The long road from Phnom Penh to Vientiane

For about the last 5 days, I have been making my way north from the capital of Cambodia to the capital of Loas. It's been an arduous, but surely interesting journey on the backroads and the Mekong.

The first step was a 5 hour short-bus ride north to the small city of Kratie. There was no leg room and my left arm got terribly sunburnt because there wasn't room for it in the bus. In Kratie, me and this geologist Brit John took a short boat ride to see the endangered freshwater Iyerwaddy dolphins in the Mekong river. The next day after falling victim to conniving Kratie driver/transportation system, we set off for Stung Treng. We were guaranteed only 3 people in the back of a taxi for the 4 hour ride because we paid an extra 6 bucks. But sure enough, as soon as we rounded the corner, another guy jumped in. Fleeced again!

In Stung Treng, we boarded a small canoe-type raft with a Toyota car engine attached to it. Needless to say, we flew from Stung Treng to the Cambodia/Lao border crossing. When we left Stung Treng, it was a very sunny day. As we made our way further up the Mekong, it became apparent it was gonna rain. Our tiny boat was unsheltered. As the wind kicked up and our boat driver kept the speed up, we were battered with rain, although it might have been glass shards. Finally, it let up and as we approached the stilted shack known as Cambodia immigration, the super-duper immigration officer got out of his hammock and put on his shirt. He stamped us on our way and collected his "official" $2 overtime fee. Although we thought we paid for transport all the way to Laos, we were then charged another dollar to get to the Laos immigration office across the river. Happy to be out of Cambodia for the time being, we got stamped in Laos, paid the overtime fee there and headed for town as it began to get dark.

We were set on getting to the bungalow/backpacker town of Don Det, located in Si Phan Don, or 4,000 islands area. Here, the mighty Mekong diverges into countless channels creating many islands and picturesque waterfalls. We were able to stay in a nice riverside bungalow for a dollar a night. We spent the next day strolling a couple islands, checking out mile-wide rapids and falls, wading through flooded paths, enjoying the extra-happy menu of the local restaurants and like the Lonely Planet suggests, recovering from Cambodia. On Don Det, I believe I have recovered evidence of the fist ever Ducken--the ducks and chickens of the island have a very good relationship. Recovery complete, we reserved a seat for the next leg of our journey.

Pick it up from my journal entry:
The journey from Don Det to Pakse was an interesting one. John and I got on a Lao truck/bus thingy at 8:40am and told we'd leave at 9am. People were loading bags of all sizes onto the truck. One guy got on, opened one of the bags, pulled out a few frogs and ripped off one of the legs of the still-living thing. Sure enough, we felt the other bags and there were animals of some kind in there. Six Spaniards got on and objected as more and more bags and baskets were loaded on. It got to be 10am, we were still there and the Spaniards weren't happy. One guy displayed his expertise in Spanish cussing. "Joder! Tu puta madre!" Me too. They got off and got there money back, setting off on foot. Finally we set off. On our truck, there were about 20 people, several bags of rice, several bags of animals: species unknown and in various stages of near-death, 2 large pots of fish swimming in Mekong River water (one of whcih fell off onto the road spilling the water and depositing the fish onto the hot pavement), baskets of unknown groaning animals and finally a large wicker cage containing about 40 chickens all crammed together and shitting onto aforementioned bags/baskets/passengers. We happily got off the Farmyard Connection in Pakse, Laos.

John and I recovered with a few of southeast asia's best beers, BeerLao. He was off on an overnight bus to Vientiane, while I was getting a morning bus (the VIP, no farm animals) to the town of Savannakhet. Savannakhet is a town on the Thai border which was heavily bombarded by American troops around the time of Vietnam. I checked out an amazing Buddhist temple then checked out the local Museum. Most of it was an homage to national communist heroes and pictures of farming and Laos' burgeoning "industry" as evidence of its place in world communist powers! Yeah, I was the only one at the museum. Upstairs they had a few old bombs left by America and a few pictures with captions like: "U.S. imperialists and puppet soldiers use Savannakhet Airfield for perpetrating countless crimes." Good stuff. Outside there was an old US fighter plane and some cannons on display. There were a group of teenagers sitting and talking on the fighter plane. One guy was laying on one of the wing flaps. As he got up, the flap turned and he tumbled to the ground. Ah, sweet victory! Vindication! Go USA!

I opted for an overnight bus to Vientiane("local" = no animals, just bags of rice piled 2 deep in the aisles and from floor to cieling in the rear). I managed some good sleep on the bus despite the Loatian karaoke hits blasting all night and rain blowing in the windows in the middle of the night.

So now I am here in Vientiane, not much going on here. I think I will go to Vang Vieng tomorrow, where I here they have some good tubing. Can't wait...