Krabi Krabi Krabi! Oi oi Oi!

14.03.2004 33 °C

G'day blokes, sheilas and aspiring lady-boys!

After arriving back at the parched, dustbowl that is Pakse (I've already written a proposal to the Lao Tourist Bureau recommending this dump be renamed Poxy), from the relative calm of the Four Thousand Islands, I remedied my thoroughly exhausted self with some fine coffee from the Bolavens Plateau in the air-conditioned comfort of a bamboo-chaired, palm fanned Polynesian style haven, before kicking back at my hotel to finely dine on (not-another-jolly-bowl-of-) flied-lice and having the pleasure to snoop on a Lao wedding reception.....a seemingly most excellent excuse for copious amounts of Lao Lao (Lao rice whiskey) consumption, very bad get-down-and-boogying-post-inebriation, hideous taffeta frills, an Elvis style winter-white bell-bottomed clad groom, and the cacophonic (of course this is subjective) melange that is Lao-reggae music. Absolutely brilliant craic.

My slumber that night came in hiccups thanks to the constant rhythms of the Lao-reggae-after-wedding discotheque from the hellmouth below, and when I finally dragged my woeful self out of bed the next morning, I was running hideously late for my bus to the Bolavens plateau. Upon arrival at the morning market for my local super-comfortable bus eastwards, with the remnant pulse of the Lao-reggae pounding in my head, my physical incapacitation due to the seering heat, and my respiratory resources on the verge of expiry from inhalation of red dirt, tuk tuk fumes, and malodorous Mekong fish, I decided that I rather fancied laying about on a tropical island for a few days.

Of course, this decision afforded me the opportunitiy to learn that you can actually squeeze 30 adults (and 2 children, as well as half a dozen baby peach-faces, and a mangily coiffured poodle), into the back of a 16-seater tuk tuk! At a roasting 37C, for an hour or so on a heavily pocked road, this made for an exceedingly character-building ride, particularly with my being sandwiched between Mr Elbows, and a girl nursing very manky looking baby-birds that sucked on fermented lady-finger bananas, in between writhing and squawking in protest. I also did well to befriend a young Lao man carrying a little excess adipose tissue, who managed to clench my heart after a mere 11km with a touch of old-fashioned enthusiasm, dodgy Aussie-style pick-up lines, his suave slick-backed mullet (all the rage with middle-aged German backpackers!) and a token can of imitation Lao Coca-Cola. My email box has since been inundated with sweet sweet nothings! Bless...

After your average encounter with jaded immigration officials, I re-entered Thailand, where I took another (somewhat less crowded) tuk tuk, followed by a non air-con bus, o'nite train, taxi , air-con bus, boat and tuk tuk, to get to Lonely Beach on Ko Chang, an island on the far east coast of Thailand, near to the Cambodian border. 28hrs all up, including a brief layover on a rather ghosttown-like 6am Khao San Rd - the only signs of life, aside from the saffron-frocked monks on their daily alms-rounds, and the obnoxious tuk tuk drivers touting their girlfriend's half-brother's ex-wife's tailor shop ("velly cheap for you my fliend. I give you special price my fliend"), were of a few somnambulistic farangs, not quite sure where they were, nor why - but still pondering how the heck they made it that far!

I scoured all the travel agencies in Banglamphu (backpacker central) to find one that was open before the 8am bus left, and after finding one at 7.55am, boarded a bus out to Ko Chang, a quite rugged island with thick jungle right across it. Ko Chang provided a perfect chill out place for reading, sleeping and relaxing at the beach, but after 3 days, it got a little boring, so I bussed on back to Bangers, did some 'window' shopping, and booked a flight down south to Krabi!

From Ao Nang town, I jumped on a long-tail boat out to Railay, a beautiful area on the coast that is full of bungalows, al fresco cafes (you can even eat on the mudflats at low tide), climbing schools, monkeys, ridiculously bronzed Swedes using UV rays to cure remnants of Seasonal Affective Disorder, and a colony of stumpy-tailed cats that like to sit on people's laps while they dine.

Upon arrival, I promptly headed over to West Railay for a swim and snooze. All afternoon, there was an incessant flow of smiling (but very annoying) beach vendors, trying their hardest to sell pineapples, coconut milk, pastries, sarongs, bracelets etc. Thankfully they weren't as aggressive as the ones in Vietnam, (e.g. the toothless old wench in Hoi An who decided my sarong was a good place to set up shop for half an hour or so), and no tears were induced by my attempts to ward them off (not mentioning any names you big bully!) .

From there, I wound my way around the heavily-fenced off Rayavadee resort (cheapest rooms go for AUD$450 a night in the off-season, most expensive are AUD$4500 - apparently Colin Farrell stayed there last week) to sit down on the spectacular Hat Tham Phra Nang (Princess Cave Beach) and share the view of the sun sinking into the ocean with a stack of monkeys that swing madly from the treetops right on the beach.

After a few rather lax days on the physical front, I decided some exercise was in order, so went to Cliffs Man, one of the major climbing schools in Thailand and hired Tik to teach me to do spiderwoman impressions up 30m high cliff faces overlooking some of the most gobsmackingly beautiful beaches on earth.

Apparently the cliffs around Railay are amongst the top five climbing sites in the world - not only for the challenges they offer in clambering your way up overhangs and stalactites, but for the magnificent views you are afforded over the Andaman coast when you get up high. If you happen to be the first person in the world to scout out and scale a new path up a cliff-face, you are given the opportunity to name the cliff - consequently, if you so wish, you could attempt to climb "Knights in White Satin", "Ladyboy" and "Greed". My instructor was absolutely brilliant in his relentless pursuit of his student's climbing potential. He wouldn't let me get away with giving up when I was a metre or two from the top - even if my arms and legs were on the verge of dropping off from utter exhaustion! By the end of the second day, those imaginary bumps on the wall Tik insisted I put my feet on and clasp with my fingers had become real and valuable foot perches and finger grips.......I suspect this rock-climbing business could be very addictive....

My final night in Thailand was spent at Cliffs Bar, with some friends I´d made at climbing school, on the backpacker strip of East Railay, watching the climbing instructors clamber like monkeys up the outdoor training wall, inebriated Swedish lads making monkeys out of themsleves trying to do the same, young Thai men doing tricks with flaming sticks/ropes (beats flaming galahs!), and laughing at a very bad Michael Jackson impersonator trying to do magic.

Now it's back to Dublin, ready to gear up for St Paddy's Day this Wednesday. I'm just after arriving off the plane (getting back into the Irish grammar!), and ready to keel over at any second from sheer exhaustion, but am trying to make it through til this evening's fireworks.

Oh yeah and I have to work on Monday!

Cheers

Belinda

xox

How many people can you fit into a pick-up truck?

01.03.2004 38 °C

Greetings (finally I’m back online!)

So I last wrote from Pakse, the provincial capital of Champasak province, and over 700km South of Vientiane. Flying low over the Southern provinces of Laos, I was shocked by the tremendous devastation of Laos’ deforestation. Vast areas of once-forested lands, lay naked and brown beneath me, and the constant haze of dust lingered in the air. About 2/3 of Laos’ export earnings are from logging, and on top of that, there is a large amount of forest area disappearing as a result of illegal loggers from within Lao and nearby Thailand (Thai border is about 40k away).

Upon arrival here, I went in search of (food and then) the allusive Mr Theung (no doubt, one of many), who, I was informed, would be able to provide me with the most up-to-date information on getting down to Si Phan Done (Four Thousand Islands) by slow boat. All I knew was that he owned a coffee shop, near the bridge closest to the port (which isn’t really a port, but more of a spot where a few boats huddle together at the foot of a riverside! See none of the streets in Pakse actually have names! Or if they do, they are numerical, but the numbers don’t make much sense, and nobody seems to know what they are! Of course speaking no Lao, was not much help…. So I never did end up finding Mr Thueng, but I did have a rather dull afternoon in Pakse town, where the most exciting event of the day was the bitumizing of the ‘main’ road – an occasion for every long-fingernailed man to watch in delight (only prosperous men can have long-fingernails ‘cause they don’t have to work in the fields!).

Anyway, I decided to take a bus, and the next morning, I hailed a tuk-tuk to take me to the bus station (which turned out to be a market) where I was befriended by a Lao woman who had just returned to Laos, after 25 years living in Paris (of course!). She asked me where I was heading, and invited me to share the tuk-tuk with her family to head down to Champasak. After grabbing some breakfast (a long crusty baguette plastered with margarine and copious amounts of brown sugar!!!!!!), I jumped aboard for the ride down to Champasak, with my new friend, and her companions. Whilst my friend and I chatted away happily in French (or rather, she chatted away, and I occasionally was able to extract a few phrases/words from my left hemisphere in order to reply), her mother munched on a half-formed baby bird egg, and her sister sucked away on a wad of betel nut (which acts as a stimulant and does a great job in discolouring one’s teeth!). After dropping off her family in Champasak town, she continued with me to Wat Phou, where she provided me with a rather detailed description of the Wat and its significance to Lao people (again all in French!). Wat Phou is an Angkorian temple (slightly older than Angkor Wat) set aside a hill (Phou is Lao for mountain), and purported to look like a Linga (Hindu phallus). The main stairway up the Wat is lined with frangipanis and the view from the top was superb.

Wat Phou Champasak

Whilst looking around the Wat, I befriended a German couple, who had booked a private tour on the internet and had their own mini-van to take them wherever they wanted to go. They offered me a ride down to Don Khong, one of the 4000 islands, and I arrived there quickly and comfortably – and without the help of Mr Theung!

I couldn’t quite afford the US$25/night comfort of my German friends’ somewhat palatial hotel, so opted for the $3/night Mekong Guest House next door. A good choice, it turned out as the guesthouse was run by a lovely Lao/Canadian family who did everything possible to make me feel at home, including nursing me back to health when I came down rather ill (I think a touch of cholera) early the next morning. I told them to rename it the Mekong GuestHouse and Hospital! Can also highly recommend Semalong essential balm and Marley’s (no relation to Bob) egg noodle soup as a remedy for reverse-peristalsis….

Aside from spending time being cared for by my adopted Lao family, I explored Don Khong island, mostly on one of those ricketty gearless Chinese bikes I rode up North. At first I started out with the 16km roundtrip cycle to the other side of the island, before doing the 25km Southern loop, and then yesterday taking on the 40km (maybe a little less) Northern circuit with Becky (friend from Vientiane) and Stefan (a German)…..on a mountain bike in a temperate climate, that’s probably not such a ride, but in the 35degree heat on a dodgy bicycle, it’s hard work!!

The scenery across Don (Lao for island) Khong is both charming and varied, with iridescent green rice paddies (presumably the folk with a bit of money for high-tech Lao irrigation systems) juxtaposed with dried-up straw coloured ones; water-buffalo mulling in the fields, taking a dip in the trenches that line the roadside, or wandering down the roads, clinking their cow-bells as they go; children playing in their front yards, smiling brightly as they gleefully wave to the ‘falangs’ or running out onto the road-side to high-five falangs passing by. Most of the houses are made from bamboo and coconut palm wood, and many contain television and/or stereo systems that could compete with any high-tech 80s model system. On Khong, there are also animals all over the place, including some of the most robust looking chooks and ducks I’ve ever seen, loads of birds, 100kg pigs, and plenty of skanky (“but always beautiful”) cats and dogs.

Scenes from Don Khong

From Don Khong I took a daytrip to the islands of Don Deth/Don Khone, close to the Cambodian border, where I got to see the spectacular Khone Phapheng waterfalls (claimed to be the ‘widest’ in the world hmmmm), the not-so-spectaular-but-still-quite-nice Li Phi waterfall, the old French railway line and carriage (the French had grand plans to build a railway line that connected Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos with Thailand, and a school of the extremely endangered and rare Irawaddy Dolphins. Aside from the extraordinary opportunity we had to see these rare freshwater dolphins in relatively close proximity, the trip provided us with the chance to cross out of Laos, into Lao-Cambodian no-man’s-land, into Cambodia and back again, without officially dealing with immigration – therefore paying no visa-cost, nor any entry/exit/re-entry bribe to corrupt officials!

There was once a train planned to run across Indochina...it never actually happend...

Mother Marley (from my guesthouse) was kind enough to organize a ride for Stefan (German friend) and I back North, in what she believed to be the most comfortable mini-bus transport available! She guaranteed us a comfy ride at the local price!! So at 6.30 (Lao time – i.e. anytime after 6.30am but never exactly at 6.30am) we were surprised to be met by an over-crowded covered pick-up truck – think 27 people in the back (rather battery-chicken-like)!! A rather uncomfortable ride of about 3.5 hrs duration, but certainly character building. What was not so character-building, however, was sitting right next to the truck conductor (a charming man with bad body odour and no teeth) and his fat friend Freddy, who took glee in ogling the falang backpacker, who was ever grateful she had decided to go for the neck-ankle-five-sizes-too-big-ensemble………

Anyway, not much else to say. I THINK I’m heading east to the Bolavens plateau tomorrow (it’s possible I end up in Yangon or Krabi!), but for now, some sleep would be nice!

See yas later

Love Belinda

xxoo