Matthew Blain

Back in the land of smiles

I didn't want to leave Laos, but my visa expired and I continued a recent
trend of using every form of Lao transport that I hadn't yet used. First, I
got up at 6AM, which isn't hard when there's no electricity and 10PM is bed
time. Then I took a boat from Don Khon, where I, along with two Flemish
people staying in the guesthouse, the friendly manager, some cases of empty
Beer Lao bottles, and some plastic chairs. We went to Nakasong on the
mainland, and from there took the new transport of the day--circus bus.
Well, the locals just call it a bus, but I've seen it described as something
you'd expect to see in a circus--a russian flatbed truck with a multicolored
wood seating area on the back. Inside are 6 bench seats, no aisle though
there is no back in the middle. In addition to humans, the animals today
consisted of whatever was in 6 buckets (maybe fish, maybe rice, we don't
know), some other dead fish, and a sack of 40 or so Parakeets, probably
headed to Thailand. This went up the good road for three hours to Paxe, and
from there it was the normal tuk-tuk to saengtaew to motorcycle to walk
across the border to air-conditioned Thai bus to a random Thai town, where
not having any other info I went with the first person who offered to take
me to a hotel, an actual car taxi. Total cost: $7. Should have been $5.

But what about where I was? I'd been on Don Khon, in Si Phan Don, or the
four thousand islands. A tropical paradise if you will, though like much of
Lao it may get overrun soon, you can only hope it won't. It's about as far
south as you can get there, where the Mekong goes over waterfalls just
before the Cambodian border. Oddly enough, the south of Lao is dry deciduous
scrub land which made me think of the pine barrens, but the islands can pump
water from the river and are pretty lush. The big attraction there other
than doing nothing is the waterfalls, the big gorges, the remains of the
railroad the french built to portage the falls, and doing nothing. Oh, and
partying. But more about that later, right now it's time to go back to my
hotel room and take an actual bath.

My hotel is in Sisaket, a small city in Issan (NE Thailand). Thailand is not
Lao, you can tell first by the fact that they drive on the wrong side of the
road, and later that there's commerce everywhere, late at night, with many
different things in the shop, even simple things like fresh fruit
everywhere. And they're up late with lots of electric lights--oddly enough,
supplied here probably by electricity generated in Laos. There are night
stalls set up everywhere in this town, in the market proper and elsewhere. I
ended up eating in the department store (with KFC, possibly the only fast
food place in town), in M.D., aka Master of Delicious. A sukiyaki joint I
think. It was delicious.

So what did you do for Christmas dinner?

--Matthew

P.S. I forgot to mention that Vang Vieng has a large enough visiting Israeli
population to warrant a hannukah ceremony for at least a few nights,
sponsored by I don't know who.

Posted by MBlain at December 25, 2001 12:00 AM