Northern Cambodia and Southern Laos: Feb. 16 - March 13, 2009

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Hebe, Chen and Irriwaddy Dolphins in Kratie, Cambodia

We left Phnom Pensh by bus, heading north to Laos. But we made a stop at a small town called Kratie, the only place where you are guaranteed to see the rare (almost extinct) Irriwaddy dolphin. It was in Kratie that we met Hebe (Heebee) and Chen, two travellers from Shenzhen China.

Hebe is one of the most wonderful young women I have met – beautiful, energetic, positive – and very outgoing! She won my heart when she told me, the second time we got together, that she thought, when she first met me, that I must be a movie star because I was so 'elegant!' Imagine!

Hebe and Chen and Doug and I went together to see the Irriwaddy dolphins. We managed to rent the only tuk-tuk in Kratie (it was that or renting motorcycles), and were therefore able to enjoy the beautiful half-hour ride along the Meking River and through rural countryside and small villages to where the dolphins can be spotted.

The four of us got into a little Mekong River boat with a long-tail motor, and our driver ferried us out into the middle of the river. Then he cut the engine and we floated silently about, waiting to catch a glimpse of a dolphin.

We were not disappointed. We saw many dolphins, or maybe the same few dolphins many times. They're not the leaping and jumping variety of dolphin: they stay mostly under water, just surfacing long enough to breathe. But it was lovely drifting about there in the mighty Mekong, especially as the sun was slowly sinking, casting an orange-pink glow over everything.

Hebe gets an anti-tetanus shot

Not long before we met her, Hebe had managed to walk into a metal bar and cut her forehead. She was sporting a sizable gauze bandage on her forehead. I managed to convince her that she should get a tetanus shot, but arranging it, in a small town like Kratie, wasn't easy.

As luck would have it, we met Susan, a New Zealand health care worker who was volunteering in Kratie for a year. She directed me to a clinic that she said ought to have anti-tetanus vaccine. When I went to the clinic, a group of people were clustered around a stretcher watching as a man pumped the chest of a young girl. His technique was like none other I've seen. But the girl remained inert.

Eventually a guy (her father?) picked her up and, holding her in his arms, got on the back of a motorcycle. Another guy, who was holding a bag of IV fluid that was hooked up to her arm, got on behind them. And then all four of them headed off to the hospital. She remained completely inert. I still wonder if she made it... .

I managed to talk to an 'assistant doctor' at the clinic, and arranged for Hebe to get an anti-tetanus shot from a midwife who was working at a doctor's office a few blocks away. Hebe was taken there on the back of a motorcycle driven by a guy who worked at the restaurant that we were all having dinner at, and where I'd met Susan. Susan, bless her soul, went along with them to hold Hebe's hand – and to make sure she actually got the shot!

Over dinner, and breakfast the next morning, Hebe and Chen mapped out a China itinerary for us – and invited us to come visit them in Shenzhen, where they both live. Chen's done quite a lot of travelling in China, and been to Tibet twice, so he knew where to go and how to get there. But he speaks no English, so Hebe acted as interpreter.


Crossing from Cambodia to Laos: A 'Frontier' Border Post

Hebe and Chen were on their way north, heading for Don Det Island, one of the “Four Thousand Islands” in the Mekong River in southern Laos. We were heading in the same direction, so we decided to go together. We got a mini-bus north to the Cambodia-Laos border.

The border was just a couple of shacks, one on either side of a desolate stretch of pavement. The Cambodian side was slightly more organized than the Lao side. We stopped first at the Cambodian side to get our passports 'stamped out.' Two uniformed border guards were sitting in the shack. They studied all of our passports carefully, doing their best to read our names and nationalities, and copying them carefully into their big ledger books. They fleeced us all for a US$1 'stamp fee,' which of course goes straight into their pockets – for cigarettes and beer.

As we were being 'stamped out,' several tourists were coming from Laos and being 'stamped in.' But not the three young black fellows from Guinea-Bissau. The Cambodian border guards refused them entry without even looking at their passports. This infuriated a German gal who was travelling in our mini-bus. She took those guards on, demanding to know why they weren't letting the Guineau-Bissauans into Cambodia. “This looks like discrimination!”

The guys from Guinea-Bissau had gotten their Cambodian visas in Vientiane. They furthermore had special 'visa on entry' stamps in their passports. So their papers will all in order. But the Cambodians were determined to deny them entry: “This is just a small border post. We don't have a computer to check their passports. You don't know our country. Their visas could be false. They could overstay their visas. They have to go back to Vientiane and fly to Phnom Penh or Siem Reap where they have computers and can do everything to check.”

The German girl carried on arguing for some time, with a few of the rest of us chiming in. Eventually a head-honcho came out of a building out back and made it clear that the Guinea-Bissau boys weren't going to be passing through this border. His reason was more compelling: “If I let these men in and they cause trouble, then I will be in trouble because it is my responsibility.” Indeed. One doesn't want to disobey orders if one is a government worker in Cambodia. “Off with his head!”

Before we left I had a quiet chat with the head-honcho, thanking him for explaining the situation to us and assuring him that we understood. His expression changed from hostile to charming with my first 'thank-you,' and by the time we parted he was shaking my hand warmly and thanking me.

We walked across the no-man's land that separates Cambodia from Laos, and stopped at the even cruder hut on the Lao side, where a sleepy guard stamped us in, for another US$1. He'd no sooner finished with us than he was off to a nearby palapa for a little lunch with his family. Meanwhile we waited for a bus to appear to take us to Don Det.

Don Det Island: Hot, hot, hot!

The mini-bus took us to the 'ferry landing' for Don Det and Don Khone islands. 'Ferry landing' is perhaps too formal a word. A stretch of beach with a few bamboo shacks, mostly selling drinks and snacks, and a gaggle of long-tail boats and boatmen waiting to take us across.

Two members of our group were heading for Don Khone, and the rest of us for Don Det. Nevertheless, the boatmen put the two in the larger boat, and were making to load the rest of us in the smaller boat when I pointed to our small mountain of luggage and suggested, in sign language, that perhaps the larger boat would be more suitable. It would also be safer: Mekong River boats are basically leaky canoes with unreliable engines.

We got to Don Det. The boatmen leapt out without so much as a backward glance, not even pulling the boat fully into shore. It was up to us to unload ourselves and our luggage... . The beach we'd landed on, the only real 'beach' on the island, was strewn with cement hydro-poles in disorganized piles – they looked like big pick-up sticks. Some guys were shovelling sand into woven plastic bags. There were a few board planks lying a little further up the beach – we later saw that these were meant for carts and motorcyclists. Considering its status as a tourist destination island, this was hardly an welcoming sight.

We managed to find a room, although the places near the 'beach' were pretty full of young back-packers. We were decidedly older than most of the travellers there. We did meet some other golden-oldies – a Canadian couple from Calgary – who we palled around with a bit. The four of us rented bicycles one day and did a little ride round the island and down to the island of Don Khone, connected to Don Det by an old railway bridge.

Unfortunately Don Det was just too hot to stay for any length of time. The island has no electricity (yet, it's coming – hence the poles), which is wonderful most of the time, but deadly in one important respect: there's no fan at night! And the river breezes weren't reliable or strong enough to keep us cool, even with all of the windows open in our little bungalow.

Don Det Wildlife

We lasted for three days – and nights. It was mostly a lazy time, lounging about and swimming (mouths closed) in the Mekong River. But there was one moment of high excitement: a snake under the stairs of a restaurant we'd just had dinner in. We were just about to descend the three or four stairs to the dirt road when one of the restaurant workers motioned for us to stop.

He was crouching at the bottom of the stairs, using a flashlight and poking at something with a long stick. At one point he motioned for us to come down along one side of the stairs. When we got to ground level we could see the very large snake under the stairs. It was at least six feet long, yellow and black striped in broad bands. It's head and tail ends looked the same.

Quite a crowd gathered to watch as two guys tried to poke and prod the snake to get it to go away (they didn't seem to care much where). At one point the snake struck out towards them, and everyone jumped back. I asked a woman if she knew the name of the snake in English. She didn't. But she did say that it was a very dangerous snake. “If it bites you, ten minutes and you are dead.”

Apparently if locals see this snake in the night it is good luck, but if they see it in the day, it is bad luck, and they have to go to the temple and pray. Fortunately the snake did move off, but it was sobering to know that we were sharing this small island with such a dangerous snake. I also saw my first scorpion (ever!) on Don Det. It was in the shower with me one morning, advancing towards my foot with its tail curled up. It took me a few seconds to realize what it was – but only a nanosecond to get out of there!

From Don Det to Champasak

Our next destination in Laos was Champasak, a small town on the 'other side' of the Mekong which was reputed to be pretty and had the added attraction of an Angkor-era wat to visit nearby. Getting off Don Det was easy – another boat ride with too many people and too much stuff, the water level dangerously close to the gunwales of the boat, but we made it.

The scene with buses on the other side was hilarious, frustrating, and terribly Lao. Many boat people were arriving from Don Det and Don Khone. We all wanted to go to different destinations: Champasak, Pakse (a larger town further north), Vientiane, and Ubon, in Thailand (by way of Pakse). Not that complicated really, but.... this is Laos.

There were three buses. None of them had signs on them. A few guys asked all of us disembarking boat people where we were heading (by giving us a choice of destinations: 'Pakse?' 'Ubon?'), and then directing us to one bus or another. We all boarded the buses while they went off into a little snack bar and sat down to have a drink. We sat and waited. We could see wads of money changing hands.

After quite some time of waiting, all the while getting hotter and sweatier in the stifling buses, one of the guys came over and asked us all again where we were going. It seemed some of us had been mis-directed. So those people were told to get off the bus, get their gear, and get on another bus. Then we waited again while the locals had another snack bar confab.

Again one of them came out and asked us where we were going. And again some of us were asked to change buses. This happened three times. Some people changed buses three times. (We were lucky – we didn't change at all.) Three-quarters of an hour later the guys were satisfied we were all in the right place, and all three buses took off, slowly, up the hill. The Laos are not known for their organizational capabilities.

The Boat to Champasak

The mini-bus dropped us at the 'ferry landing' (only slightly larger than the one to Don Det and Don Khone islands) to Champasak. His parting words were: “two boats, one big, one small; both boats
5000 kip” (about $1). We looked around. We could see one 'big boat' – three river boat hulls topped with a large wooden platform – big enough to carry several cars; and several small boats. But none of them seemed in any danger of departing any time soon.

There were the usual snack shacks by the ferry landing. Several Lao people were standing around in the shade of one of them. We headed there, hoping for info, and maybe a drink. One of them spoke a little English.

“Are you waiting for a boat to Champasak?” Doug asked. “Yes, waiting,” said the best-dressed guy in the bunch. He was wearing a clean short-sleeved shirt.

“When is the boat going?” Doug asked. This drew a round of guffaws from the assembled group. Apparently it was a funny question. “We don't know,” the guy said. “Maybe soon.” He looked in the direction of the big ferry.

“Are there small boats going?” Doug, undaunted, persisted. “Maybe going, but maybe big boat go first,” clean shirt replied.

“How much are the boats?” Doug asked. “Ten thousand for small boat, one thousand for big boat,” was the answer. “We'll wait for the big boat,” Doug said. They all laughed again.

All of a sudden the big boat's engine fired up, and we hustled across the uneven dirt lot, dragging our bags behind us. We boarded the boat and stood with the rest of the passengers on a covered side-platform, right beside the captain's steering wheel. We watched, and felt the boat sinking lower into the water, as the three vehicles drove aboard. Then the boatmen hand-cranked the little wooden loading ramp up just enough that it was clear of the river bank, and we started off.

One of the boatmen came round collecting the fares. The Laotians gave him 1000 kip each. Doug gave him 2000 kip for the two of us. He accepted it without comment, but then came back around demanding 5000 kip for each of us. Doug said “no,” and pointed to all the Laos, saying “one thousand, one thousand, one thousand.” He started to insist, but Doug just turned away. Discussion over. So on this occasion we paid the same price as locals – often we pay five to ten times as much.

It was a remarkably awkward and ungainly boat. But it got us there. And clean shirt offered us a ride to our hotel in the back of his pick-up. He drove in the usual Lao style – as fast as road and vehicle would allow – and we sat on the floor of the truck's box, hanging on to the sides and hoping we didn't have far to go.

Champasak

Champasak is a great little village with only one main road. We did a couple of bicycle rides through rice paddies and even smaller villages. We also cycled to what remains of Wat Phu, a pre-Angkorian ruin which was a little disappointing after Angkor Wat, but set in a charming landscape.

Our hotel was right on the Mekong, and we sat at the little restaurant overlooking the river at breakfast, lunch and dinner. The food was so-so, and the service just plain hopeless. Here in the south the Laotians are exceptionally diffident. It's hard to get any attention, at a restaurant or guest house.

One morning as we were sitting drinking our coffee and tea we noticed that the restaurant's garbage was being tossed over the railing onto the banks of the river. We watched as a young boy picked up several plastic bags filled with garbage and tossed them into the river. Apparently that was his job. The bags floated, only a few feet off shore, and were still there the next day.

The Mekong is used as both sewer and garbage dump by all of the people who live along it. It is also used for washing (dishes, clothes and cars0 and bathing, and of course as a source of drinking water. When we took the boat back across the river we saw a woman dip a big cup into the river and chug-a-lug the water it down. No surprise that diarrheal diseases are common here, and are especially lethal in children.

Tadlo

From Champasak we went up the Mekong (by bus, not boat) to Pakse, a reasonably large city with nothing particularly to commend it. There was a good Indian restaurant which got us thinking again about going back to India. We went to the Vietnamese embassy and were told that we didn't need to get a visa in advance; we could get one at Lao Bao, the boarder crossing we're going through.

So no waiting around there, we headed, by local bus, up to Tadlo. Tadlo is a very small village – a collection of villages really – set in a pretty hill-and-dale landscape. It's known for its waterfalls and its ethnic villages – a good place for 'trekking' and for elephant rides. We were hoping it would be a good place to spend a week or more.

Our guest house had a lovely restaurant overlooking the falls and the little river below it. We spent hours sitting there yakking with other travellers and watching as adults and kids waded into the river turning over rocks looking for frogs or used nets to catch small fish. Sometimes they'd wear swim-masks, standing bent over double, bottoms up and heads down on the surface of the water, looking for fish. At night they'd hunt and fish with lights strapped to their foreheads. The river was alive with little lights – no rest for fish nor frog in these waters!

We were told it was frog season while we were there – frogs are in hibernation, so not eating, and nothing in their stomachs. Apparently they're most delectable when their stomachs are empty. We saw little frogs being sold live, in big washtubs, at the markets, being grilled on Lao bucket-barbecues, and dried and skewered on sticks. With such intensive harvesting, it's amazing there's a frog left in Tadlo.

We also watched groups of kids with long bamboo poles roving around peering up at the trees. They were hunting for big cicadas, which amazingly are still plentiful, and very noisy. They'd spear them and either eat them live or pop them into a small basket or bottle and take them home to be deep fried for dinner. One of the kids offered us a fat, wiggling, winged cicada but we weren't hungry at the time.

The falls were pretty enough, and it was fun to watch the kids playing in the little pools and rapids, jumping off the rocks and shooting a few yards down the river. But it was difficult to enjoy all of this without being pestered by poor village kids who have come to associate foreigners with hand-outs. They'd swarm foreigners, demanding pens, candy, food, and balloons. Some were even so bold as to open zippers on day-packs and purses, quickly snaking their little hands inside to see what they could find.

This kind of begging is one of the saddest impacts of tourism in southeast Asia. Every time we see a foreigner giving candy, pens and money to kids we cringe. We are responsible for getting them hooked on begging. On the other hand, it's hard to see these dirty, skinny little waifs, to know that they are in fact hungry, and not to feel the urge to give them something... .

Our First Elephant Ride – and Likely our Last!

There was an upscale lodge just up the hill from where we were staying. They had a couple of elephants that they used for tourist rides. As neither of us had been on an elephant, and the forest around Tadlo was green and lush, we decided to take one. We were disappointed, first because of the somnolence of the mahout, who couldn't rouse himself enough to greet us, and spent the ride with his head bowed, sleeping, except when the elephant, equally somnolent, hesitated. Then the mahout would stir just long enough to kick the elephant's ears to make it plod on.

We came to the conclusion that the elephant was tired, likely because it was not getting enough to eat. There was no food, other than a few bunches of bananas, on the little hill that it hung out on during the day. No grass, no palm or bamboo leaves. Elephants generally eat almost non-stop – they have to to maintain their body weight.

Another disappointing aspect of the elephant ride was that we passed through acres of logged and burned jungle – almost no 'pristine wilderness.' And we lumbered through a desperately poor 'ethnic village' which was littered with old construction materials, rubbish and satellite dishes. There were no 'ethnic' handcrafts for sale, no snack bars where we could buy a drink, no way for visiting tourists to contribute to the economy of the village. This was disappointing and distressing: we felt like voyeurs – well-healed foreigners gawking at primitive dirt-poor villagers. We were glad when the ride ended.

Tadlo was almost overrun with ttavellers and tourists. It was here that we met Babsi, a young woman from Germany who'd just had a motorcycle accident. Her arm was badly scraped, with signs of infection in several places. She'd seen a 'doctor' in Tadlo, but little had been done. (Health care is very rudimentary in Laos and Cambodia.) So together we washed the worst spots, picked out some of the road grit, and sprayed the area liberally with antiseptic. By the time we left her arm was looking pretty good.

It was here that we also met Ali, a forty-something year-old Canadian woman from Calgary who had quit her job with an oil company, sold her house, and taken off on what she calls her 'runaway travels.' She'd even changed her name! She was bright and sparkly with an infectious laugh. I admired her spunk: travelling as a woman alone is not easy, but she was enjoying every minute of it.

And we met a Swedish couple who were running out of money. The ATM in Vientiane hadn't been working when they were there, and Tadlo was a little pricier than they expected. We lent them $20 worth of Kip to get them to Savannakhet where both we and they were headed.

From Tadlo to Savannakhet – On the Banana Daquiri Express

We only stayed in Tadlo for a few days. The day before we left we took a walk to the main road, and were yakking with a group of travellers that were waiting for a bus into Pakse. The bus came along and stopped. A woman in a pink blouse jumped out and said “Pakse?' Vientiane?” We were wanting to go to Savannakhet, another town between Pakse and Vientiane. We'd been thinking we'd have to take a bus to Pakse, overnight there again, and then find a bus to take us on to Savannakhet. I decided to ask: “Savannakhet?” She nodded yes. “Tomorrow?” She nodded again.

So the next day we were waiting at the stop when the bus swung around the curve and came to a shuddering halt beside us. On top of the roof, wo goats that were standing, bracing themselves against the motion. Now it's not uncommon for buses to carry livestock – local buses double as cargo trucks and carry anything and everything. But usually animals are hog-tied, and securely roped to the roof. These goats had just a rope around their necks, the end tied to a railing on the roof. One slip and they'd be over the side, hung and strangled in seconds.

The pink lady greeted us again. “Savannakhet!” we beamed. “Savannakhet!” she confirmed. Six of us got on – the Swedish couple, a Canadian couple from Moncton New Brunswick, and us. The Canadian couple, Nancy and Terry, were heading for Pakse, where they planned to get another bus to Savannakhet – they didn't know they could get a direct bus. Within a half hour we'd convinced them to carry on with us to Savannakhet. But by this time they'd already paid for their tickets to Pakse, about a third of what we and the Swedes paid to get to Savannakhet. And the amazing thing was that, despite the fact that their tickets were checked at least three more times before we got to Savannakhet, they never had to pay up the difference. This was one occasion where the Laos' inability to read worked in favour of the foreigner!

The bus ride to Savannakhet was one of the most memorable rides ever. We changed buses in Pakse, and after the usual false starts – leaving the bus station only to stop several times within the first half-hour to pick up too many passengers and too much cargo, then stopping to get diesel fuel (with the bus running and all of us sweltering inside) – we were finally on the road to Savannakhet, a ride which should have taken around three hours.

But...it took more like five – or six. This was because we made two lengthy stops. The first, about an hour and a half after we started, was in a small town which apparently is famous for its Lao Lao whiskey. Lao Lao is made from glutinous rice. It's plentiful, and potent, but not necessarily pleasing to the palate! We loaded around 40 plastic containers – 7 gallons or so apiece – onto and into the bus.

The first 20 jugs of Lao Lao went up onto the roof, just in front of several bunches of bananas, which prompted Terry to rename our bus the 'Banana Daiquiri Express.' The next 20 went inside the bus – down the aisle and in the back seats – where passengers sat on them for the rest of the trip.

The second stop, around an hour later, was to pick up 50-60 piglets. They were crammed into four loosely woven baskets by the side of the road. But they were loaded, onto the roof of the bus, mostly one by one. Several men and boys worked together, grabbing pigs out of the baskets by their back legs and handing them up to a guy on the bus' ladder, and by him to a couple of guys on the roof.

The first 20 or so pigs were thrown (literally) into a nylon bag. Once the first basket was empty, it was passed up onto the roof, and the pigs in the bag were tossed (again literally, and none too gently) from bag to basket. For their part, the pigs squealed in noisy protest the entire time. Their Lao loaders seemed to think this was hysterically funny – no sympathy for animals here! We 'falangs' (foreigners) just stood around photographing the whole spectacle.

So now we had the makings of a great barbecue on board – banana daiquiris and roast pork. Very reassuring in case of breakdown!

Savannakhet

We arrived in Savannakhet after dark. The Swedes, Terry and Nancy and we all went to the same hotel, a place that didn't look like much, but had mercifully soft beds. We'd been suffering through the nights on rock hard beds for weeks. “Beds like a farmer's field, with furrows,” as Doug described them. Just before lights out the Swedish couple knocked on our door and repaid us our loan to them – along with a little package of chocolate coins, tied up with a pink bow! First chocolate we've had on the trip!

Nancy, Terry and we didn't stay long in Savannakhet. We did however decide to drop in at the Vietnamese consulate there, and were told in no uncertain terms that we did need a visa for Vietnam – the guy in Pakse had mis-advised us on that score. So we put in our applications and said we'd pick them up in a few days... .

Terry, Nancy an we were all planning to go north to see the famed Konglor Cave, a seven kilometer long cave that goes right through a mountain – and has a river running through it that can be navigated by (small) boat. This meant first going to Tha Khaek by bus, and then somehow (our guidebooks weren't clear about how) getting to a little village named Na Him, which is about 40 km from the cave (no word on exactly how to get there either).

Getting to Na Him: How Much Will That Be?

The bus ride to Tha Khaek was comparatively sedate – just the usual stops for fuel and food. Once we got to our guest house, we were able to get a little more info about Konglor Cave. We read, in the guest house comment book, that there was a wonderful new 'resort' just 4 km from the village of Na Him. Definitely worth going to at least for lunch, if not to stay. We decided we'd stay there.

In terms of getting to Na Him the receptionist at the guest house told us we could hire a minibus to take us to the cave, and bring us back, all in one day, for a mere US$400. We demurred, stating that we actually wanted to spend a few days there. “Oh well, you can take a bus to Na Him. It goes from the station down the road.”

The next morning, down the road we went. When we got to the station, it was just a sea of sawngthaews (song-taos), small pick-up trucks with bench seats down the long sides of the box and a canopy over top – the most common 'buses' in Laos. We must have looked like a bunch of deer in the headlights. A waiting baguette-seller asked “Na Him?” and we all nodded and enthusiastic “yes!”

She lead us to one of the sawngthaews and motioned for us to get in. We asked the driver how much he wanted to take us to Na Him. “Forty thousand kip (around $8)” he said. “Forty thousand, forty thousand, forty thousand, forty thousand,” he repeated, pointing at each of us in turn. “Forty thousand!” we exclaimed. “We can go by bus to Savannakhet for forty thousand!” He just smiled.

We suggested ten thousand for each of us, mimicking his sign language and pointing to each of us, saying “ten thousand, ten thousand, ten thousand, ten thousand.” “No” was all he said.

We realized that we had no idea how far Na Him actually was from Tha Khaek, or where exactly we were going. Time to consult our Lonely Planet bible. As Doug searched through that, I got out a notebook that I'd written some info in. As we looked at our books and pointed at various place names, the driver peered over our shoulder. He of course could not read or understand English; indeed it's doubtful he could read Lao – few Laos can read or write.

In the end I decided to try our best negotiating gambit. I got out a 50,000 kip note and held it out towards him, pointing to Doug, and then myself. “Him and me, two persons,” I added. He took the 50,000, then rummaged around in his pocket and pulled out a wad of bills. Then he handed me back a 20,000 kip note! Terry and Nancy did likewise, with the same results. So we all paid 15,000 apiece – a long way from 40,000! We figured the guy, seeing us consulting our guidebook, somehow knew what the fare should be: the gig was up.

As it turned out, the ride was some 145 km and three hours long, the last half, heading inland, up over a couple of small mountain passes and into a beautiful valley. The village of Na Him was just a dirty conglomeration of wood and bamboo shacks – definitely not an inspiring place and not somewhere any of us wanted to stay. Terry went to a pharmacy to use the phone to call the resort. Yes they had two bungalows free. He didn't ask the price. We just hired a sawngthaew and headed out.

The Sainamhai Resort and Vongsamay: Not A Man to Let the Moss Grow Under His Feet!

The Sainamhai Resort was incredible. We all felt like we'd died and gone to heaven. Lovely new wood and bamboo bungalows set in a beautiful garden landscape on the banks of a little river. Soft beds, hot water, reading lights, screens on the windows, and an open-air restaurant overlooking the river. Laughing children playing in the river, smiling and waving and not asking for anything. A friendly host, Vongsamay, who spoke good English.

We ended up having a long chat with Vongsamay. He was from a poor family, one of nine boys, whose father died when he was young. One of his older brothers went to Vientiane to school, and when he started working he sent for his mother and the rest of his brothers to come to Vientiane and live with him. He supported the whole family as the rest of the kids went to school.

Vongsamay was chosen by his government to go to Cuba for higher education. He was allowed to pick from several fields he could study – accounting, business, architecture. He chose architecture. He lived and studied in Camaguey, Cuba from 1982 until 1987 - “the best years in Cuba” he said. The Cuban government paid for everything – his flights there and back, his room and board, his clothes, his books, and even his vacations. He has very fond memories of Cuba and the time he spent there.

When he came back to Laos he became involved in designing and overseeing the construction of buildings associated with the many hydro-electric projects that have been undertaken by the Lao government, all in conjunction with international consultants. Now he's the site facilities manager at the hydro dam near Na Him, which is just about to undergo a major expansion: 2-3,000 workers will be coming to live on site soon, and staying for the next five years.

But Vongsamay is not content to work full time at this job. He's already thinking about the future, about his retirement (he's almost 50), and about how he will continue to provide for his family – his wife and three daughters. He's certain that the Na Him area is going to see a big increase in tourism – a new bridge is being built across the Mekong River, from Tha Khaek to Thailand; the nearby road from Vietnam to Laos is seeing more and more traffic; and there's a new road to Konglor Cave, which the Lao government is promoting as a major tourist attraction.

So Vongsamay bought two hectares of land on the river, and started building his restaurant and bungalows. And he's done a lovely job. His resort was among the nicest places we came across in Laos. He's already enjoying considerable success, with group tour bookings and tourists like us, who come for one night and end up staying for three or four.

International Women's Day

As it happened, International Women's Day was the day after we arrived at Sainamhai Resort. They were planning a party and invited us to join in. As we were having breakfast I heard a kid bleating forlornly out back of the restaurant. I went and peeked over the railing to see if it had lost its mother. It was hanging from a tree awaiting the knife. We'd be having goat for lunch.

The guests arrived – mostly family and co-workers of Vongsamay's – and the women busied themselves in the kitchen (this is how they celebrate I.W. Day!) while the men sat around drinking beer. The main dish was 'Lao spaghetti' – noodles with chopped fresh greens (mint, coriander and beans) and a thin meat sauce (goat juice?). There were also plates of goat meat, a little on the tough side. And a plate of congealed goat's blood with lime juice and coriander. But the piece de resistance was a small dish of goat's testicles. Again, sadly, we were much too full for either the blood or the testicles. (I had three platefuls of spaghetti that day.)

The party ended early, but the 'falangs,' who hadn't been busy in the kitchen all day, weren't as tired as Vongsamay and his wife. So we stayed up telling travellers' tales, trying to outdo one another with our goofiest, stupidest and scariest stories. We'd been joined by this time by yet another Canadian, Graham from Vancouver who works in Yellowknife, and who's done a lot of travelling (every chance he gets he's gone). It was fun being in the company of other travellers – we haven't done much of that yet on this trip.

Konglor Cave

It turned out to be a little more difficult arranging to get to Konglor Cave than we had thought it would be. In the end we had to hire a 'private' sawngthaew to take us there and bring us back – for the hefty sum of $50 Canadian. Fortunately the drive out there (and back) was fabulous. We went through a beautiful valley carpeted in rice paddies and tobacco fields, with patches of deciduous forest, all enclosed by black saw-tooth topped mountains. Our ride out there was made more interesting by a detour we made into a very small village, off-roading through the 'yards' of bamboo-shack-on-stilt houses, to drop off our driver's baby. (None of us had even seen the baby when we got into the sawngthaew!)

The ride through the cave was entertaining, to say the least. We had to take two boats, because the river is so shallow in spots that if there are more than four people to a boat it bottoms out. In several places we had to get out anyway, and wade through the river as our two boatmen portaged the boat over a rocky spot. All of this in the pitch blackness, lit up only by the pitlamps on our drivers' heads.

We stopped in one spot where there were some interesting stalagmites and stalactites, dramatically floodlit. We struggled in our wet flip-flops up the slippery rocks of the cave and along perilous paths to get a better view of these beauties. On the way back I noticed that the flood-lights had been turned off. Presumably there were no more tourists coming through.

About half-way through the cave we came upon another boat that was disabled due to a broken starter cord on the engine. We stopped, Terry and Nancy's boat stopped, and our four boatmen and the two boatmen from the disabled boat all stood around with their headlamps surveying the situation. Then one of them went off down the river, and came back with a skinny little length of reed or wood. He used it to fish around inside the housing for the cord until he managed to pull the end out, and restart the engine.

Seven kilometers and about an hour after we entered the cave we came out on the other side of the mountain to a lush forested valley – it was almost like an appartition. There were the usual collection of snack shacks there, but we contented ourselves with strolling about admiring the trees and giving our bums a rest from the hard seats of the boats.

The trip back through the cave was rather faster as we were now moving with the flow of the river, and there were no stops. When we got to the other end, we noticed that there were dozens of locals getting into boats – including a bunch of school kids. The boats were carrying not only six or more people per boat, but also cases of beer and bags of who knows what. I guess it's just the tourists that can only have two to a boat... .

Back to Savannakhet

We left Na Him early the next morning, hitching a ride to the 'main' road with three dam workers who were staying at the resort until their accommodation is finished. We stood on the road for around an hour, waiting for a bus to come by. A sawngthaew stopped and the driver asked us if we wanted to go to Tha Khaek – for 50,000 riel. We all just laughed.

Then out jumped a dapper-looking fellow who came up and said: “Hello, where are you trying to go?” Perfect English. We told him that two of us (Doug and I) were trying to get to Savannakhet, and two (Nancy and Terry) to Vientiane, and that we understood that there would be a bus coming down the road, hopefully sometime soon, going to Vientiane. “Yes, the bus to Vientiane will be coming soon,” he agreed.

“So we can all take that bus, and the two of us who want to go to Savannakhet can just get out when we reach the junction with the highway...?” “No, no, that is not possible,” he said. “You cannot go to the junction. You have to take a sawngthaew.” He gestured toward the sawngthaew. It was absolutely jam-packed, and even though we knew they'd all move over for us, it looked like one uncomfortable ride. And anyway, we weren't going to pay 50,000. So we just smiled and said “no thanks.”

The bus arrived shortly after and we all got on. “Vientiane?” asked the swamper-ticket taker guy. “Yes for two; the other two to the junction – route 13.” “O.K.” he said, and stowed our luggage in the compartment. No problem – of course.

When we got out at the junction the guy asked Doug for 75,000 kip each! Doug gave him 50,000 for the two of us, and he said “O.K., O.K.” And that was that.

We had just enough time for a quick bowl of soup at a roadside cafe before the bus to Tha Kheak rolled to a stop. It was deluxe – pleated floral-patterned curtains, air-con that actually worked, and pretty good suspension to boot. One of the most comfortable rides we had in Laos. Unfortunately it was short – just to Tha Khaek, where we changed to another bus with even fancier gold silk tassle-bordered curtains, but air-con that didn't work, and windows that didn't open. We sweltered for the remaining three hours of the journey, arriving in Savannakhet drenched with sweat.


Our Last Supper in Laos

We picked up our Vietnam visas the next day. Then we walked around town a bit, visited a big wat with a lovely garden filled with all sorts of exotic plants, and watched some guys making cement Buddhas. A woman was making Buddha hair-curls in a mould. Doug asked her if she could make some for him.

Then we walked down to the river and sat for a while enjoying the breeze. It was only just slightly cooling. We decided we'd get the remote control for the air-con in our room that night. Neither of us had slept much the night before: it was just too hot.

We decided to walk along the river for a bit, and spied a fancy-looking house-boat restaurant below us. We went down to check it out. It was beautifully done, and had a great menu. So we went back there for dinner – our last supper in Laos, and our good-bye to the Mighty Mekong, at least for now.

We had a scorchingly spicy salad and a nice grilled Mekong River fish. Just as we were finishing a waiter came out with a big paper box-shaped balloon. He lit a container of sterno, upended the balloon on top of it, and then held the balloon in place while it filled with hot air. As it began to float he let it go, and it rose into the dark sky and drifted off down the river, getting higher and higher, until it looked much like one of the stars it was drifting towards.

Good-bye Savannakhet! Good-bye Laos! Hello – again - Vietnam!