Day 217 - End of the Road

We began the day with an 8AM minivan to Stung Treng. Or, at least the van picked us up from our guesthouse at 8AM. We didn't actually get on the road until nearly 9. The road to Stung Treng was almost all paved, and we were there by 10:30. We expected to go all the way to the Laos border, so were rather perplexed when we were told to get off the bus and wait for the boat, which wasn't to arrive until 1:30.

We joined a group of similarly perplexed backpackers , played a few hands of cards, read, and ordered lunch. Cz's order got forgotten, and of course arrived just as someone showed up to herd us into the ferry. Luckily he was able to have it boxed, and soon we and the other backpackers were chugging across the river. When we arrived on the other side, we were showed to an awning and told to wait. Again.

In a few minutes a pair of minivans arrived to take us to the border. But the drivers of said vans were not OUR drivers. So we waited some more. By this time we had spent maybe 2 hours in transit, and about 5 hours in waiting.

Finally we were on our way. The border was very clearly demarked by the abrupt end of the paved road. At the Cambodian side, officials tried to finagle a dollar each for 'processing fees'. We managed to outwit them and passed through without paying the 'fee'. Once on the Laos side, the guards demanded a dollar each 'stamping fee'. They were less willing to negotiate, and we each dutifully shelled out the cash. We have found that in many border posts, bribery is almost a way of life. The officials are paid a meagre salary, and it is almost accepted that it is to be supplemented by whatever they can get from travellers passing through. The worst is on most of the border points between Thailand and Cambodia. Technically a visa should be available at point of entry for $20. In reality, most people (us included) wind up paying 1200 Thai Baht (close to $40). Technically it's legal, the fee is either 20US or 1200Bhat, but the current exchange rates make it much better to pay in dollars. The border officials line their pockets by insisting that the fee be paid in bhat. If one has no bhat, he or she gets doubley scammed, as the officials insist on changing the money at ridiculous rates.

Once through the border, the roads deteriorated rapidly to pitted, sandy track. We were relieved to finally arrive at Nagasak, the ferry point out to Don Det, one of the southernmost of the Si Pan don, or 4000 islands.

The guidebook says that the further south one goes in Laos, the more chilled out it becomes. Of Si Phan Don it states "The islands are so chilled out, you are likely to become a hammock-bound icicle." This seems to be the case. When our little boat pulled up to Don Det's sandy beach, our welcoming committee consisted not of touts, but of a placid buffalo.

We walked the track across the island (all 200 meters of it) to find a place to stay. The sides of the island are lined with little bamboo bungalows offering views of either sunrise or sunset. The two main 'roads' (sandy footpaths) are appropriately named 'Sunrise way' and 'Sunset Strip'. Within 20 minutes, cold drink in hand, we were hammock bound on the porch of our very own little hut, watching the sunset over the Mekong and a few of the 4000 neighboring islets.

As the last rays faded away, we wandered next door where the smell of cooking, and the promise of meeting up with a few other backpackers we had met on the way over, coaxed us to dinner. The island was nearly silent, and our restaurant lit entirely by candles. The island gets electricity from 6-10PM, but as of yet not all buildings are wired. It is remarkably peaceful. Indeed we may become 'hammock bound icicles in short order.

Day 216 - The Wedding Crashers

Today we hired two drivers with their trusty Honda Heroes for a tour of the countryside around Kratie.

We began at a reconstructed temple, originally from the 16th century. The blue lights above are not fluorescent tubes, but the brilliant sky shining through slats in the wood. The temple now houses a handicrafts shop to raise money for local villagers. I came away with a pair of super-comfy braided grass flip flops. $2 well spent I think, seeing as my old sandals died in the Philippines.

From there we bumped along the dirt track to a bluff overlooking a Vietnemese fishing village floating on the Mekong. I do like the giant cantilevered fishing nets, but my favourite part of the floating villages are the little garden plots on nearly every boat. Each raft has at least one old oil drum, defunct canoe, or row of buckets brimful with herbs and vegetables.

After catching the little ferry to the island mid river, we motored up to another little bluff where there is a beach popular with the bovine crowd. The name "Kratie" actually comes from an old word in the local dialect meaning "place of the buffalo", as this is where the Mekong was tame enough, and interspersed with enough rest islands to swim herd of cattle and water buffalo across. Today it is popular with the working buffalo for a good wallow after a hard day of plowing. And in case you were wondering how cows stay so nice and white in a red-dust country, here you go.

Many people on the island make their living from processing sugar palm sap into sugar. Much like maple syrup, the sap is boiled and boiled in witch's cauldrons until it reduces to a blonde, caramel-tasting sugar. What sap is not used to make sugar is either drunk fresh, or fermented into palm wine. We were plied with several glasses of the fresh juice, which was surprisingly sweet and almost lemony tasting.

While at the sap-boiling vats, we heard some music in the distance. Our guides said it was a wedding, and asked if we would like to stop by and see a traditional Cambodian village wedding. Of course we did, and soon found ourselves not only invited, but pulled quite forcefully into the seats of honour right in front of where the ceremony would take place. All the older ladies fussed and clucked over us, bringing bottles of water and sticky rice with sugar palm fruit wrapped in banana leaves. I felt a little guilty about pulling focus away from the bride, but Cambodian weddings are far less formal and far more boisterous than our western affairs, with children running about, people chatting among themselves, and, as we discovered, an open invitation to anyone lucky enough to pass by.

After the wedding, we went to visit the family home of one of our guides. His mother owns a fruit orchard and gardens with peanuts, coconuts, grapefruit, and guava. Wielding a scythe on a long bamboo rod, our guide cut down a fresh coconut for each of us. The neighborhood chicks heard the coconuts falling and came running over to investigate. Cz created a veritable feeding frenzy when he set his half-finished coconut on the ground.

Our final stop was a Wat at which a monk had turned into a crocodile and eventually ate a local princess. There is a long and involved story leading up to the transformation involving many spells and plot twists, culminating in this monument and several temples being built along the river.

Had we more time and money, our guides were ready to take us down to see the other temples, but decided to return to Kratie by way of the next set of ferries. We arrived back at our guesthouse tired, covered in red dust, and very pleased.

No candles, but certainly a good way to spend a birthday.

Day 215 - In Cambodia...

...Tarantulas are not pets. They are a tasty snack fried up with soy sauce and garlic. The bus ride from Phnom Penh to Kratie was eventful only in the snack foods sold at each rest stop. Stop one had the widest selection offering tarantulas, crickets, grasshoppers, silkworm grubs, even what looked like shiny black roaches. I sampled the spiders - surprisingly tasty. They tasted like (and had a texture remarkably similar to) fried softshell crab legs.


...Honda Hero motorbikes are the main set of wheels. Them and Toyota Camrys with souped up suspensions to handle the largely unpaved roads. The little motorbikes zip around on every road serving as family car, cargo truck, and taxi all rolled into one.

...The river has dolphins in it. The Mekong is one of the last remaining places where Irrawaddy river dolphins survive in the wild. They went extinct in China in 2006 or 7. There are only about 75-100 left in the Mekong, and about half of those live around Kratie. We took a boat out to see them, and actually got quite close. Unfortunately for the pictures, they are quite fast, usually disappearing with a splash right about the time the camera clicks. That grey 'log' in the left part of the frame is actually a 6' dolphin peering at the boat.

...Children think swatting each other with flowers is a fine game.

...Red sunsets spill across the Mekong as fishing boats and ferries slowly chug towards home.