Merry Something or rather
Where was I? Oh yeah, Vientiane. Well now I’m not. I left Vientiane on an over night bus down to a town in the south of Laos called Pakse. I spent a day there cycling around and seeing the people do their thing. Pakse is a little ways from the Bolaven Plateau in southern Laos which is home to some great land to grow one of my personal passions, coffee. I took a tour from Pakse to the plateau which went to a ocouple different waterfalls, coffee and platations and finally to TadLo Falls, where I stayed a couple days.
Coffee, coffee everywhere but not a drop to drink.
Freshly picked
Traditional Roaster
Tea Please.
Coffee Plants and their flowers
Golf Anyone?
TadLo
Christmas
TadLo is where I spent Christmas, if you want to call it that. There was no Merry Christmas this year, instead it was more like laid-back Christmas. My day consisted of sleeping in to about 9:00, which is a major accomplishment here in Asia and then procedded to lay in bed until 10. From there I had breakfast and made my way to the waterfalls and sat there playing Sudoku from an old paper that I found at the guesthouse. There was one paper there that I it looked so fresh thought was brand new but realized that it was over a year old. That’s Laos for you, like it really mattered though where I was. The place was pretty cut off from the rest of the world and the perfect place to rest my weary bones. After Sudoku time I had a workout and pretty much just lazed around I had intentions to do a number of things but for about 3-4 days(I can’t remember) I just relaxed, read, worked out and relaxed some more. For Christamas dinner I had a great steamed fished from the upscale guesthouse/lodge on the falls. This dish has become one of my favorites here, consisting of fish wrapped in banana leaves and either steamed or bbq’d with lemon grass, ginger, garlic and a couple other herbs I can’t quite place. Up in Luang Prabang they had another version of it with lemongreass and dill which is superb. The Laos definately know their fish and how to cook it. Also in Luang Prabang you could get this amazing BBQ’d fish that was stuffed with lemon grass, I realize now how BBQ oriented their food is and great of a job they do with a small BBQ and some charcol. So I basically sat around for a couple days at TatLo for Christmas, there was no mention of Christmas from any of the other foreigners there and no on said Merry X-mas to me and I didn’t say it back to anyone else. I have a feeling most people just didn’t want to think about not being at home with their loved ones and decided to treat it as another day. I was feeling a bit homesick myself for a couple days, at times thinking that now everyone back home would be doing this and that or sitting down for this right now but after some R&R all was forgotten. I actually didn’t even call home or send out an email as I was sure it wouldn’t have helped the way I was feeling at the time so I just let be plus from what I heard the phone sucked out there and the internet was dial up. To top it off when I did get back to civilization I found out that an earthquake off of Tiawan had screwed up the internet all over Asia. From TatLo I headed back to Pakse for a day to get myself ready for Cambodia. My visa was out in a couple days and I had to get out or pay the price. I would later find out that it was a big price.
Pictures of Pakse and Tadlo
Waiting to get a shave.
Getting my watch fixed.
Khmer Dawn
I was up bright and early as per usual and got myself set for the road ahead of me. I wanted to get from Pakse to the border, cross it and then down to Kratie in one day I set out at 7:00am from my guest house door. I took a motorbike with a side car to the market from where I stocked up on some provisions (fresh spring rolls, the food of the gods) and changed over to a tuk tuk to take me to the bus stations. At the bus station a couple guys quickly jumped me in the back of the tuk tuk demanding to know where I was going. I told them Veun Kham on the Cambodian border. They grabbed my bag and threw it ontop of a covered pick-up. I guess they were my ride. To my relief I was joined by 2 other foreigners. Just in case things got dicey, and they always do, at least there’s someone in the same boat as you. I staked my spot on the bench in the back of the pick-up while the other two guys went for breakfast, silly fools. Some blind begger came along and I gave him my baguet, +1 karma to me, I thought. Soon the truck was full and we started to pull away without the two other foreigners. I started hammering on the window for them to stop and waving at the two to get their asses in gear or we were leaving without you. They looked blankly at my waving and we started to pull away again. I hammered on the window again and waved at the two guys eating their breakfast to get going. They looked a their watches with a, “ït’s not 9 yet,” look but we were full and going. The truck started to pull away now and by then they figured it out and got their asses moving jumping onto the back of the truck as it drove down the road. They got the shitty “seats”, if you want to call sitting on the tailgate a seat, in the sun at the back of the truck. Suckers. +2 karma for me.
So we were on our way to the Cambodian border. Along the way we’d stop here and there, drop off some people, pick others up, each time being surrounded by local women selling food from chicken on a stick, bbq bananas and fresh spring rolls. 3 for 1000kip you say? I’ll take 10. My ass was killing me after a while as my large north american ass isn’t made for the skinny benches that are better fit for the tiny asian asses. On the last leg of the trip we made our way off the main road down a side road of just dirt and pot holes and then back down it. At this point there was just us 3 foreigners. Next stop Cambodian border.
All along the way I was watching the road signs that said how much further we had. According to the signs we had 5km left before Veun Kham and got to a wooden shed out in the middle of nowhere and pulled off into it. This is where we knew where were going to get ripped off and why it’s good to have more than one person with you to get out of these situations, hopefully ontop. All I saw was a mini van and a couple guys standing around and knew what was up; we were going to get dropped off here and pay these guys an inflated price to take us across the border, which would be 100m down the road. Nuts to that and we began raising a stink not even listening to the guys. The two other foreigners (a couple Hungarians I later found out) were srewed negotiators. The way they handled the situation and bargaining was impressive and a glimpse of things to come. The guys that drove us down there then grabbed our stuff and threw it back into the back of the truck and got back on the truck with an air of victory amongst us. We made our way down the road but quickly turned off from the nice tailored and manicured main road down a, what I would view as a logging road. It was a small forested bumpy as hell road that stretched as far as the eye could see. It looked like it had haredly been used and that it was by no means you’d find an internation border crossing at the end of it. We drove and drove and drove some more down this little bumpy road, not to be passed or seeing anyone else along it. All there was a deep forest around us and nothing but forest ahead of us. This is where panic and imagination sets in and I beging to think that this isn’t right. I could be shot in the back of the head, dragged 10m off the road and no one would ever find me. I looked over at the two Hungarians and noticed they were digging through the bags and taking out all their valuables and money and putting them in different pockets and into their shoes. I took the que and started stuffing all the cash I had on me into my shoes.I was quite surprised that I could shove US$250, in $10, $5 & $1 denominations into my shoes. It was surprisingly comfortabe too. We continued along the road wondering what the hell was going to happen to us. Soon a scooter came from the opposite direction, passed us, turned around, came to the side of the truck, where the guy waved at the two in the truck and drove off ahead out of sight down the seemingly endless road. By now I’m sweating bullets and thinking great, hes gone off ahead to tell his buddies we’re on the way and to get the AK47’s ready.
Soon we could see something coming ahead, a pole across the road it looked like and were confirmed it was just that as we got closer and pulled up to it. Attached to the pole across the road was a small shack with a sign over it reading, “Laos Customs”. I was still a bit hesitant to believe that this was the border crossing but after a couple minutes a couple of American’s cyclists came from the otherside and confirmed that this was it. I guess this was an official unnofficial border crossing. It was there but Laos didn’t admit to it being there, which explains the road or lack there of. I got my passort stamped and paid my border “upkeep fee” of US$1 and walked down the road into Cambodia. The two Hungarians were having problems though. It ended up that they stayed their visa over 10 day’s and were to be fined $200 each. They talked down the price to $150 on the notion that they only had $100 on them each and would have to see if they could borrow money from me. We made like I was giving them money and all was happy.
Laos Side
Cambodian Side
The Cambodian side was a bit less dodgy. It was a well manicured road and on that side the government awknowledged it as an official border crossing. On the Khmer side I found a Swiss guy eating soup at the soup stand on the side of the road. He was a bit pleased to see another whitey and proceeded to tell me what our situation was. We were 50km away from the closest town. The bus comes in the morning from that town, it was now mid-afternoon. One of the locals (I’m sure he was the border official too) had a van and was willing to arrange transportation to the destination of our liking for a price. A heafty price. We were basically in the middle of nowhere and he had us by the balls. This is where things got ugly. Name calling, stamping of feet and throwing of temper tantrums ensued for the next hour as we tried to bargain our way down to a reasonable price. The Hungarians as I mentioned before were srewed when it came to the bargaining table and started to take things personally. As for the price at hand I’m rather ashamed to say it. The guy was trying to charge $20 to Krattie, about 200km away. In North American terms thats a deal and a half but once you consider I drove across Laos for $15 and half of Thailand for $10 you begin to see that we were getting ripped off. I wasn’t getting too upset and really didn’t care actually. I was willing to pay the $20 but decided to see what I could get the guy down to. A tour bus pulled up from the next town 50km down the road and we tried to get the driver to take us there but soon found out it was the guy who we were bargaining with van. I asked some of the people getting off the bus how much they paid to get here and manged to use that as leverage. In the end I got him down to $17. Still a complete rip off but it was a fun little barter session.
From the border we shuttle vanned it to a town called Stung Treng where we dismounted, got onto a ferry, crossed the mighty Mekong river and sat down for lunch on the other side. We threw our bags into a different van and from there the guy who took us here disappeared and we were left in the hands of the restaurant owner, Mr.T. He was a nice guy and had a nice conversation with him about Cambodia. From there we were about to go when Mr.T stopped us and told us we couldn’t go to the van that our stuff was in and would have to go around through the alley. We followed him down this narrow alley way filled with trash, people cooking food and doing the laundry as Mr.T told us that due to coruption we had to go down this way as if the police saw us leaving town we’d have to bribe them to get out of town. Welcome to Cambodia. We came out the other side to the van and all our stuff waiting for us and were swept down a rural road with more bumps and dust until we got to the “main road” and took it from there. About 4 hours later we arrived in Krattie just shy of 7PM. 12 hours, 2 tuk tuks, the back of a pick-up, 2 shuttle vans and a ferry later I arrived. I figure it was about 300km. Fun fun. Me, and my bag as per usual was covered in the lovely red dust that is so synonymous to Laos and so far Cambodia.
Good Bye Lovely Laos
I really wanted to stay in Laos longer. It was an amazing country, with great food and friendly people but alas, with my visa up and it costing a fair bit I decided to head off but I’d definately go back in heart beat. So far I’d say the food there was the best in area simply because it was the most basic and seems to have taken bits from all the countries around it. You could find Vietnamesse fresh spring rolls, a personal favorite of mine, fine curries, amazing BBQ, delicious fish and baguet sandwhiches. The native Laos dishes were great and really simple which was a nice pace from the hot, spicy flavor explosion that is pretty much all Thai dishes. To top it off they have amazing coffee and tea there. Laos coffee was superb, you’d seriously have to look to find a really bad cup. Even the street stalls and local shops poured a great cup. Compared Cambodia, where I am now, the worst cup in Laos is still better than anything just about anything I’ve found here, with the odd exception which was the amazingness of Lavazza coffee. I’m realizing that the reason for thisbad brew is that the coffee here is Vietnamesse coffee which is pure, or very near to all Robusta coffee beans, the lower grade of coffee. The smell is awful and smells like burning rubber and tastes just the same. Everytime I smell it my stomach turns. I was under the impression that coffee was good in Vietnam but if it tastes anything like this I’m screwed. The food here in Cambodia is also something to be desirred, at least the local restaurants and street stalls that is. The Khmer food in the western restaurants is great but what the locals are eating makes my stomach turn. It’s extremely greasy and grisely. They cook up and eat just about every organ and part of the animal. Bugs are a common sight, which is nothing new or too bad but where I draw the line is the steamed duck/chicken embryos. What they do is when an egg is about to hatch they kill it, steam it and eat the small partially developed embryo with lime juice and salt. I had seen this before in Laos and had heard about it even before I left home. In Luang Prabang I thought it was a hardboiled egg, bought one and soon realized what it was. I dropped it right then and there and stated to the people I was with that that’s as far as I go when it comes to strange food. There is one thing the Cambodians know how to make though and that’s fruit shakes. Best dam fruit shakes I’ve had yet. The food in the restaurants is also really good. I just had a great pumpkin soup the other night and an interesting baked pumpkin dish the next, to top it off there were these mine victims playing music next to the restaurant that really added to the atmosphere.
Kratie
I spent a couple days in Kratie, which was quite the busy busseling market town. The people were extremely friendly, as per usual in this area of the world and I had a lot of fun trying to buy and make my way around the area. I had a Kmher scarf made, which was good fun. I rented a bike and toured around the town and onto this one Island on the Mekong that was scattered with farms and was a nice look at rural Cambodian life. From there I was off to Siem Reap for new years leaving the 31st.
Pictures of Kratie
Getting a Khmer Scarf Made
While getting it made, granny here grabbed my workout log and proceeded to peruse it. She was impressed by my number and times.
The little kid at the tailor shop that I was playing with. I had good fun getting that thing made.
On the Island in the Mekong. It was full on windy and since it’s the dry season there’s a huge sandbank that whips up tonnes of dusk and sand. Good thing I have my scarf.
Yep. still horse and cart here in Kratie.
New Years Day
New Years
My plan was; leave from Kratie to Siem Reap on the 31st, probably have a fairly quiet eve and walk around the city square seeing if anything interesting was going on an such. I’d stay up a bit into the new year and from there wake up at like 4:00am and go out to Angkor Wat and watch the sunrise on the new year on one of the most amazing ancient ruins on earth. Sounded good huh?
Instead the night before I left Kratie I started to feel a bit sick. I woke up the next morning for the bus ride with a bit of a fever, feeling a bit nauseous, gross and clammy and generally like crap. I laid in my bed wondering if I should go or stay where I was. My mindset was that I could get more sick by taking the trip while I could get more sick anyway and being in a larger center with lots of tourists like Siem Reap pretty much guaranteed me a place with access to decent medical attention if needed. I decided to just take a look at the bus and see what the day of travel would entail. If it was a pick-up truck, shuttle van, ancient bus that was probably used in combat or tuk tuk I was staying where I was. To my surprise and joy it was an up to date bus with AC, TV and designated seating. To my dismay it had AC and a TV. This meant it would be freezing in there and we’d be watching karaoke of Thai pop music. I’ve heard so many of these songs all over the place that I know get some stuck in my head and reconize many of them. Some of the more folkish Thai and Laos music isn’t that bad mind you.
So get onto the bus and am told that I will have to make a transfer in a town called Skoun; don’t like the sounds of that. I figured since this was up to date bus it was surely a foreigners bus but to my surprise it was a regular Khmer bus and much to my shock I was the only white person on it. Many people would say this is good because you get a good chance to mingle with the locals. Yeah, I know hello, thanks and no thanks in Cambodian, they know hello in English. Lets mingle and exchange culture, how rewarding. Plus this is also a bad thing because if something bad happens…no WHEN something bad happens, it’s nice to have someone else there with you to sock it out, espeically when your sick.
I made it to Skoun with no problems, drifting in and out of a fevered sleep the whole way through. At the bus station it was full on with beggars, people selling just about every type of fruit and bugs. Lots of bugs. The little eatery was jammed pack with locals wolfing down some pretty harsh looking dishes. Mixed my nausia this was not a good combo. It was also bloody hot and mixed my fever I was eager to get to the next bus. If anything bad was going to happen this is where it was going to take place. The bus driver, who didn’t speak English took me to another guy who worked for the bus company and spoke English who did and he said he’d look after me. The was to be there at 1PM and he’d come and find me when it arrived. I sat down, ate some jack fruit and pineapple, the only things that my stomach could handle and waited. Soon it was 1 and no bus. Then is 1:15 and still no bus. During my waiting I had lost sight of my babysitter and began to worry. I thought this one guy was him and went up to talk to him but I soon realized that that wasn’t him. I hate to say it but a lot of Asian people look the same to me. That said, I know a lot of Asian people think us westerners look the same too so it’s all funny in the end. Soon though my sitter found me and told me the bus was running late and would sonn arrive which it did. I hopped on and made the last leg of my journey to Siem Reap, again falling in and out of a fevered sleep the entire way. We made a pit stop at this really weird place that looked to be at one time an old pool with ajoining restaurant and washrooms. The place looked like it was 200 years old. The washrooms were scary and I pee’d outside of them, too much for me. I didn’t go look into the pool for fear of what I might see. There was garbage everywhere around the pool, which is really nothing new. There’s garbage everywhere in this country. I thought Laos was bad but this place is 100 times worse. It was a really strange place as it was in the middle of nowhere and quite out of place. If it was built recently it would have had to of been built in the last 5-8 years because of the previous wars and termoil that gripped the country and had quickly fallen into disarray and was a stupid thing to build in the first place. If it was from before the war, Pol Pot and the decades of insanity, I’m amazed that it still stands.
Finally made it to Siem Reap with no problems. When the bus pulled into the terminal the tuk tuk drivers were stampeding towards the bus even before it stopped, they were pretty agressive and not even to just the foreigners but also to the local people as well, which is new. most of the time the local peoples are ignored and the drivers just go after the tourists. The people here are full on poor and I was told that as so they’re desperate for work they go for anyone. I picked a friendly looking guy as my driver and he took me around the city looking for a place to stay. I was told it was hard to find a good place here as most places were just about always full. I just wanted to get into a place and was willing to take anything. After about 5 stops I found a place with a TV, my own bathroom and shower all for the steep price of $10 a night, the most expensive I’ve paid here in Asia yet. I took it and proceeded to spend my new years eve watching Star Wars 3 untill about 10Pm when I fell asleep and slept for 12 hours. Happy New Year!
Eyesore on the Mekong
Notice the dead dog?
The next morning I found a different place for $5 a night and probably a little nicer too but no bathroom and the TV doesn’t get as good reception. You might say, why go to Asia and watch TV? I’m sure most of you who read this have watched more TV and movies in a week than I have the last year travelling so go to hell.
I got plenty more to write about and some really interesting things happen in Siem Reap but I’ll leave it there and update more in the upcoming hours, days, weeks, months, years…
Peace
Troy
Tags: Laos
misfittroy
I am glad to see you still have your great sense of humor.nrnrGreat reading. Miss you.nrnrLove mom