so I ordered a hot coffee. Ice coffee was also available, which is why I called is a hot coffee. A tiny, steaming glass of coffee arrived five minutes later bringing with it a rich aroma. That first sip was the start of the epiphany I mentioned. Vietnamese coffee is the greatest thing ever to grace the planet. It blew me away. It was rich and flavoursome, potent but not at all bitter. It was almost creamy in its texture. Quite plainly, it is the greatest thing that happened to me today. I left the coffee shop wanting to go back for more immediately. And at 10 000 dong (R3.50) a glass, I should have. But we had more of the tour to do.

The nest floating market we reached was smaller than Cai Rang, but a little more diverse. Apart from freshp fruit and veg, there were cloths and clothes available. We only spent long enough at this market to buy some carrots as there were very few boats there in comparison to Cai Rang. After our brief stop we headed off the Mekong river into a nearby canal. What lay ahead was a slow, peaceful meander down canals lined with mangroves. We puttered along, snaking back and forth with the river for a couple of hours until we reached another coffee shop/lunchy place. After the gentle cruise down the canals, sitting and having an ice coffee in the shade was pure bliss.

After nearly 8 hours of Mekong River cruising we arrived back at Can Tho. It was 1 o'clock and it was sweltering so I headed back to my guesthouse to cool off near a fan. I then dawdled my way around the riverside district and made my way to this internet cafe to blog about my day. I'm off now to have some chow.

I'm running out of dong jokes already

Oliver

P.S. Look what I spotted floating in the river. 

Pollution is pretty bad, but this is just ridiculous!

He shouldn't be smiling.

To Can Tho

Ahoy!

I've booked my bus ticket to Can Tho, in the Mekong Delta, and will be heading off tomorrow morning. It also looks like it could be the most complicated bus journey I've ever undertaken. It has already proven to be quite a task.

I had a little business card from the bus company saying that they go to Can Tho and Mui Ne and Da Lat and Nha Trang etc etc. So I wandered over to the offices this morning and asked for a ticket to Can Tho. Unfortunately the lady who was helping me didn't speak much English, but she explained to me that if I want to go south I have to go to their other offices. She then showed me the address on the business card. I looked at my little map of central HCMC to see if I could find the street, but failed. I handed the map over to the lady and asked her to mark the spot. She drew a little dot right on the edge of my map. The road she had pointed out to me was only just visible on the map and was too small to have the street name shown.

I gauged that it was within walking distance and set off. It took me about half an hour to get there, but it was easy enough to find.

Now you're probably wondering why I said this could be a complicated bus journey. I'll explain. I'd bought the ticket and was told I need to be back there at 7 the next morning. An hour before my bus was due to leave. I asked why I needed to be there so much earlier and was told that there is a bus that will pick me up and take me to the 'big bus station' where I'll find another bus to take me to Can Tho. This would ordinarily be an easy thing to do, take a bus there, switch buses and head to Can Tho. No problem.

Well, it would be easy if people spoke English. It could prove to be a little more challenging to try communicate with people in different languages.

It should be a great experience though and I relish the challenge.

It rained last night. I was having supper and a bia hoi and there was lightning around. To be brutally honest I was disappointed with the weather's meager performance last night. The rain telegraphed its arrival like a real amateur and I was able to get under an umbrella long before it started raining. Rain like that happens in South Africa all the time. I expected more from the weather. I wanted raindrops the size of kittens and rivers forming where streets used to be. I wanted tourists to be flailing around screaming "the horror... the horror!"

Only damp dong
Oliver