The last day in Vientiene I was incredibly bored and found an internet gaming cafe. With a few hours to kill before my bus, I played counter strike, a shooting game with the Laos 10 year old locals - and kicked their asses! I bet they were well impressed with me but that’ll teach them to not go to school or be doing their homework! In all honesty, that was my highlight of staying in Vientiene, the most boring capital in the world! I later found out that vientiene was the home to the beerlao brewery. So far on my journey Beerlao was the best beer I’d tried so I was bit gutted I missed out on the free tour and free beer! Later on that day, me and Al parted ways and I caught my bus to go further south to the 4000 islands region for some much needed chilling out! Yup, you heard right - me and Al went our separate ways! One of the things we always agreed upon was that we’d always do or go where we wanted to! It’d been fun all the way throughout and my experiences of travelling actually got better as a result.. For a start, you meet more people. It’s so easy travelling with someone you know so you make less of an effort with other people and stick in your own little group. Also a couple of days of going it alone, not talking to another living soul will make even the quietest, shyest of people talk the ears off anyone and everyone! Me and Al have met up a couple of times since and we’ve both had stories to tell..
I took an overnight bus to Pakse, a stopover point to the south and had to endure waking up at 6am to loud karaoke music and the driver deciding to turn on the lights inside the bus. Not impressed! At this point I met a Dutch girl called Analise who I also travelled around with for a couple of weeks! She was a great laugh!
Having spoken to 2 other travellers, Laura and Ross from England, I decided to carry on travelling south to Don Det via Champassak in the 4000 Islands. After a couple of hours by tuk tuk and a boat with the locals I finally arrived and checked into a guesthouse for one night there where it pissed it down. It almost reminded me of home!
On the 7th of March we took a big tuk tuk (with the locals again) to Don Det, a small island to the south. I met some other travellers on the tuk tuk who I stayed and travelled with for several weeks. Dave, the canadian who looks like Mr T (the white version minus the attitude!) and two americans called Frank and Annie.
Laura, Dave and me..
One of the most common things about Asian people on public transport is that they like to vomit.. a lot (well maybe “like” is not the right word). I don’t know why they’re so rubbish at being sick, I suppose it’s got something to do with the fact that they stuff their faces with food whilst travelling. At one point I noticed some strange white droplets on my feet and flip flops - it was sick from the girl next to me. She was sick all over someones groceries too. Dave kindly wiped it off for me using his sleeve, at this point I also discovered that Laura had a phobia of sick. Hehe great!
I spent the next few days in Don Det relaxing in a hut made from wood and leaves with no lights. As ever in Laos, everywhere closes at 11 but I’m glad in a way as late nights would really spoil this place. I had a great time there. One day we decided to walk and see a waterfall which was really impressive but incredibly dangerous. Unlike the waterfalls before, you couldn’t really swim in these as the current was incredibly fast and strong. The biggest disappointment was going to see the dolphins. We went on a boat and saw about 2 but they were really far away. The person sailing the boat would point out dolphins that only he could see for the most part..
The place had lots of character and the locals were really friendly. All the kids would say hello to us and I could really feel how hospitable everyone here was. The owner of the guesthouse we were staying in even showed us how to milk his cat! One of the nights whilst walking outside I saw the most amazing night sky! There was no moon and there seemed to be about a billion stars I’d never seen before filling in all the dark spaces. Was truly amazing but short lived as once the moon appeared, the stars disappeared..
Sunset in Don Det
We left for Cambodia on the 10th. I’d run out of money and there was no atms in sight so Laura very generously lent me some US dollars which also act as currency in Cambodia. I didn’t have a Visa so I had to get one at the border. I also had to pay some “extra” cash to the border officials as they were working overtime - basically a bribe of sorts, 2$ to leave Laos and $2 to enter Cambodia.. corruption bleh!
Goodbye Laos… Hello Cambodia!
