Hello again, this is going to be my last Laos post. There's a lot to cram in so I'll try to stick to the interesting bits. After Vang Vieng I travelled down south-west to the Lao capital, Vientiene. I was travelling with a friend I'd made in Luang Prabang, and randomly met another friend while waiting for the bus, who I'd first met in Hue. There's not much to say about Vientiene, except that it must be the deadest city in the world. We had a look about, then quickly moved on to Savannakhet. My travel buddy and I were the only foreigners on the bus to Savannakhet. After about two hours drive, I could smell burning and sure enough the bus broke down soon after. We were left waiting on the side of the road for two hours while the drivers and co removed first hte back wheels, then the axle, then some engine parts, and proceeded to bang them with bits of metal. Eventually another bus showed up, it was full already so we had to stand for three hours.
Anyhow, Savannakhet was ok, not much to do there, but it really serves as a base to go on treks. I took a one day trek to the nearby forest of Dong Nadet. This included a visit to a salt factory, which is where I took the above picture, clearly showing a large fish smoking a fag. I'll put the other pictures onto my facebook page as its quite fiddly using this program to put up multiple pics. The salt factory consisted of several large shallow baths of salty water (the water was extracted from the ground - I think, the guides English wasn't great), for evaporation in the sun, or some that used heat from burning wood. Each bath was owned by a different family, it was quite cool to see collectivism in action. For each 50kg bag of salt the family get something ridiculous like $5. After the salty experience, we walked through the forest, which was very quiet, not even a bird call. Whether this was due to it being the dry season or the appetites of the locals I don't know. The local guide showed us how to use some of the plants as medicines (mostly for stomach problems). The weirdest one was red ants, which are apparently good to smell (relieves fatigue) or to rub on snake bites. Later on we visited the Hanging Stupa, which is a tower built in the place where a tree used to be that Buddha is supposed to have sat under. We got a disjointed story of how the local people fed him frogs, which he wouldn't usually eat being vegetarian, which he consquently threw up.
After getting a tourist visa for Thailand at the consulate in Savannakhet (this gives me two months, rather than the 15-day pass I would otherwise get at the border) we took another long, long bus ride to Paxse. This bus was even more beaten up than the last one, and there was a motorbike and three roosters on board. I gave up my seat to let an older woman sit down, which meant I had to stand for three hours again, but at least on this bus the windows were open so I got a nice breeze. I also got two huge bags of sugar on my feet for my troubles. We didn't stay long in Paxse, to be honest I can't remember doing much except eating.
My last stop in Laos was Si Pon Don, or 4000 islands, which is right at the southern end of the country. I stayed on Don Det, which is very backpackery. The island is basically a big farm with a load of bungalows around the perimeter. It was a very nice place to chill for a while, I ended up staying for a week. I met quite a few people from Luang Prabang there which was nice. On my last day I walked to the end of the next island, Don Khon, where you can see Cambodia on the other side of the Mekong river, and I took a boat to see the Irawaddy dolphins. These guys are very rare now, the boat driver said there was only 15 left in that part of the Mekong. It was cool to see them flipping about in the water, but quite sad knowing that their days are probably numbered. The boats turn their engines off in the water, and don't go chasing the dolphins down at least.
From Si Pon Don I took a bus for 110,000 kip up to Paxse then across the border to Ubon in Thailand, where I am now. Ubon is in the Isaan region, which is more Laos than Thai in flavour. Its quite nice to walk around, there are lots of temples, a big park and a fairly interesting library. There doesn't appear to be much in the way of eating though, despite Lonely Planet calling it a foodie heaven. I found a bar last night showing the Liverpool - Bolton game, they also had a live band on which was fun. Not really my kind of music but it makes a change from the usual corny pop they play over here. My head is very sore today even though I only had four Leo beers, I reckon they put some nasty additives in the beer here. Tonight I take a train to Bangkok, and then up to Chiang Mai, hopefully to meet up with some friends I made in Cambodia and Laos, its going to be a long, long trip.
Until next time, see you later!
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