Oi said, 'Get orf moi Laaaand!!'
February 01, 2005
Happy Birthday! (from King Gyanendra x)
It would have been hard for our expectations to have been more wrong in the end. After months of closely monitoring the political situation in Nepal in fear of an escalation of the Maoist insurgents’ terror campaign, the last direction we’d expected trouble to come from was the Royal Palace. However, bright and early on the morning of my birthday, King Gyanendra delivered a proclamation that has since become known as the Royal Step. While it posed no immediate danger or concern for tourists in Kathmandu, it certainly caused a great deal of inconvenience. For those attempting to leave Kathmandu by land or air and those stranded in the country’s more remote regions, I’m sure that first day must have been very worrying. The suspension of civil rights (including the cessation of all phone and internet services and the censoring of all print media) came as a surprise to everyone…and the reasons for it did not become clear for some time. Rather than drip-feed the information as it came to me, I’ll set the story down here now. This seems fitting as it was only during that first week when the situation really seemed to affect my life in Kathmandu.
The political developments that led to the King’s move had given most observers a sense of deja-vu. Despite fervent promises during electioneering, successive coalition governments had failed to do anything about the rising tide of violence from the Maoists. This it seems was mainly down to what the locals call ‘grafting’ – that age-old problem of politicians using their position and influence to suit their own aims (and bank balances) instead of demonstrating a responsibility to their electorate. Therefore, the dissolution of parliament was no great surprise to anybody, having happened twice in recent years already. This time though it seemed the King was sick to the back teeth of the corruption amongst the political elite and, instead of installing a new government (as prone to ‘graft’ as the previous one), he this time took measures to put an end to the continual problem. The reason for the communications blackout and media interference soon came to light: many high-ranking members of the government had been arrested and interrogated in order to finally bring an end to the corruption. It seemed that, as well as wanting to get a firmer grip of the Maoists themselves, the King wanted to get rid of the idiots who should have been doing this in the first place. This is now as much of the situation as I understand. There are several things, from an internal perspective, that I do not understand. Such as the censorship of the newspapers (and recent interrogation of an editor over the publication of an article), banning of political demonstrations, arrest of student leaders, continued interruptions to landline phone services outside the valley and total cessation of mobile phone services. With regards to the papers, I don’t see how muzzling the free press is going help the situation. The papers should be free to express doubt and air both sides of the debate if the situation is to be resolved openly. Similarly, banning political demonstrations and censuring student leaders smacks of a totalitarian regime, will make resolution of the situation much more difficult and once again prevents transparency – which, surely, is to be desired. All these previous points make a mockery of the King’s claim to be acting in good faith for his people. I for one genuinely believe that he has acted in good faith – the situation with the Maoists was becoming critical and the process of democracy in the intended general elections would have been seriously compromised if the old regime had remained intact. However, these particular moves by the King speak of petulance and a lack of confidence in the faith placed in him by his people. More than any country I’ve visited, the Royal Family in Nepal is revered by its people. Could the King not have trusted his people to stand by him? Regarding the ongoing disruption of phone services, these are things that affect people’s daily lives and the economic well-being of a country struggling to develop. Whatever sound reasons there may have been in that first week to disrupt communications between corrupt officials or Maoists rebels, they surely can’t still exist now. So these are the internal discrepancies as I see them. Quite apart from these, life really does seem to go on as normal for most Nepalis living in the Valley…outside will have to wait until my intended trip to Pokhara in April. The majority of Nepali people I’ve been able to speak to seem to think that the King has acted in good faith and that, certainly, something needed to be done to resolve a worsening situation.
What I find much harder to understand is the situation from an external perspective. I can fully understand the withdrawal of military aid…if there were to be any ill intent behind the King’s move (a move towards a suppressive, dictatorial regime for instance), what better way to safeguard against this than by preventing the development of military strength. I do not side with the hawks who believe that bolstering the resources of the Royal Nepalese Army is essential to overcoming the Maoist threat. Whatever current insurgencies are presenting themselves should be dealt with by an army that has been given its head and is no longer being managed by the ineffectual grafters. Of course, the ultimate resolution of the situation will never be with weapons and arrests – for every fanatic killed or locked up, there will always be more to take their place. Negotiations were never going to be productive as long as those engaging in them were more likely to profit from their failure…and the Maoists were never likely to take seriously the idea of parleying with corruption. Perhaps, with an honest government with whom to negotiate, the decade long insurgency could finally be settled. Of course, this requires the cleansing of the democratic process and the untainted election of honest officials with a clear mandate…and, of course, this is going to take time. So, why punish one of the world’s poorest countries for being undemocratic when it is trying so hard to be democratic? Why take away, or threaten to take away, the much needed economic aid that has, slowly, been helping this country find its feet? Why, when those who have most likely been helping themselves to a large slice of foreign aid are now locked up, is the aid being withdrawn? In my opinion there are two reasons: cultural arrogance and national interests. Why should a (group of) powerful nation(s) dictate to the rest of the world how democracy should be achieved? And, why, once achieved, should they then dictate how it should be run? Is there any difference between giving a cripple a crutch and threatening to take it away (if he doesn’t do what you tell him to) and telling the same cripple to give you his food or you’ll hit him? I don’t think so…If the ‘West’ wants to help Nepal, they shouldn’t be treating her like a pariah and withdrawing much-needed economic aid. As recent developments have shown, this could end up driving Nepal towards the rather dubious embrace of the ‘People’s’ Republic of China. I also happen to think that, as Nepal is somewhat lacking in natural resources (unlike, say, Iraq or Saudi Arabia), she is being used as a political pawn to curry favour with neighbouring countries. The people of Nepal do not deserve to be treated like this.
Just my two pennorth…
So back to 1st February…my birthday. I had risen early to use the internet and wandered to Helena’s coffee shop for a full treat of a birthday breakfast. Strangely, nobody seemed to have a connection for the internet so, much puzzled, I retired to the warmth of Helena’s to slurp several cups of Nepali tea and eat a large cooked breakfast (definitely think there’s a market for importing ‘proper’ sausages to backpacker destinations around Asia). Not long before Ram was due to meet us, I returned to the hotel to find Edd up and about. Time for Ram to arrive came and went and we soon became worried. He’d left us the previous night to get back to his son who was ill with a very high fever. It occurred to us that he might have had to take his son, Roshan, to hospital. Of course, there wasn’t much we could do, so we left a message for him at reception and sauntered off to Helena’s. On the way, there was still a dearth of internet action and we soon discovered that there were no phone services either. It became apparent that there was some kind of political situation but we really weren’t sure what it was. As we sat in Helena’s we were eventually informed by BBC News 24 (if it ain’t on the Beeb, it ain’t happened yet! Remember the tsunami?) of the Royal Proclamation…and everything started to make sense. We were, of course, worried…although, mainly because we were unable to call home and let everyone know we were okay. There were, of course, doubts about the future security situation but for the time being we knew we were safe in Kathmandu. Rarely before had the Maoists actually been able to threaten the city, although in recent months blockades had been able to affect supplies coming from the country. The question on tourists’ lips was whether the King’s actions might provoke an outburst from the rebels. Of course, at this stage, nobody was particularly well-informed and I guess the vacuum of information was our main cause for concern.
The day passed extremely uneventfully. Ram eventually showed up full of apologies explaining that, yes, he had had to take his son to hospital…and without phones had been unable to contact us. We soon sent him packing…as two grown adults in an unexplored city, we were perfectly capable of looking after ourselves…and we knew Roshan would need his dad. The previous day, I’d discovered a well-stocked second hand bookshop, so Edd and I went down to fill our boots. It was here that we discovered our shared love of fantasy fiction and we spent a happy hour just looking at the hundreds of books and making recommendations to each other.
The rest of the day was spent in a happy, lazy haze of fictional reality as we took it easy in preparation for a big night out.
The evening commenced with Mojitos at Maya’s Mexican Bar. After a distinctly un-minty first attempt, I showed our errant bartender how to really make Mojitos and the second was certainly better. One thing I couldn’t fault him on was the size of the measures…and we were certainly well on the way to Happyville by the time we got to Yin Yang’s Thai restaurant. Everest beer was the excellent accompaniment to a fine meal. I was very amused by Edd’s apparent sensitivity to the fresh chillies in his Red Curry and could only chortle as I witnessed someone (for once!) sweating more than me. After this fine repast, we adjourned to Tom & Jerry’s bar for a fine diet of pool (on the most appalling tables I’ve ever played on…anywhere! Yet, all the same, highly amusing and guaranteed to provide an evening’s entertainment), guitar-rock (more AC-DC!) and Everest. We met a really pleasant couple (husband and wife) called Steve and Catherine who were both train drivers in Birmingham and, a little later, a very friendly and endearing young Tibetan lady, called Dawa. Things got very messy later on and I ended up going to the Casino with Dawa and her older sister, while Edd sensibly staggered back to the hotel. For my first birthday spent away from home, it was a raging success…and a damn sight better than my first foreign Christmas!
The rest of the week passed in a haze of political uncertainty, Nepali tea and reading. The next day with a reasonably brutal hangover, Edd and I were taken to the Swayambunath Temple on the western side of the valley by Ram. We met up with Claus, a Danish guy, who’d recently started teaching at the school I was to be at. I was surprised at the thickness of his accent and his difficulty in understanding me and Edd. Surely, teaching English, he should have had a good command of the language but, as Ram explained, Claus was only teaching the primary school classes at the school. (Personally, I didn’t think this made a jot of difference and wondered how productive it was for both Claus and the kids to be thus involved.)
We only took a peremptory look around Swayambunath – one of the difficulties of having a guide, as far as I’m concerned. I would have preferred to wonder round in my own time and discover things at my own pace but both Edd and I were aware that Roshan was still unwell and we didn’t want to keep Ram any longer than necessary. The temple is a sprawling mass of buildings dedicated to Buddhism, situated on an imposing hill with stunning views of the valley and its encircling hills. Peeking out from behind these lesser peaks, we caught occasional glimpses of snow-capped Himalayas looming in the background. With the sun out, it was a warm day and the monkeys, famous for inhabiting the grounds, were chattering and jumping about in full expectation of spring. The respectful demeanour of the visitors seemed to me to be in stark contrast to the blatant commercialism of the business being conducted within the temple grounds – several shops were selling carvings, masks, jewellery and tourist trinkets, while there was a busy café selling (allegedly!) happy shakes under the counter. As I was to come to realise, though, this practical approach to religion is part and parcel of life in these parts and the locals would think no more of turning a profit on sacred ground than they would of spitting on it!
Back in Thamel that evening, we went for dinner at one of the more up-market restaurants, New Orleans. Claus, Ram, Edd and I were joined by Kathleen (another MondoChallenge volunteer who’d been working in the south) and Lucy (my soon to be predecessor at Samata School). Still nursing the remains of my hangover, I decided to treat myself to a big piece of junkfood and ordered the double burger, thinking that Nepali portions would be no match for me and my mouth. A jaw-aching hour later, I was humbled and professing that my buff (buffalo…no beef here…cows are sacred, don’t you know?!) burger was one of the most satisfying meals I’d enjoyed since leaving home.
For the rest of the week, most evenings were spent consuming Everest and playing pool and it was with some relief on the part of my waistline that, at the end of the week, I moved digs to be nearer to school, where I was due to start on the Sunday (Yes…Sunday!)
The political developments that led to the King’s move had given most observers a sense of deja-vu. Despite fervent promises during electioneering, successive coalition governments had failed to do anything about the rising tide of violence from the Maoists. This it seems was mainly down to what the locals call ‘grafting’ – that age-old problem of politicians using their position and influence to suit their own aims (and bank balances) instead of demonstrating a responsibility to their electorate. Therefore, the dissolution of parliament was no great surprise to anybody, having happened twice in recent years already. This time though it seemed the King was sick to the back teeth of the corruption amongst the political elite and, instead of installing a new government (as prone to ‘graft’ as the previous one), he this time took measures to put an end to the continual problem. The reason for the communications blackout and media interference soon came to light: many high-ranking members of the government had been arrested and interrogated in order to finally bring an end to the corruption. It seemed that, as well as wanting to get a firmer grip of the Maoists themselves, the King wanted to get rid of the idiots who should have been doing this in the first place. This is now as much of the situation as I understand. There are several things, from an internal perspective, that I do not understand. Such as the censorship of the newspapers (and recent interrogation of an editor over the publication of an article), banning of political demonstrations, arrest of student leaders, continued interruptions to landline phone services outside the valley and total cessation of mobile phone services. With regards to the papers, I don’t see how muzzling the free press is going help the situation. The papers should be free to express doubt and air both sides of the debate if the situation is to be resolved openly. Similarly, banning political demonstrations and censuring student leaders smacks of a totalitarian regime, will make resolution of the situation much more difficult and once again prevents transparency – which, surely, is to be desired. All these previous points make a mockery of the King’s claim to be acting in good faith for his people. I for one genuinely believe that he has acted in good faith – the situation with the Maoists was becoming critical and the process of democracy in the intended general elections would have been seriously compromised if the old regime had remained intact. However, these particular moves by the King speak of petulance and a lack of confidence in the faith placed in him by his people. More than any country I’ve visited, the Royal Family in Nepal is revered by its people. Could the King not have trusted his people to stand by him? Regarding the ongoing disruption of phone services, these are things that affect people’s daily lives and the economic well-being of a country struggling to develop. Whatever sound reasons there may have been in that first week to disrupt communications between corrupt officials or Maoists rebels, they surely can’t still exist now. So these are the internal discrepancies as I see them. Quite apart from these, life really does seem to go on as normal for most Nepalis living in the Valley…outside will have to wait until my intended trip to Pokhara in April. The majority of Nepali people I’ve been able to speak to seem to think that the King has acted in good faith and that, certainly, something needed to be done to resolve a worsening situation.
What I find much harder to understand is the situation from an external perspective. I can fully understand the withdrawal of military aid…if there were to be any ill intent behind the King’s move (a move towards a suppressive, dictatorial regime for instance), what better way to safeguard against this than by preventing the development of military strength. I do not side with the hawks who believe that bolstering the resources of the Royal Nepalese Army is essential to overcoming the Maoist threat. Whatever current insurgencies are presenting themselves should be dealt with by an army that has been given its head and is no longer being managed by the ineffectual grafters. Of course, the ultimate resolution of the situation will never be with weapons and arrests – for every fanatic killed or locked up, there will always be more to take their place. Negotiations were never going to be productive as long as those engaging in them were more likely to profit from their failure…and the Maoists were never likely to take seriously the idea of parleying with corruption. Perhaps, with an honest government with whom to negotiate, the decade long insurgency could finally be settled. Of course, this requires the cleansing of the democratic process and the untainted election of honest officials with a clear mandate…and, of course, this is going to take time. So, why punish one of the world’s poorest countries for being undemocratic when it is trying so hard to be democratic? Why take away, or threaten to take away, the much needed economic aid that has, slowly, been helping this country find its feet? Why, when those who have most likely been helping themselves to a large slice of foreign aid are now locked up, is the aid being withdrawn? In my opinion there are two reasons: cultural arrogance and national interests. Why should a (group of) powerful nation(s) dictate to the rest of the world how democracy should be achieved? And, why, once achieved, should they then dictate how it should be run? Is there any difference between giving a cripple a crutch and threatening to take it away (if he doesn’t do what you tell him to) and telling the same cripple to give you his food or you’ll hit him? I don’t think so…If the ‘West’ wants to help Nepal, they shouldn’t be treating her like a pariah and withdrawing much-needed economic aid. As recent developments have shown, this could end up driving Nepal towards the rather dubious embrace of the ‘People’s’ Republic of China. I also happen to think that, as Nepal is somewhat lacking in natural resources (unlike, say, Iraq or Saudi Arabia), she is being used as a political pawn to curry favour with neighbouring countries. The people of Nepal do not deserve to be treated like this.
Just my two pennorth…
So back to 1st February…my birthday. I had risen early to use the internet and wandered to Helena’s coffee shop for a full treat of a birthday breakfast. Strangely, nobody seemed to have a connection for the internet so, much puzzled, I retired to the warmth of Helena’s to slurp several cups of Nepali tea and eat a large cooked breakfast (definitely think there’s a market for importing ‘proper’ sausages to backpacker destinations around Asia). Not long before Ram was due to meet us, I returned to the hotel to find Edd up and about. Time for Ram to arrive came and went and we soon became worried. He’d left us the previous night to get back to his son who was ill with a very high fever. It occurred to us that he might have had to take his son, Roshan, to hospital. Of course, there wasn’t much we could do, so we left a message for him at reception and sauntered off to Helena’s. On the way, there was still a dearth of internet action and we soon discovered that there were no phone services either. It became apparent that there was some kind of political situation but we really weren’t sure what it was. As we sat in Helena’s we were eventually informed by BBC News 24 (if it ain’t on the Beeb, it ain’t happened yet! Remember the tsunami?) of the Royal Proclamation…and everything started to make sense. We were, of course, worried…although, mainly because we were unable to call home and let everyone know we were okay. There were, of course, doubts about the future security situation but for the time being we knew we were safe in Kathmandu. Rarely before had the Maoists actually been able to threaten the city, although in recent months blockades had been able to affect supplies coming from the country. The question on tourists’ lips was whether the King’s actions might provoke an outburst from the rebels. Of course, at this stage, nobody was particularly well-informed and I guess the vacuum of information was our main cause for concern.
The day passed extremely uneventfully. Ram eventually showed up full of apologies explaining that, yes, he had had to take his son to hospital…and without phones had been unable to contact us. We soon sent him packing…as two grown adults in an unexplored city, we were perfectly capable of looking after ourselves…and we knew Roshan would need his dad. The previous day, I’d discovered a well-stocked second hand bookshop, so Edd and I went down to fill our boots. It was here that we discovered our shared love of fantasy fiction and we spent a happy hour just looking at the hundreds of books and making recommendations to each other.
The rest of the day was spent in a happy, lazy haze of fictional reality as we took it easy in preparation for a big night out.
The evening commenced with Mojitos at Maya’s Mexican Bar. After a distinctly un-minty first attempt, I showed our errant bartender how to really make Mojitos and the second was certainly better. One thing I couldn’t fault him on was the size of the measures…and we were certainly well on the way to Happyville by the time we got to Yin Yang’s Thai restaurant. Everest beer was the excellent accompaniment to a fine meal. I was very amused by Edd’s apparent sensitivity to the fresh chillies in his Red Curry and could only chortle as I witnessed someone (for once!) sweating more than me. After this fine repast, we adjourned to Tom & Jerry’s bar for a fine diet of pool (on the most appalling tables I’ve ever played on…anywhere! Yet, all the same, highly amusing and guaranteed to provide an evening’s entertainment), guitar-rock (more AC-DC!) and Everest. We met a really pleasant couple (husband and wife) called Steve and Catherine who were both train drivers in Birmingham and, a little later, a very friendly and endearing young Tibetan lady, called Dawa. Things got very messy later on and I ended up going to the Casino with Dawa and her older sister, while Edd sensibly staggered back to the hotel. For my first birthday spent away from home, it was a raging success…and a damn sight better than my first foreign Christmas!
The rest of the week passed in a haze of political uncertainty, Nepali tea and reading. The next day with a reasonably brutal hangover, Edd and I were taken to the Swayambunath Temple on the western side of the valley by Ram. We met up with Claus, a Danish guy, who’d recently started teaching at the school I was to be at. I was surprised at the thickness of his accent and his difficulty in understanding me and Edd. Surely, teaching English, he should have had a good command of the language but, as Ram explained, Claus was only teaching the primary school classes at the school. (Personally, I didn’t think this made a jot of difference and wondered how productive it was for both Claus and the kids to be thus involved.)
We only took a peremptory look around Swayambunath – one of the difficulties of having a guide, as far as I’m concerned. I would have preferred to wonder round in my own time and discover things at my own pace but both Edd and I were aware that Roshan was still unwell and we didn’t want to keep Ram any longer than necessary. The temple is a sprawling mass of buildings dedicated to Buddhism, situated on an imposing hill with stunning views of the valley and its encircling hills. Peeking out from behind these lesser peaks, we caught occasional glimpses of snow-capped Himalayas looming in the background. With the sun out, it was a warm day and the monkeys, famous for inhabiting the grounds, were chattering and jumping about in full expectation of spring. The respectful demeanour of the visitors seemed to me to be in stark contrast to the blatant commercialism of the business being conducted within the temple grounds – several shops were selling carvings, masks, jewellery and tourist trinkets, while there was a busy café selling (allegedly!) happy shakes under the counter. As I was to come to realise, though, this practical approach to religion is part and parcel of life in these parts and the locals would think no more of turning a profit on sacred ground than they would of spitting on it!
Back in Thamel that evening, we went for dinner at one of the more up-market restaurants, New Orleans. Claus, Ram, Edd and I were joined by Kathleen (another MondoChallenge volunteer who’d been working in the south) and Lucy (my soon to be predecessor at Samata School). Still nursing the remains of my hangover, I decided to treat myself to a big piece of junkfood and ordered the double burger, thinking that Nepali portions would be no match for me and my mouth. A jaw-aching hour later, I was humbled and professing that my buff (buffalo…no beef here…cows are sacred, don’t you know?!) burger was one of the most satisfying meals I’d enjoyed since leaving home.
For the rest of the week, most evenings were spent consuming Everest and playing pool and it was with some relief on the part of my waistline that, at the end of the week, I moved digs to be nearer to school, where I was due to start on the Sunday (Yes…Sunday!)
January 31, 2005
Namaste! Welcome to Nepal
My first impressions of Nepal were thwarted somewhat by the weather. Having carefully arranged to sit on the right-hand side of the plane on my flight from Bangkok, I fully expected to see majestic views of the Himalayas as we came in to land at Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport. Instead I was met by a milky, opaqueness and flat dull light, reminding me that I’d left behind the warm air currents of the Gulf of Thailand. I didn’t even get much chance to see the city as we only emerged from the clouds within a few hundred metres of the valley floor. I had purposefully packed my warm fleece in my day bag to ward off the cold air but still felt myself shivering as I strode across the windswept tarmac for the shelter and comparative warmth of the terminal building. Security and customs checks were desultory (no hint of any impending infringement of civil liberties!) but the queue for entry visas was long…and moved extremely slowly. This was due more to the queue-jumping of countless tour-agents than the intricacies of the process itself so, by the time I got to baggage claim, I was feeling reasonably short-tempered.
My teaching placement in Nepal had been facilitated by a charitable British organisation called MondoChallenge and it was their in-country manager, Ram Krishna, who came to meet me at the airport. Immediately, his gentle demeanour and ready smile set my frayed nerves at ease and he bundled me into one of the airport’s dilapidated ‘official’ taxis to take me to my hotel in Thamel.
The next thing I noticed about Kathmandu (after the cold and the bureaucratic nepotism!) was just how dirty and impoverished some of its streets seemed to be. Everywhere we drove past, gutters seemed to be filled with litter and covered with a thick layer of grime; the road was more pothole than tarmac; and small fires of stray rubbish seemed to burn on every street corner. Needless to say, the air quality was pretty dire. Alongside this, though, I couldn’t help but notice how very much alive these streets appeared to be. Baskets and blankets of produce seemed to carpet every spare foot of pavement. Housewives threaded their way through, looking for the day’s best bargains, while an endless procession of children seemed to follow, haphazardly in their wake, unheeded and unhurried. I soon realised that many of the mothers were also carrying their younger offspring in shawls wrapped over their shoulders. Most striking of all was the sheer variety of ethnicity and fashions that ebbed and flowed along the streets. Every hue of skin and every shape of feature seemed to be present in a wild jamboree of differing and complementary dress styles. Salwar kamez and sari floated airily along behind jeans and tracksuit tops. Dainty, impractical (and surely bloody freezing!!), open-toed, strappy sandals picked their way between Nike and Adidas. The only common feature shared by all the faces I saw were a pair of dark, almost black, eyes and a frame of jet black hair. Before we turned up Tridevi Marg and headed into Thamel I realised that I had truly arrived on the Subcontinent.
Carefully installed by Ram at The Hotel Great Wall under the watchful eye of Mahendra and his boys, I soon made myself at home in my top-floor room. I was delighted to have my own bathroom with the promise of hot-water showers ‘most evenings’ – dependent, of course, on the vagaries of the weather and the state of repair of the solar water heater. I took a little wander around the streets of Thamel (which, at first glance, seemed to be endearingly quaint after the brazenness of the Khao San Road) but ensured I was back in time for Ram’s return with the second MondoChallenge volunteer – a guy called Edd, hailing from Dorset. Edd struck me as a very polite and enthusiastic chap and I was surprised to learn after some discussion that he was only eighteen, having given off an air of some maturity. It seemed that his involvement in the Scouts and an unusual amount of travelling had stood him in good stead because he was certainly no wet-behind-the-ears pup, straight from school. Ram took us for dinner at a Nepali restaurant called Zaika in the heart of Thamel’s (very hygienic) food and bar district and we were treated to our first rendering of the local favourite of Dal Bhaat (literally lentils and rice). Much satisfied and reasonably knackered, we emerged an hour or two later with AC-DC reverberating in our ears and swearing by Nepali food and Everest beer (yes, I bet you all wondered how long it would take me to find the local brew…). Ram had given us several pointers regarding food safety, local customs and places to avoid as well as a smattering of the local lingo. He would be meeting us at our hotel in the morning to give us more Nepali lessons and to show us some of the various historic sites around the city. After mounting the five flights of stairs to our neighbouring rooms, Edd and I bid each other good night, expecting the next day to be interesting but, ultimately, uneventful.
My teaching placement in Nepal had been facilitated by a charitable British organisation called MondoChallenge and it was their in-country manager, Ram Krishna, who came to meet me at the airport. Immediately, his gentle demeanour and ready smile set my frayed nerves at ease and he bundled me into one of the airport’s dilapidated ‘official’ taxis to take me to my hotel in Thamel.
The next thing I noticed about Kathmandu (after the cold and the bureaucratic nepotism!) was just how dirty and impoverished some of its streets seemed to be. Everywhere we drove past, gutters seemed to be filled with litter and covered with a thick layer of grime; the road was more pothole than tarmac; and small fires of stray rubbish seemed to burn on every street corner. Needless to say, the air quality was pretty dire. Alongside this, though, I couldn’t help but notice how very much alive these streets appeared to be. Baskets and blankets of produce seemed to carpet every spare foot of pavement. Housewives threaded their way through, looking for the day’s best bargains, while an endless procession of children seemed to follow, haphazardly in their wake, unheeded and unhurried. I soon realised that many of the mothers were also carrying their younger offspring in shawls wrapped over their shoulders. Most striking of all was the sheer variety of ethnicity and fashions that ebbed and flowed along the streets. Every hue of skin and every shape of feature seemed to be present in a wild jamboree of differing and complementary dress styles. Salwar kamez and sari floated airily along behind jeans and tracksuit tops. Dainty, impractical (and surely bloody freezing!!), open-toed, strappy sandals picked their way between Nike and Adidas. The only common feature shared by all the faces I saw were a pair of dark, almost black, eyes and a frame of jet black hair. Before we turned up Tridevi Marg and headed into Thamel I realised that I had truly arrived on the Subcontinent.
Carefully installed by Ram at The Hotel Great Wall under the watchful eye of Mahendra and his boys, I soon made myself at home in my top-floor room. I was delighted to have my own bathroom with the promise of hot-water showers ‘most evenings’ – dependent, of course, on the vagaries of the weather and the state of repair of the solar water heater. I took a little wander around the streets of Thamel (which, at first glance, seemed to be endearingly quaint after the brazenness of the Khao San Road) but ensured I was back in time for Ram’s return with the second MondoChallenge volunteer – a guy called Edd, hailing from Dorset. Edd struck me as a very polite and enthusiastic chap and I was surprised to learn after some discussion that he was only eighteen, having given off an air of some maturity. It seemed that his involvement in the Scouts and an unusual amount of travelling had stood him in good stead because he was certainly no wet-behind-the-ears pup, straight from school. Ram took us for dinner at a Nepali restaurant called Zaika in the heart of Thamel’s (very hygienic) food and bar district and we were treated to our first rendering of the local favourite of Dal Bhaat (literally lentils and rice). Much satisfied and reasonably knackered, we emerged an hour or two later with AC-DC reverberating in our ears and swearing by Nepali food and Everest beer (yes, I bet you all wondered how long it would take me to find the local brew…). Ram had given us several pointers regarding food safety, local customs and places to avoid as well as a smattering of the local lingo. He would be meeting us at our hotel in the morning to give us more Nepali lessons and to show us some of the various historic sites around the city. After mounting the five flights of stairs to our neighbouring rooms, Edd and I bid each other good night, expecting the next day to be interesting but, ultimately, uneventful.
January 30, 2005
Farewell to Indochina
My last 3 days on Don Det were pleasantly idle…nothing much to report other than the welcome addition of Tom, Anya and Lucy to the party (Adam having taken Susie back to Bangkok for her flight home). I was both reluctant and eager to leave come Friday morning. Don Det could have held me willingly in her grasp for many more days and, yet, I was excited about the prospect of teaching and the totally different appeals of Nepal. The journey back to Bangkok was long and knackering. Starting at 10am with the river crossing, dusty pick-up rides to Pakse, from there to the Thai border and then to Ubon Ratchathani. At the train station, I was appalled to discover that there were no sleeper berths of any description on the last train to Bangkok and ended up spending an uncomfortable, noisy journey in 3rd class seats with the locals. The upside of this was chatting with some ‘real’ Thai people, who were all amazed that I was sitting there in ‘cattle class’ with them. I did manage a couple of hours kip but arrived in the capital with a sore seat and bleary-eyed. For once, I was able to avoid meeting anyone I knew and resisted making any new friends until my final night, after 2 punishing days catching up on my inbox and updating the blog. I had plenty of time to reflect on my 3 months in Indochina. Foremost in my thoughts was Laos: such a beautiful country, so far unblemished by mass-tourism and industrial development. It won’t be long, I’m afraid, before a burgeoning relationship with mighty China changes all of this though. Signs of Chinese-supported infrastructure were everywhere and I wonder how long it will be before the compulsion to use cheap rural land for manufacturing overrules the obvious benefits of eco-tourism. As I’ve said before, I wouldn’t want to deny the local people the benefits of technology and improved infrastructure…but is there any chance that they will be able to attain these without making the same mistakes we’ve made in the West? Weighing more heavily on my mind though, I felt that I hadn’t spent long enough in Laos to really to get to know her shy and accommodating people. While the Lao people are more than willing to provide travellers with their wants, they seem to do so without becoming overly involved…and I didn’t get off the beaten track enough to catch a glimpse behind their protective facades.
Looking back on my long loop through the peninsula, I can say with certainty that Cambodia and Laos are two places that I will visit again. I can see myself revisiting the southern islands of Thailand for pure recreation, while Vietnam’s over-zealous commercialism has probably put me off for life. The spirit of the Cambodian people, the tranquillity of Serendipity Beach, the effortless beauty of Laos’ mountains and rivers and the undeniable magic of Don Det have all left indelible marks on my heart…and if I get the time and opportunity, I will definitely be back.
Looking back on my long loop through the peninsula, I can say with certainty that Cambodia and Laos are two places that I will visit again. I can see myself revisiting the southern islands of Thailand for pure recreation, while Vietnam’s over-zealous commercialism has probably put me off for life. The spirit of the Cambodian people, the tranquillity of Serendipity Beach, the effortless beauty of Laos’ mountains and rivers and the undeniable magic of Don Det have all left indelible marks on my heart…and if I get the time and opportunity, I will definitely be back.
January 28, 2005
Don Det…the end of the world.
Much like my sojourn in Serendipity Beach, it is inevitable after a period of harder travelling to want a complete break from the idea of ‘doing stuff’. Sometimes when you’re travelling, I think there is almost a compulsion to go and see things and climb things and take photographs…just because it’s there. Of course, if you do all these things because you genuinely enjoy them and want to do them, then obviously there is little harm. However, if you do fall into the trap of ‘doing stuff’ just because it’s there, then I fear that the experience is lessened…and that future activities may lose there appeal as you start to go through the motions. Throughout my trip (more by luck than by design), I’ve been lucky enough to have had natural breaks – or rather, periods of lesser activity following periods of ‘doing stuff’. When I arrived on Don Det, chilling out was certainly part of my agenda. Quite apart from anything else, I wanted to recharge my batteries and relax a little before my long-awaited teaching post in Kathmandu. However, I did not arrive there with the sole intent of doing absolutely jaff all for four days. I had every intention of going to see irrawaddy dolphins and taking long hikes around the island and to see waterfalls…but, just like Serendipity Beach, Don Det seemed to weave a spell of indolence and utter relaxation on me. The hot, balmy weather (reminiscent of the Philippines), the torpid, treacly waters of the Mekong oozing by without a murmur and the shady peace of a porch-hung hammock all lulled me into a state of virtual somnolence. During the day, it was all too easy to rise late and sit in the shade of a bar, whilst drinking cool (not cold!) beer and eating fried rice and coconut chicken curry. Every day seemed like a relaxed unhurried wait for the main event: sunset. Once the sun had disappeared, after painting the Mekong in rosy hues, it was obviously time to drink more cool(er) beer and chat and laugh with friends. On the last front there was certainly no shortage. Mad Irish Dave and the rest of his celtic warriors were there from Vang Vieng. Tom, Anya and Lucy also showed up after a day or two. And then of course there was Bill. And with Bill, there was ‘The Tree’.
Arriving on Don Det, Bill and I made our first (and only mistake). Ignoring the crowd of punters from our boat who started trudging up to the north end of the island, we decided to head down towards the southern end and the bridge over to Don Khon. We’d both read in our guidebooks that there was plenty of accommodation down here and were also conscious of the fact that planning daytrips from here would be far simpler. I hopped on the back of a moped with my bags and we were soon speeding along a dry, rutted, rocky track through the blazing heat of the midday sun. Having endured an ignominious fate whilst taking a similar track at speed in Serendipity, I repeatedly told the driver to slow down. Either he didn’t understand me or was oblivious to the dangers of having 130kg of me and my luggage on the back. After less than a mile and one particularly hard impact on a rock, I began to feel the telltale fishtailing of the back end of the bike. Before we came to an unpleasant end, I forced the driver to pull up and examine the dilapidated state of his, now flat, back tyre. Feeling a little sympathetic to the poor chap and realising that getting the tyre repaired would be an expensive hassle, I paid him more than the agreed fare and sent him on his way. In the centre of the island now, far from the shady banks of the river, I shouldered my two bags and began a long, sweaty walk through the heat. Not long after I’d gained the shade of the trees on the south side of the island, Bill came past on the back of another moped, grinning insanely and laughing at my profuse perspiration. He came to a stop just 100m up the road, where I could see the bridge over to Don Khon and stood there chortling as I lumbered up. Having recently read J.D. Salinger’s ‘Catcher in the Rye’ (not impressed at all by the way), I had become enamoured of the expression ‘Lousy Bastard!’ It seemed fitting, at this time, to apply the moniker to Bill and would, only too soon, lead to an apt name for me. We were soon both appalled to discover that the accommodation at this end of the island seemed to be full and it wasn’t long before we found ourselves trudging back up the coast towards the end of the island we’d just vacated. Due, I’m sure, to my Englishness (sorry, Dad!), I would probably have carried on walking under the fierce glare of that sun until I’d found somewhere to stay or collapsed from exhaustion. Fortunately for me, mad as he may be, Bill is certainly no dog and he politely (!) suggested that we stop and take a load off at the first eatery we came to. The restorative powers of cold(ish) Beer Lao and fish coconut curry are impressive…particularly on the mind. While we were eating and drinking and drinking in the peaceful, idyllic view, we noticed that the proprietor of our ‘restaurant’ also owned a small boat. Loath to carry our packs any further than necessary, we offered him a good price to take us up to the other end of the island and soon found ourselves pootling upstream in our water taxi. As soon as we set foot on the landing beach at the northern end of the island, we knew we’d come to the right place. There were a couple of promising looking bars and a narrow track disappearing south, lined on either side by huge swaying palms and ramshackle huts for the lodgement of travellers. Another dead-sure sign that we were on the right track was the sight of Mad Irish Dave and the rest of the Munster Bunch languidly sipping at long-necks of Beer Lao in the shade of the bar overlooking the landing site. Although it was now a little late in the day, I was still fairly confident that we’d find somewhere to stay, minus the hassle of carrying our bags around with the Irish lads to watch over them. Bill, the more stylish traveller was intent on finding a hut somewhere on ‘Sunset Strip’. I wandered along with him for a while, becoming ever more disheartened by the total lack of vacancies. Eventually, I felt we were getting too far away from the action at ‘The Beach’ and decided to head back and over to ‘Sunrise’. Within minutes of scouring this slightly less desirable side of the island, I found the last vacant hut within 5 minutes stumble of the bar. At the outrageous price of $1 per night I had a double pallet with mosquito net, a window and door (both lockable with my own padlocks) and a porch overhanging the banks of the river with a hammock in which to park my arse. To add to this superb setting, on the near bank of the island facing me was the most enormous, beautiful, tree-like tree I think I’ve ever seen. I had found my spot. Later, it turned out, Bill had not. Owing to his generosity and kindness when I’d had no money (and also because we both found the idea hilarious!), I agreed to allow Bill to squat on my porch for the night. It would have been even more amusing to sublet my porch to him at an exorbitant mark-up (say, $1.50 a night), but that would have been just plain mean. And so the shenanigans started. There was plenty of Beer Lao quaffed that evening as we watched the sun go down and then a dark, red moon rise up over ‘The One Tree’.
As there is only a limited amount of electricity and little else in the way of entertainment on Don Det, the magic triumvirate of beer, food and sunset were the only dictates of our daily rhythms. In this sense, it was a little like being on Ibiza…but with two vital exceptions: there was no musical accompaniment to the hours from dusk til dawn…and there were no arsehole Brits Abroad in Union Jack boxers throwing up in the street. Even more so than Serendipity Beach there was this great atmosphere of relaxation and a shared feeling that we’d found one of the last, great, untouched corners of the world. Of course, Don Det is far from untouched…there were at least 300 huts just on our tip of the island; several eateries (you couldn’t call them restaurants) and bars were augmented by small shops or stalls selling essentials like candles and toilet paper; there’s a daily tourist bus-and-boat from Pakse and Don Det is already a compulsory stop-over on the overland journeys between Laos and Cambodia. With time 24hr electricity will be standard and, soon I’m sure, there will be internet cafes, widescreen TVs with DVD players and piped music. I don’t regret the inevitability of these changes…why shouldn’t the local populace have the creature comforts and standard of living afforded by opening themselves up to tourism? The great thing about Don Det, though, is that those arseholes in Union Jack boxers will never get chance to dominate the island. It’s too far in any direction to anywhere that this kind of person would conceivably go in great numbers…almost at the end of the world. And this, perhaps, is the crux of the matter…maybe the idyllic setting and warm weather are what makes Don Det so appealing…or maybe it’s just being surrounded by decent folk every day. Of course, there’s always some idiot who has to try and fix something when it ain’t broke… Some geeky Aussie bloke wandered unbidden onto my porch a little later that first evening (after the consumption of several Beer Lao’s on my part) ‘to let us know’ that ‘we’re going to have a bit of a Full Moon Party here tomorrow night’. Eager to know how this entertainment could possibly be any better than getting wrecked in hammocks and enjoying the peace and quiet, I asked him what this party would involve. His answer will forever be engraved on my mind. ‘Aw, you know…we’ll get a bit of fire goin…and we’ll have a few locals and tourists around and a bit of music…and there should be some girls about.’ This last was added in a sort of conspiratorial tone…like an added incentive to come to this ‘wicked, party, Man’. He sounded like a schoolboy trying to persuade people to come to an illicit bash while his parents were away for the weekend.
I gave him a non-committal ‘Sounds great…might see you there’ and waited for him to saunter off around the corner. The minute he was out of sight, Bill and I caught each others’ eye and promptly burst into a prolonged bout of hysterics. After 5 minutes of almost wetting my pants, I still couldn’t dry my eyes. Bill was giving me a cool, appraising stare and I asked him ‘What’s up with you, you Lousy Bastard?’ He fixed me with one mad glaring eye and said, ‘You Dumb…Drunk…Bastard!’ And that was my new name for the remainder of the week. The reason for Bill’s admonition was, of course, that I was laughing hysterically at the Aussie guy whose party was going to disturb my peace and quiet the following evening. Once Bill had explained this to me, I began to call myself Dumb Drunk Bastard and it was only another bottle of the mind tonic (Beer Lao, of course!) that enabled us to come up with the plan of an early rise the following morning to seek new lodgings. Of course the major flaw in this plan, from my point of view, was just how much ‘mind tonic’ I’d actually consumed…
I awoke groggily the next morning to discover that Bill had already vacated the hammock and that the sun was already reasonably high in the sky. I stumbled out to get some breakfast and soon bumped into Bill with a satisfied grin on his chops. He’d been up for 2 hours laying claim to all of the vacated rooms in the vicinity. So far he had options on two ‘Sunset’ huts, a swanky timber bungalow on the point and another hut on ‘Sunrise’ with even better views of ‘The One Tree’. At a grand total of $8.50 a night he now had ideal bases for each of the day’s main activities: namely, staring at ‘The One Tree’ and watching moonrise (on ‘Sunrise’), sitting lazily to watch the world and the day go by (on the point) and watching the sun sink into the Mekong (on ‘Sunset’). I went halves with him on the swanky point pad, seeing this as an ideal location to escape from the geek-party…and also having noted the cleanliness and proximity of the bathrooms. With 5 pieces of property between us, we must have been the most influential customers in Don Det’s burgeoning property market. In light of Bill’s meteoric rise from squatter to property magnate, went for celebratory lunch and beer. After lunch, Bill took me to his ‘Tree-view’ pad and I had to admit that the aspect was considerably better than mine…although marred somewhat by some poorly placed branches of a tree growing in front of Bill’s porch. Without further ado, he set to removing the offending branches…and didn’t even charge the owners for his topiary services. ;-)
When evening came, we studiously avoided going back to my original digs (still on the books, of course!) and, instead, had an excellent time with Bill and the Irish lads - all of whom, apart from Dave were due to depart for Cambodia the following morning. A man after my own heart, Dave had decided that he liked Don Det so much that he was going to stay for an extra couple of days. Having given him and the rest of the boys the lowdown on Serendipity Beach when we’d been in Vang Vieng, it was gratifying to see him getting into the spirit so soon.
We heard reports from passers-by that the Full Moon ‘Party’ consisted of a few drunk schoolboys standing around a fire with some Bob Dylan hissing feebly from a speaker...and certainly felt no compulsion to go and liven things up. Many years from now, some morose, Aussie, new-age hippie will be proudly telling the rest of the commune how he organised ‘the first ever Full Moon Party on Don Det’…and the rest of us will proudly say that we didn’t go…
Arriving on Don Det, Bill and I made our first (and only mistake). Ignoring the crowd of punters from our boat who started trudging up to the north end of the island, we decided to head down towards the southern end and the bridge over to Don Khon. We’d both read in our guidebooks that there was plenty of accommodation down here and were also conscious of the fact that planning daytrips from here would be far simpler. I hopped on the back of a moped with my bags and we were soon speeding along a dry, rutted, rocky track through the blazing heat of the midday sun. Having endured an ignominious fate whilst taking a similar track at speed in Serendipity, I repeatedly told the driver to slow down. Either he didn’t understand me or was oblivious to the dangers of having 130kg of me and my luggage on the back. After less than a mile and one particularly hard impact on a rock, I began to feel the telltale fishtailing of the back end of the bike. Before we came to an unpleasant end, I forced the driver to pull up and examine the dilapidated state of his, now flat, back tyre. Feeling a little sympathetic to the poor chap and realising that getting the tyre repaired would be an expensive hassle, I paid him more than the agreed fare and sent him on his way. In the centre of the island now, far from the shady banks of the river, I shouldered my two bags and began a long, sweaty walk through the heat. Not long after I’d gained the shade of the trees on the south side of the island, Bill came past on the back of another moped, grinning insanely and laughing at my profuse perspiration. He came to a stop just 100m up the road, where I could see the bridge over to Don Khon and stood there chortling as I lumbered up. Having recently read J.D. Salinger’s ‘Catcher in the Rye’ (not impressed at all by the way), I had become enamoured of the expression ‘Lousy Bastard!’ It seemed fitting, at this time, to apply the moniker to Bill and would, only too soon, lead to an apt name for me. We were soon both appalled to discover that the accommodation at this end of the island seemed to be full and it wasn’t long before we found ourselves trudging back up the coast towards the end of the island we’d just vacated. Due, I’m sure, to my Englishness (sorry, Dad!), I would probably have carried on walking under the fierce glare of that sun until I’d found somewhere to stay or collapsed from exhaustion. Fortunately for me, mad as he may be, Bill is certainly no dog and he politely (!) suggested that we stop and take a load off at the first eatery we came to. The restorative powers of cold(ish) Beer Lao and fish coconut curry are impressive…particularly on the mind. While we were eating and drinking and drinking in the peaceful, idyllic view, we noticed that the proprietor of our ‘restaurant’ also owned a small boat. Loath to carry our packs any further than necessary, we offered him a good price to take us up to the other end of the island and soon found ourselves pootling upstream in our water taxi. As soon as we set foot on the landing beach at the northern end of the island, we knew we’d come to the right place. There were a couple of promising looking bars and a narrow track disappearing south, lined on either side by huge swaying palms and ramshackle huts for the lodgement of travellers. Another dead-sure sign that we were on the right track was the sight of Mad Irish Dave and the rest of the Munster Bunch languidly sipping at long-necks of Beer Lao in the shade of the bar overlooking the landing site. Although it was now a little late in the day, I was still fairly confident that we’d find somewhere to stay, minus the hassle of carrying our bags around with the Irish lads to watch over them. Bill, the more stylish traveller was intent on finding a hut somewhere on ‘Sunset Strip’. I wandered along with him for a while, becoming ever more disheartened by the total lack of vacancies. Eventually, I felt we were getting too far away from the action at ‘The Beach’ and decided to head back and over to ‘Sunrise’. Within minutes of scouring this slightly less desirable side of the island, I found the last vacant hut within 5 minutes stumble of the bar. At the outrageous price of $1 per night I had a double pallet with mosquito net, a window and door (both lockable with my own padlocks) and a porch overhanging the banks of the river with a hammock in which to park my arse. To add to this superb setting, on the near bank of the island facing me was the most enormous, beautiful, tree-like tree I think I’ve ever seen. I had found my spot. Later, it turned out, Bill had not. Owing to his generosity and kindness when I’d had no money (and also because we both found the idea hilarious!), I agreed to allow Bill to squat on my porch for the night. It would have been even more amusing to sublet my porch to him at an exorbitant mark-up (say, $1.50 a night), but that would have been just plain mean. And so the shenanigans started. There was plenty of Beer Lao quaffed that evening as we watched the sun go down and then a dark, red moon rise up over ‘The One Tree’.
As there is only a limited amount of electricity and little else in the way of entertainment on Don Det, the magic triumvirate of beer, food and sunset were the only dictates of our daily rhythms. In this sense, it was a little like being on Ibiza…but with two vital exceptions: there was no musical accompaniment to the hours from dusk til dawn…and there were no arsehole Brits Abroad in Union Jack boxers throwing up in the street. Even more so than Serendipity Beach there was this great atmosphere of relaxation and a shared feeling that we’d found one of the last, great, untouched corners of the world. Of course, Don Det is far from untouched…there were at least 300 huts just on our tip of the island; several eateries (you couldn’t call them restaurants) and bars were augmented by small shops or stalls selling essentials like candles and toilet paper; there’s a daily tourist bus-and-boat from Pakse and Don Det is already a compulsory stop-over on the overland journeys between Laos and Cambodia. With time 24hr electricity will be standard and, soon I’m sure, there will be internet cafes, widescreen TVs with DVD players and piped music. I don’t regret the inevitability of these changes…why shouldn’t the local populace have the creature comforts and standard of living afforded by opening themselves up to tourism? The great thing about Don Det, though, is that those arseholes in Union Jack boxers will never get chance to dominate the island. It’s too far in any direction to anywhere that this kind of person would conceivably go in great numbers…almost at the end of the world. And this, perhaps, is the crux of the matter…maybe the idyllic setting and warm weather are what makes Don Det so appealing…or maybe it’s just being surrounded by decent folk every day. Of course, there’s always some idiot who has to try and fix something when it ain’t broke… Some geeky Aussie bloke wandered unbidden onto my porch a little later that first evening (after the consumption of several Beer Lao’s on my part) ‘to let us know’ that ‘we’re going to have a bit of a Full Moon Party here tomorrow night’. Eager to know how this entertainment could possibly be any better than getting wrecked in hammocks and enjoying the peace and quiet, I asked him what this party would involve. His answer will forever be engraved on my mind. ‘Aw, you know…we’ll get a bit of fire goin…and we’ll have a few locals and tourists around and a bit of music…and there should be some girls about.’ This last was added in a sort of conspiratorial tone…like an added incentive to come to this ‘wicked, party, Man’. He sounded like a schoolboy trying to persuade people to come to an illicit bash while his parents were away for the weekend.
I gave him a non-committal ‘Sounds great…might see you there’ and waited for him to saunter off around the corner. The minute he was out of sight, Bill and I caught each others’ eye and promptly burst into a prolonged bout of hysterics. After 5 minutes of almost wetting my pants, I still couldn’t dry my eyes. Bill was giving me a cool, appraising stare and I asked him ‘What’s up with you, you Lousy Bastard?’ He fixed me with one mad glaring eye and said, ‘You Dumb…Drunk…Bastard!’ And that was my new name for the remainder of the week. The reason for Bill’s admonition was, of course, that I was laughing hysterically at the Aussie guy whose party was going to disturb my peace and quiet the following evening. Once Bill had explained this to me, I began to call myself Dumb Drunk Bastard and it was only another bottle of the mind tonic (Beer Lao, of course!) that enabled us to come up with the plan of an early rise the following morning to seek new lodgings. Of course the major flaw in this plan, from my point of view, was just how much ‘mind tonic’ I’d actually consumed…
I awoke groggily the next morning to discover that Bill had already vacated the hammock and that the sun was already reasonably high in the sky. I stumbled out to get some breakfast and soon bumped into Bill with a satisfied grin on his chops. He’d been up for 2 hours laying claim to all of the vacated rooms in the vicinity. So far he had options on two ‘Sunset’ huts, a swanky timber bungalow on the point and another hut on ‘Sunrise’ with even better views of ‘The One Tree’. At a grand total of $8.50 a night he now had ideal bases for each of the day’s main activities: namely, staring at ‘The One Tree’ and watching moonrise (on ‘Sunrise’), sitting lazily to watch the world and the day go by (on the point) and watching the sun sink into the Mekong (on ‘Sunset’). I went halves with him on the swanky point pad, seeing this as an ideal location to escape from the geek-party…and also having noted the cleanliness and proximity of the bathrooms. With 5 pieces of property between us, we must have been the most influential customers in Don Det’s burgeoning property market. In light of Bill’s meteoric rise from squatter to property magnate, went for celebratory lunch and beer. After lunch, Bill took me to his ‘Tree-view’ pad and I had to admit that the aspect was considerably better than mine…although marred somewhat by some poorly placed branches of a tree growing in front of Bill’s porch. Without further ado, he set to removing the offending branches…and didn’t even charge the owners for his topiary services. ;-)
When evening came, we studiously avoided going back to my original digs (still on the books, of course!) and, instead, had an excellent time with Bill and the Irish lads - all of whom, apart from Dave were due to depart for Cambodia the following morning. A man after my own heart, Dave had decided that he liked Don Det so much that he was going to stay for an extra couple of days. Having given him and the rest of the boys the lowdown on Serendipity Beach when we’d been in Vang Vieng, it was gratifying to see him getting into the spirit so soon.
We heard reports from passers-by that the Full Moon ‘Party’ consisted of a few drunk schoolboys standing around a fire with some Bob Dylan hissing feebly from a speaker...and certainly felt no compulsion to go and liven things up. Many years from now, some morose, Aussie, new-age hippie will be proudly telling the rest of the commune how he organised ‘the first ever Full Moon Party on Don Det’…and the rest of us will proudly say that we didn’t go…
January 23, 2005
Wild Bill
Unusually well-rested and reasonably sober, I awoke at 5am without any great difficulty. The tuk-tuk I’d arranged wasn’t as punctual as I, so I quickly made arrangements with one of the loitering drivers to take me to the airport and, as he had been unhappy at the price I’d quoted, I wasn’t too surprised to see him stop to pick up another passenger as soon as we came round the corner. At this unsociable hour there was only one place that anyone would be going so I found myself sharing my cab with another Californian: Wild Bill, as I came to know him or, affectionately, Lousy Bastard!
He was certainly an interesting character and no shy, retiring type. It is of course easy to talk to people who love talking – even before the sun’s above the horizon – and we were soon gabbling away at high speed with plenty of gratifying profanity. At the airport we were amused by and abused the pointless, almost-non-existent security measures. We then laughed all the harder when we realised that the passengers for the international flight to Siem Reap (who had had to check in to the ‘International Departures Terminal’ and undergo proper security checks) were in fact sitting in the front part of our plane, which was parked midway between the two terminals. Whatever cavity searches and invasive x-rays they’d undergone were completely negated by the fact that we joined them with unchecked hand luggage and were able to mingle freely. Still, in a country with only one airline, what can one expect?
The 40 minute flight to Pakse was comfortable and trouble-free and we were soon sitting smugly in a taxi into town and imagining the horrendous torture undergone by the ‘cheapskate fools’ who’d taken the bus. When spending large amounts of money to achieve something that could have been achieved for far less, it is of course absolutely necessary to justify the expenditure at every opportunity. For my part, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have survived 12 hours in a bus…and Bill wasn’t travelling on a tight budget anyway. Apart from all this rationalising, it is always nice to have something to be smug about anyway ;-).
I was glad to find out that Bill was interested in the same things as I was during our short stopover in Pakse. We were both intent on visiting the Khmer Empire ruin of Wat Phu Champasak, 35km south…and we both wanted to get down to Don Det as quickly and comfortably as possible. As we were hunting for suitable accommodation, it soon became apparent that I had a big problem. It was Sunday and a public holiday…and I had no cash. Nowhere was open to change travellers cheques, there didn’t seem to be anywhere I could get a cash advance on my credit card and there certainly weren’t any ATMs! Just at this precise moment I remembered American Jon telling me the previous night that he had found Vientiane’s one and only ATM. He’d agreed to take me to it and I’d clean forgotten after being distracted by a certain Dutch person. Fortunately, Bill came to the rescue admirably and offered to lend me the cash until we were able to visit a hotel on the edge of town that reputedly offered cash advances. However, this wouldn’t be possible until much later in the day and, in the meantime, I was indebted to his generosity in a sticky situation.
Thanks to having an upmarket travel chum I was able to go halves on a very pleasant twin with minibar, en-suite, cable TV and air-con. After we’d dropped our bags we went to make inquiries about transport to Champasak and, of course, to have breakfast. We found a curry house run by the same company as my favourite eatery in Vang Vieng and, while Bill got tucked into a rogan josh for breakfast, I made do with some pancakes and a fruit shake. We discovered that getting to Champasak wasn’t going to be all that easy nor particularly cheap. In the end, we opted to hire a 250cc dirt-bike, which meant we would be masters of our own schedule and wouldn’t have to worry about haggling over Tuk-Tuks. Bill had formerly raced dirt-bikes and ridden moto-cross so, after allowing him to take a good burn around a piece of wasteland to get over his excitement, I had no worries riding pillion on the unusually well-paved roads running alongside the river. Once our arrangements for the day had been settled, we settled down in the cool comfort of our room to watch the 4th round of the Australian Open. Another thing Bill and I obviously had in common was our great love for sport and it was nice, for the first time in months, to settle down in front of the goggle-box and binge on some high calibre action.
Later on we packed light bags with water, camera and wallets and jumped on the bike for Wat Phu. The journey down in the intense sunshine was a blast back to the plateaus of Vietnam’s central highlands. Long stretches of plain reached away to our left, on the right a range of hills was beginning to encroach on the far banks of the nearby Mekong. Our ferry trip over the river on two small boats, lashed together with planks was accomplished with the aid of our diminutive (probably 11years old!) skipper, who wasn’t the slightest concerned by Wild Bill’s engine-revving mounting of the pontoon. Coming down the steep bank with perfect aim, he rode up the narrow gang plank with some throttle and came to a dead-stop 3 inches to the right of our little ferrymen…and about 2 inches from the edge of the raft. It reminded me of the crazy stunts required of the contestants in one of my favourite childhood TV programmes, KickStart (anyone else remember?). Once on the other bank, it was a short journey along unpaved, orange-dust roads to arrive at the site of Wat Phu.
The site was particularly interesting because, as well as the reasonably well-preserved remains of the monument itself, there was also an informative museum. This modern building housed many fine sculptures and carvings from the site, dating back as early as 7th Century. In itself, this information was exciting because it meant that the temple pre-dated the Angkorian ruins and, yet, had been constantly in use during and long after the monuments in and around Angkor Thom. There was obviously some special significance to the site that had kept the Empire’s rulers interest when the centre of their empire was so many hundreds of miles away. And this, as we were to discover, was indeed the case. Wat Phu Champasak is the site of a sacred spring and the holy waters of the spring were what kept successive Emperor’s coming back to and maintaining this glorious mountain temple.
A lot of the remaining carving is from the later periods of Wat Phu’s use and so is of a particularly high standard. However, much like Prasat Preah Vihear (PPV) on the Thai-Cambodian border, much of the appeal of this site is derived from its beautiful setting. The layout is in complete contrast to PPV: instead of a sprawling mass of archways and sanctums, gently rising along a ridge, Wat Phu is built steeply into the side of a hill. At the foot of the hill, in the flood plain before the river, are the reservoirs that are an essential part of the temple mountain layout. From these leads a paved causeway, formerly lined by carved and engraved pillars, to the foot of several steep flights of steps. This stairway to heaven is guarded by an avenue of beautiful silver-barked trees and, eventually, gives way to the intricately adorned temple on the small plateau jutting from the foot of a precipitous cliff. From here, the views over the Mekong’s flood plains and the southern lowlands of Laos are far-reaching and nothing short of majestic. It was certainly easy to understand why the spring found here would be considered to be holy. Ingenious craftsmen had, long ago, fashioned a series of stone troughs and pipes which delivered the spring’s outpourings from under the cliff into the inner sanctum of the temple, where they poured suggestively onto the Shiva linga (phallus) that was the focus of pilgrims’ worship. Every year in February local people still hold a colourful festival in the temple grounds but, for us this was a peaceful and enjoyably uncrowded look at the far-reaching remains of a long-dead empire. As with the Khmer Empire’s long-abandoned relics in Cambodia, the original dedication to Hindu deities (in this case Lord Shiva) had long been usurped by Buddhism. Whether this change was made due to astute political observation by the Empire’s rulers or due to a fervent change of beliefs is unclear, but certainly, as in other mixed Hindu/Buddhist nations, the transition appears to have caused little rancour. I was probably the only person there that day that was a little irritated by the situation of an imposing Buddha statue in front of the entrance to the temple’s original inner sanctum. Eventually, though, I found a gap to squeeze through and was rewarded by the sight of some particularly intricate stone carving around the site of the original sacred lingam (long since removed).
On the way back to the river there were some beautiful views of the sun setting behind us over the mountains and again I was reminded why the site had been of such special significance to the Khmer’s.
Back into town just before night fell, we returned to our trusty Indian restaurant and, this time, I tucked into a delicious chilli chicken with garlic naan. One could hardly claim that I was indulging in the local cuisine but there’s no arguing when food’s this good. As the perspiration began to seep out below my eyes and from my brow, Bill and I fell to congratulating the wide appeal of sub-continental cuisine and the entrepreneurial spirit that allowed it to appear all over the world. Bill got to telling me about the many happy evenings he’d spent sitting on the floor of an art gallery in Kathmandu, eating chicken tikka and butter naan. I, of course, was only too happy to fill him in on the delights of my Sunday evening sessions in Jamal’s. United thus, by food, sport, interest in ancient civilisations and, of course, beer we were the best of travelling companions. Although Bill and I appeared to be very different on the surface – the one a divorce-bruised, abrasive, middle-aged American, the other an uncynical, somewhat naïve and youthful Brit – we had one undeniable common bond…our masculinity. We were soon trading good-natured verbal insults like we’d been drinking buddies for years and, back at the room we soon reverted to type, flicking through the channels in an endless search for more sport and gangster films. Bill had been unsure whether we would continue down south together as he had been hoping to meet up with one of those ‘cheapskate fools’ who’d caught the bus. As we had decided to get up at 6.00am to watch the Superbowl play-offs, he decided that he may as well use the early start to make it down to the bus for the trip to Don Det. I was certainly pleased to be continuing further along the road with him. His caustic wit and playful ferocity would be ample amusement during the long journey…and there was bound to be mayhem and entertainment wherever the two of us went.
He was certainly an interesting character and no shy, retiring type. It is of course easy to talk to people who love talking – even before the sun’s above the horizon – and we were soon gabbling away at high speed with plenty of gratifying profanity. At the airport we were amused by and abused the pointless, almost-non-existent security measures. We then laughed all the harder when we realised that the passengers for the international flight to Siem Reap (who had had to check in to the ‘International Departures Terminal’ and undergo proper security checks) were in fact sitting in the front part of our plane, which was parked midway between the two terminals. Whatever cavity searches and invasive x-rays they’d undergone were completely negated by the fact that we joined them with unchecked hand luggage and were able to mingle freely. Still, in a country with only one airline, what can one expect?
The 40 minute flight to Pakse was comfortable and trouble-free and we were soon sitting smugly in a taxi into town and imagining the horrendous torture undergone by the ‘cheapskate fools’ who’d taken the bus. When spending large amounts of money to achieve something that could have been achieved for far less, it is of course absolutely necessary to justify the expenditure at every opportunity. For my part, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have survived 12 hours in a bus…and Bill wasn’t travelling on a tight budget anyway. Apart from all this rationalising, it is always nice to have something to be smug about anyway ;-).
I was glad to find out that Bill was interested in the same things as I was during our short stopover in Pakse. We were both intent on visiting the Khmer Empire ruin of Wat Phu Champasak, 35km south…and we both wanted to get down to Don Det as quickly and comfortably as possible. As we were hunting for suitable accommodation, it soon became apparent that I had a big problem. It was Sunday and a public holiday…and I had no cash. Nowhere was open to change travellers cheques, there didn’t seem to be anywhere I could get a cash advance on my credit card and there certainly weren’t any ATMs! Just at this precise moment I remembered American Jon telling me the previous night that he had found Vientiane’s one and only ATM. He’d agreed to take me to it and I’d clean forgotten after being distracted by a certain Dutch person. Fortunately, Bill came to the rescue admirably and offered to lend me the cash until we were able to visit a hotel on the edge of town that reputedly offered cash advances. However, this wouldn’t be possible until much later in the day and, in the meantime, I was indebted to his generosity in a sticky situation.
Thanks to having an upmarket travel chum I was able to go halves on a very pleasant twin with minibar, en-suite, cable TV and air-con. After we’d dropped our bags we went to make inquiries about transport to Champasak and, of course, to have breakfast. We found a curry house run by the same company as my favourite eatery in Vang Vieng and, while Bill got tucked into a rogan josh for breakfast, I made do with some pancakes and a fruit shake. We discovered that getting to Champasak wasn’t going to be all that easy nor particularly cheap. In the end, we opted to hire a 250cc dirt-bike, which meant we would be masters of our own schedule and wouldn’t have to worry about haggling over Tuk-Tuks. Bill had formerly raced dirt-bikes and ridden moto-cross so, after allowing him to take a good burn around a piece of wasteland to get over his excitement, I had no worries riding pillion on the unusually well-paved roads running alongside the river. Once our arrangements for the day had been settled, we settled down in the cool comfort of our room to watch the 4th round of the Australian Open. Another thing Bill and I obviously had in common was our great love for sport and it was nice, for the first time in months, to settle down in front of the goggle-box and binge on some high calibre action.
Later on we packed light bags with water, camera and wallets and jumped on the bike for Wat Phu. The journey down in the intense sunshine was a blast back to the plateaus of Vietnam’s central highlands. Long stretches of plain reached away to our left, on the right a range of hills was beginning to encroach on the far banks of the nearby Mekong. Our ferry trip over the river on two small boats, lashed together with planks was accomplished with the aid of our diminutive (probably 11years old!) skipper, who wasn’t the slightest concerned by Wild Bill’s engine-revving mounting of the pontoon. Coming down the steep bank with perfect aim, he rode up the narrow gang plank with some throttle and came to a dead-stop 3 inches to the right of our little ferrymen…and about 2 inches from the edge of the raft. It reminded me of the crazy stunts required of the contestants in one of my favourite childhood TV programmes, KickStart (anyone else remember?). Once on the other bank, it was a short journey along unpaved, orange-dust roads to arrive at the site of Wat Phu.
The site was particularly interesting because, as well as the reasonably well-preserved remains of the monument itself, there was also an informative museum. This modern building housed many fine sculptures and carvings from the site, dating back as early as 7th Century. In itself, this information was exciting because it meant that the temple pre-dated the Angkorian ruins and, yet, had been constantly in use during and long after the monuments in and around Angkor Thom. There was obviously some special significance to the site that had kept the Empire’s rulers interest when the centre of their empire was so many hundreds of miles away. And this, as we were to discover, was indeed the case. Wat Phu Champasak is the site of a sacred spring and the holy waters of the spring were what kept successive Emperor’s coming back to and maintaining this glorious mountain temple.
A lot of the remaining carving is from the later periods of Wat Phu’s use and so is of a particularly high standard. However, much like Prasat Preah Vihear (PPV) on the Thai-Cambodian border, much of the appeal of this site is derived from its beautiful setting. The layout is in complete contrast to PPV: instead of a sprawling mass of archways and sanctums, gently rising along a ridge, Wat Phu is built steeply into the side of a hill. At the foot of the hill, in the flood plain before the river, are the reservoirs that are an essential part of the temple mountain layout. From these leads a paved causeway, formerly lined by carved and engraved pillars, to the foot of several steep flights of steps. This stairway to heaven is guarded by an avenue of beautiful silver-barked trees and, eventually, gives way to the intricately adorned temple on the small plateau jutting from the foot of a precipitous cliff. From here, the views over the Mekong’s flood plains and the southern lowlands of Laos are far-reaching and nothing short of majestic. It was certainly easy to understand why the spring found here would be considered to be holy. Ingenious craftsmen had, long ago, fashioned a series of stone troughs and pipes which delivered the spring’s outpourings from under the cliff into the inner sanctum of the temple, where they poured suggestively onto the Shiva linga (phallus) that was the focus of pilgrims’ worship. Every year in February local people still hold a colourful festival in the temple grounds but, for us this was a peaceful and enjoyably uncrowded look at the far-reaching remains of a long-dead empire. As with the Khmer Empire’s long-abandoned relics in Cambodia, the original dedication to Hindu deities (in this case Lord Shiva) had long been usurped by Buddhism. Whether this change was made due to astute political observation by the Empire’s rulers or due to a fervent change of beliefs is unclear, but certainly, as in other mixed Hindu/Buddhist nations, the transition appears to have caused little rancour. I was probably the only person there that day that was a little irritated by the situation of an imposing Buddha statue in front of the entrance to the temple’s original inner sanctum. Eventually, though, I found a gap to squeeze through and was rewarded by the sight of some particularly intricate stone carving around the site of the original sacred lingam (long since removed).
On the way back to the river there were some beautiful views of the sun setting behind us over the mountains and again I was reminded why the site had been of such special significance to the Khmer’s.
Back into town just before night fell, we returned to our trusty Indian restaurant and, this time, I tucked into a delicious chilli chicken with garlic naan. One could hardly claim that I was indulging in the local cuisine but there’s no arguing when food’s this good. As the perspiration began to seep out below my eyes and from my brow, Bill and I fell to congratulating the wide appeal of sub-continental cuisine and the entrepreneurial spirit that allowed it to appear all over the world. Bill got to telling me about the many happy evenings he’d spent sitting on the floor of an art gallery in Kathmandu, eating chicken tikka and butter naan. I, of course, was only too happy to fill him in on the delights of my Sunday evening sessions in Jamal’s. United thus, by food, sport, interest in ancient civilisations and, of course, beer we were the best of travelling companions. Although Bill and I appeared to be very different on the surface – the one a divorce-bruised, abrasive, middle-aged American, the other an uncynical, somewhat naïve and youthful Brit – we had one undeniable common bond…our masculinity. We were soon trading good-natured verbal insults like we’d been drinking buddies for years and, back at the room we soon reverted to type, flicking through the channels in an endless search for more sport and gangster films. Bill had been unsure whether we would continue down south together as he had been hoping to meet up with one of those ‘cheapskate fools’ who’d caught the bus. As we had decided to get up at 6.00am to watch the Superbowl play-offs, he decided that he may as well use the early start to make it down to the bus for the trip to Don Det. I was certainly pleased to be continuing further along the road with him. His caustic wit and playful ferocity would be ample amusement during the long journey…and there was bound to be mayhem and entertainment wherever the two of us went.
January 22, 2005
Vientiane…now you see it, now you don’t!
One thing about always being hungover when packing your bag to leave a place is that, eventually, you get rather good at it. It helped that I’d left a lot of my extraneous equipment in Bangkok so there was less to pack than on previous occasions. I got away in plenty of time to get breakfasted before meeting with my kayaking guide and the rest of our party…only to find that they expected us to breakfast with them. Irritated at the loss of an hour’s kip, I deliberately refused to sit around and wait for other people to turn up and sloped off to an internet café to use my extra hour productively.
Back at the tour agency, I was pleased to see that there were only five of us on the trip. I can’t say that I got to know my companions particularly well…the only one whose name I remember was an American guy, Michael. The rest of our party was made up by a young Australian girl (talkative) and a really sweet (no, really they were!) French couple. The trip wasn’t really a group affair – as long as our guide was in front of us, we were free to follow down the river at our own pace. The only times we were together, other than in the pick-up at either end of the river sections, was over lunch and when we went cliff-jumping. I must admit that at these two times, my attention was distracted by the members of the other kayaking party that were following us down the river. To be precise, a beautiful Dutch girl called Hesther was distracting me…and of course with my Dutch family (any tenuous connection will do where a beautiful girl’s involved!) I felt it only right and proper that I should try to get to know her.
The big downer of the day was the fact that (no sizeist jokes here, please!) I’d been lumbered with a two-seater kayak…on my own. This behemoth was difficult enough to manoeuvre as it was, without the added inconvenience of it shipping water. In the end, this excess ballast was enough to have the lumbering hulk tipping me into the water at the merest sniff of movement on my part. Despite this, I couldn’t help but enjoy the beautiful surroundings (more mountains and rivers with blue skies and sunshine to boot!) and generally peaceful atmosphere. This peace was shattered rudely at one point by a deafening boom reverberating from the steep rocky banks of the river. Puzzled by this breach of tranquillity, we had all looked around to spot the source and, on rounding the next bend, were horrified to discover fishermen with snorkel masks pulling small, floating fish from the water. The fact that these local men were dynamite fishing in their own waters was distressing enough…the more so when you consider that the fish they were catching were no more than 4 inches long. Sustainability and stock management are obviously not words that these guys would understand so you can hardly blame them for their actions but I would hate to be them trying to catch fish next year. Education against this type of destructive behaviour seems to be the one element missing in many South East Asian cultures and is surely something that Western governments and NGOs should be investing in heavily if they wish the local populaces to attain sustainable independence.
This aside, it was a beautiful day and an excellent way to cover the miles to Vientiane. Once there, I hooked up with a pleasant American called Jon from the other kayaking party and he helped me find a very nice hotel room – necessary before my 5.30 am departure to the airport. Of course, the added benefit of his excellent company was an evening spent in the vicinity of Hesther. Unfortunately, with an early-morning departure, the remains of my hangover and my advanced years, there was little chance of me partying the Vientiane night away. I reluctantly made my weary way to bed just after midnight. I had no regrets about seeing virtually nothing of Vientiane. Cities aren’t my favourite places and I was intent on spending my time more pleasantly in the lazy, southern reaches of the Mekong.
Back at the tour agency, I was pleased to see that there were only five of us on the trip. I can’t say that I got to know my companions particularly well…the only one whose name I remember was an American guy, Michael. The rest of our party was made up by a young Australian girl (talkative) and a really sweet (no, really they were!) French couple. The trip wasn’t really a group affair – as long as our guide was in front of us, we were free to follow down the river at our own pace. The only times we were together, other than in the pick-up at either end of the river sections, was over lunch and when we went cliff-jumping. I must admit that at these two times, my attention was distracted by the members of the other kayaking party that were following us down the river. To be precise, a beautiful Dutch girl called Hesther was distracting me…and of course with my Dutch family (any tenuous connection will do where a beautiful girl’s involved!) I felt it only right and proper that I should try to get to know her.
The big downer of the day was the fact that (no sizeist jokes here, please!) I’d been lumbered with a two-seater kayak…on my own. This behemoth was difficult enough to manoeuvre as it was, without the added inconvenience of it shipping water. In the end, this excess ballast was enough to have the lumbering hulk tipping me into the water at the merest sniff of movement on my part. Despite this, I couldn’t help but enjoy the beautiful surroundings (more mountains and rivers with blue skies and sunshine to boot!) and generally peaceful atmosphere. This peace was shattered rudely at one point by a deafening boom reverberating from the steep rocky banks of the river. Puzzled by this breach of tranquillity, we had all looked around to spot the source and, on rounding the next bend, were horrified to discover fishermen with snorkel masks pulling small, floating fish from the water. The fact that these local men were dynamite fishing in their own waters was distressing enough…the more so when you consider that the fish they were catching were no more than 4 inches long. Sustainability and stock management are obviously not words that these guys would understand so you can hardly blame them for their actions but I would hate to be them trying to catch fish next year. Education against this type of destructive behaviour seems to be the one element missing in many South East Asian cultures and is surely something that Western governments and NGOs should be investing in heavily if they wish the local populaces to attain sustainable independence.
This aside, it was a beautiful day and an excellent way to cover the miles to Vientiane. Once there, I hooked up with a pleasant American called Jon from the other kayaking party and he helped me find a very nice hotel room – necessary before my 5.30 am departure to the airport. Of course, the added benefit of his excellent company was an evening spent in the vicinity of Hesther. Unfortunately, with an early-morning departure, the remains of my hangover and my advanced years, there was little chance of me partying the Vientiane night away. I reluctantly made my weary way to bed just after midnight. I had no regrets about seeing virtually nothing of Vientiane. Cities aren’t my favourite places and I was intent on spending my time more pleasantly in the lazy, southern reaches of the Mekong.
January 21, 2005
Reunion!
I’d spent the afternoon alternating between reading and working on the blog in my room, so come evening I was well up for dinner and a little liquid refreshment. I’d agreed to meet the Irish boys at an Indian restaurant on their recommendation and was served one of the best Chilli Chicken with Garlic Naan that I’ve had since my last visit to Jamal’s in Leicester’s Braunston Gate. A few bottles of agreeable Beer Lao and we were soon heading over the road for drinks at a cool-looking joint with a pool table. The Irish boys and Dan were due to head off further south on their way to Cambodia and I spent a long time telling them all of the delights of Serendipity Beach and writing instructions for where to stay and eat. They were now on their way down to Don Det in Si Phan Don (4000 islands). This secluded island in middle of the broadening Mekong just before its descent into Cambodia was where I was heading from Pakse so we all made plans to meet up there before the boys headed off to Cambodia. Chancing my arm at the pool table with Dave, I got a real shock as I was eyeing up an Amazonian blonde on the other side of the bar. Stood talking to her was a girl, Charlie, who I knew from Serendipity Beach! Charlie had been teaching in Sihanoukville and the last time I’d seen her, she’d been talking about quitting her job in time to meet her parents and brother in Thailand in time for a family Christmas. When I accosted her, she was as surprised as I was but she had an even greater surprise for me. Standing around the corner, a little over 5 weeks after I’d last seen them in Phnom Penh, were Tom and Adam. I really couldn’t believe my luck…just as one group of newly-found friends were departing, another gang had materialised out of nowhere. I was really excited about the prospect of tubing with these guys the next day and, to celebrate, we got hammered and went dancing at Vang Vieng’s premier nightspot, the Voodoo Lounge. When you’re so far from home and established friends and family it is particularly pleasant when you bump into former companions with whom you’ve spent a bit of time. There’s that degree of shared history, a few in-jokes and, of course, shared knowledge of other companions.
One of the fascinating tales I'd not heard since I'd last seen these guys was Charlie's own nightmare tale of coming face-to-face with the tsunami. She and her 4 year-old brother had been on international news after becoming separated from their parents in the aftermath of the first wave. Fortunately, the family had been re-united and unscathed and it was a relief to see her happy face had remained untroubled by the trauma.
Considering my euphoria at meeting up with Adam, Tom and Charlie, great, great guys that they are, I can only imagine how overwhelmingly happy I’ll be to get home in August and see all of my nearest and dearest once again. Not only did I have the pleasure of Tom, Adam and Charlie’s company but also Susie (Adam’s girlfriend who’d flown out to join him for a few weeks), Anya (the ‘Amazonian blonde’ and Tom’s current ‘companion’) and Lucy (Anya’s very cute and highly amusing friend) and Anders (an affable chap from Norway). One or two of the girls were suffering with colds but I was confident we’d have a good crowd for the next day’s tubing. I knew, however, full well that Adam and Tom had fully converted to ‘local time’ and, as I also wanted to copy some of Adam’s photos from his portable hard-drive, I arranged to meet them at their guesthouse in the morning.
As I had suspected, when morning came around Adam was still away with the fairies at the appointed time. I was able to wake him and Susie up with my ‘hard-drive’ excuse and thus ensure that our show actually got on the river before sunset. Everyone, including our cold-stricken girls managed to make it and the omens were right for a rip-roaring time.
In an entirely different way, it was every bit as funny as the Wednesday trip had been, if a little more active and pulse-quickening. There wasn’t quite the same amount of laughing gas in the atmosphere but our natural good humour and the fact that we knew each other meant that gags kept coming…all (naturally!) lubricated by a steady supply of Beer Lao. Somehow on Wednesday (probably because we were blinded by tears of laughter!) we had managed to miss the rope swings and cliff jump. To be fair, the state we were all in on Wednesday, this was probably a good thing! Despite the commando slide being broken by some heifer forgetting to let go, the boys were not to be denied their adrenalin rush. With the aid of some extremely public-spirited(!) helpers who willingly dragged us back into position, we all had a blast on the water swing. Imagine if you will a large trapeze suspended from a point high above the river with a long rope attached to the standing platform. After certain half-submerged contortions it is possible to stand on the trapeze just above the water’s surface, facing the river. The hoisting team then hauls on the rope to bring the artiste roughly 30-40ft higher at an almost horizontal angle before letting go. Common sense (and innocence) tells the unfortunate heavyweight artiste that the trapeze will swing gracefully over the water, allowing him to make a graceful swan dive from the limit of the trapeze’s parabola. Experience (hence the willing helpers!) instructs that the heavyweight artiste will hit the water with his feet at the bottom of the parabola, precipitating a flawless, high-speed ‘face-slam’ into the water…much to the hilarity of any onlookers. I’ve never been so shocked and simultaneously amused in my life. I had to cling for dear life onto my trapeze as I tried to laugh and catch my winded breath at the same time. Of course, even more amusing was to watch someone else (Adam!) perform the same neat trick just moments later.
Having not had enough of laughing my ass off and scaring the bejesus out of myself, the next opportunity was a 10-12 metre cliff dive. This time only Anders had the balls to join me and I can say that 10-12 metres is just far enough to make you think that someone’s taken the water away.
In the evening, we met up at the same curry house I’d been to the previous evening. Also joining us were the Swedish girls I’d met on Wednesday. Klara, Malin and Maggi had had to return to Vientiane for a couple of days to get Malin’s leg checked out at the hospital, after she’d badly sprained it earlier in her trip. Many beers later, lightweight’s disposed of (actually, fond farewells to Adam and Susie and threats of meeting up with Tom and the girls in Don Det) I found myself at the Island Bar sitting around a camp fire with the Swedes and a scary-looking bunch of travellers. The dim lighting, trippy music and décor (fluorescent lighting and a few bog rolls) and isolated venue (on a sandbar/island in the river) made for a heady atmosphere and I have no idea what time or how many beers later I went to bed. Strangely, tomorrow was leaving day…my bag wasn’t packed…and I was going to be hungover again! Patterns…
One of the fascinating tales I'd not heard since I'd last seen these guys was Charlie's own nightmare tale of coming face-to-face with the tsunami. She and her 4 year-old brother had been on international news after becoming separated from their parents in the aftermath of the first wave. Fortunately, the family had been re-united and unscathed and it was a relief to see her happy face had remained untroubled by the trauma.
Considering my euphoria at meeting up with Adam, Tom and Charlie, great, great guys that they are, I can only imagine how overwhelmingly happy I’ll be to get home in August and see all of my nearest and dearest once again. Not only did I have the pleasure of Tom, Adam and Charlie’s company but also Susie (Adam’s girlfriend who’d flown out to join him for a few weeks), Anya (the ‘Amazonian blonde’ and Tom’s current ‘companion’) and Lucy (Anya’s very cute and highly amusing friend) and Anders (an affable chap from Norway). One or two of the girls were suffering with colds but I was confident we’d have a good crowd for the next day’s tubing. I knew, however, full well that Adam and Tom had fully converted to ‘local time’ and, as I also wanted to copy some of Adam’s photos from his portable hard-drive, I arranged to meet them at their guesthouse in the morning.
As I had suspected, when morning came around Adam was still away with the fairies at the appointed time. I was able to wake him and Susie up with my ‘hard-drive’ excuse and thus ensure that our show actually got on the river before sunset. Everyone, including our cold-stricken girls managed to make it and the omens were right for a rip-roaring time.
In an entirely different way, it was every bit as funny as the Wednesday trip had been, if a little more active and pulse-quickening. There wasn’t quite the same amount of laughing gas in the atmosphere but our natural good humour and the fact that we knew each other meant that gags kept coming…all (naturally!) lubricated by a steady supply of Beer Lao. Somehow on Wednesday (probably because we were blinded by tears of laughter!) we had managed to miss the rope swings and cliff jump. To be fair, the state we were all in on Wednesday, this was probably a good thing! Despite the commando slide being broken by some heifer forgetting to let go, the boys were not to be denied their adrenalin rush. With the aid of some extremely public-spirited(!) helpers who willingly dragged us back into position, we all had a blast on the water swing. Imagine if you will a large trapeze suspended from a point high above the river with a long rope attached to the standing platform. After certain half-submerged contortions it is possible to stand on the trapeze just above the water’s surface, facing the river. The hoisting team then hauls on the rope to bring the artiste roughly 30-40ft higher at an almost horizontal angle before letting go. Common sense (and innocence) tells the unfortunate heavyweight artiste that the trapeze will swing gracefully over the water, allowing him to make a graceful swan dive from the limit of the trapeze’s parabola. Experience (hence the willing helpers!) instructs that the heavyweight artiste will hit the water with his feet at the bottom of the parabola, precipitating a flawless, high-speed ‘face-slam’ into the water…much to the hilarity of any onlookers. I’ve never been so shocked and simultaneously amused in my life. I had to cling for dear life onto my trapeze as I tried to laugh and catch my winded breath at the same time. Of course, even more amusing was to watch someone else (Adam!) perform the same neat trick just moments later.
Having not had enough of laughing my ass off and scaring the bejesus out of myself, the next opportunity was a 10-12 metre cliff dive. This time only Anders had the balls to join me and I can say that 10-12 metres is just far enough to make you think that someone’s taken the water away.
In the evening, we met up at the same curry house I’d been to the previous evening. Also joining us were the Swedish girls I’d met on Wednesday. Klara, Malin and Maggi had had to return to Vientiane for a couple of days to get Malin’s leg checked out at the hospital, after she’d badly sprained it earlier in her trip. Many beers later, lightweight’s disposed of (actually, fond farewells to Adam and Susie and threats of meeting up with Tom and the girls in Don Det) I found myself at the Island Bar sitting around a camp fire with the Swedes and a scary-looking bunch of travellers. The dim lighting, trippy music and décor (fluorescent lighting and a few bog rolls) and isolated venue (on a sandbar/island in the river) made for a heady atmosphere and I have no idea what time or how many beers later I went to bed. Strangely, tomorrow was leaving day…my bag wasn’t packed…and I was going to be hungover again! Patterns…
January 19, 2005
Pure! Unadulterated! Merriment!!
I groggily awoke to the usual sound of barking dogs, hawking spits and low-tech construction work. It was 9am and, while my mind very much wanted to return to the deep abyss, my stomach was putting a very strong case for actually being that place. As all men are driven by their appetites, so I was forced to throw on my bearskin, pick up my club and head out in search of breakfast. A bowl of noodles later and I was peering into the various tour and travel companies lining the streets in search of the river-based activities for which Vang Vieng is famous. Way back in Hu¬e, Vietnam I had met Kate from Leicestershire who had recommended river-tubing in Vang Vieng as one of her favourite experiences whilst travelling. I’d spotted a kayaking trip to Vientiane (again avoiding the buses!) which had piqued my interest but had seen no sign of tractor inner tubes and grinning travellers in swimsuits with waterproof bags. Eventually, I was directed to the shop of the main man who, no doubt, pays healthily for the privilege of running the tubing ‘concession’ in this backpacker haven. That only one shop hires the rings and waterproof divebags required for this simple day’s amusement, is highly suspicious and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if backhanders and menacing enforcers are the shadowy backdrop to this amusing past-time. Still, all this theorizing comes well after the fact and, at this point, all I was interested in was getting a tube, meeting a group of like-minded buddies and getting battered on Beer Laos on the river. I raced back to my hotel, changed into swimmers and my favourite wife-beater vest and took a few essentials such as camera and wallet in a plastic bag. When I returned to the shop, I saw a tuk-tuk moving off under a heavy load of inner tubes and a bevy of attractive looking lasses. Cursing my lack of timing, I sat down impatiently to wait for the next group of revellers. This turned into twenty minutes of not a single person signing up to tube, which had me silently cursing myself even more. Of course, as ever fair winds had blown me on the best of all possible courses. Suddenly out of nowhere a posse of English-speakers descended upon the shopfront, full of excitement and up for a good time. In my our tuk-tuk on the way down to the river, I got chatting to Steve and Sam, rugby fans from Kent, Chris and Alice from Bristol, Dan from Edinburgh and Kevin and Adine from Northern Ireland. Instantly, I felt myself clicking with them, despite their previous acquaintance. Far from wanting to hang out in there own crowd these guys were warm and generous with their company and happily welcomed me into the fold. In the tuk-tuk behind were a bunch of Munster men who were also to become an indispensable part of one of the funniest days I’ve ever experienced in my life.
Things started off innocuously enough…the predictable mounting mishaps at the inception point of our ‘epic’ journey leading to shocking all-over intimacy with the cold river-water for one or two members of our party…a bottle of Glenmorangie being whipped out before the first beers were even quaffed (honest, Dad! It was for an excellent cause!)…tales of the previous night’s adventures (it seems I wasn’t the only one wandering around town at 3.30am!). All of this had us in high spirits – not to mention our discovery of the first ‘bar’ on the river bank. The bartenders would reach into the current with there long bamboo poles and pull willing punters into the bank. Here we could hook our toes under the bamboo landing stage and receive, in our tubes, freshly cracked longnecks of Laos beer or other alcoholic beverages, according to our desires. We were all so profoundly overcome with the delightful civility of this state of affairs that we vowed to take the only right and proper course of action: To get well and truly sizzled and to enjoy ourselves as much as humanly possible. Needless to say, you needed to be there to appreciate just how funny this day was. A few beers, fine weather, good company and the magic ingredient: water went on to make this quite literally the most hilarious day of my life. I could waste words trying to describe why Irish Andy’s unfortunate mounting mishap made us all laugh quite so hard…maybe it was the Lady-of-the-Lake like quality of his beer-holding hand breaking the surface, beer intact, while the hand’s owner languished below the waterline….maybe it was the countless fruitless attempts to haul himself out of the water whilst surrounded by an extra 4ft of rubber waistline…maybe it was purely the force and durability of the gales of laughter that overcame me and Mad Irish Dave as we floated, helplessly downstream, in serious danger of busting a gut. Most would fail to understand why jumping in the river with a pair of 3 week old sunglasses on your head and losing them is funny…but it was. All I know is that, 5 hours later, as we hauled our soaked, shivering forms from the river in the gloomy dusk we were all agreed that it was just the funniest day ever. Later that evening, at a succession of meals with Swedish girls (the ones from the departing tuk-tuk earlier in the tale), British buddies and Irish lads we all complained of the pain emanating from our over-used stomach muscles. The last time I can recall laughing for so long and so hard was when being tickled near-to-death by my merciless aunts as a poor, defenceless boy of 7. The ultimate reaction then had been to burst into tears and to beg them to cease their torture…this time I had been purely at the mercy of my own perceptions and the antics of my companions. Unable to stem the flow of mirth, I’m pretty sure I came close to giving myself a hernia…probably just as well I didn’t…we’d probably all have laughed even harder! ;-)
I retired reasonably early with promises to undertake the adventure again the following day and, after only a few pages of Homer, I was soon in the land of Nod.
The following day dawned unpromisingly cold and grey and I soon decided that, after my recent illness, a cold day on the water was probably the least favourable option for enjoying myself. There was also the nagging feeling that the heady heights of the previous day would be difficult to match. I was still keen to tube one more time and put back my plans for travelling to Vientiane for one more day. This suited me more so because it would mean that I would spend less than 12 hours in the city, which, given my previous experience with modern capitals was likely to be a good thing. Instead of hitting the river, I curled up in front of a DVD player and widescreen TV to watch, for me, an extremely topical film: Troy. It was interesting seeing how the characters differed from those of my Homer-inspired imagination and there was the inevitable deviation from the book to produce blockbuster status but, on the whole, I enjoyed it and further augmented my opinion of Brad Pitt as an awesome actor.
Things started off innocuously enough…the predictable mounting mishaps at the inception point of our ‘epic’ journey leading to shocking all-over intimacy with the cold river-water for one or two members of our party…a bottle of Glenmorangie being whipped out before the first beers were even quaffed (honest, Dad! It was for an excellent cause!)…tales of the previous night’s adventures (it seems I wasn’t the only one wandering around town at 3.30am!). All of this had us in high spirits – not to mention our discovery of the first ‘bar’ on the river bank. The bartenders would reach into the current with there long bamboo poles and pull willing punters into the bank. Here we could hook our toes under the bamboo landing stage and receive, in our tubes, freshly cracked longnecks of Laos beer or other alcoholic beverages, according to our desires. We were all so profoundly overcome with the delightful civility of this state of affairs that we vowed to take the only right and proper course of action: To get well and truly sizzled and to enjoy ourselves as much as humanly possible. Needless to say, you needed to be there to appreciate just how funny this day was. A few beers, fine weather, good company and the magic ingredient: water went on to make this quite literally the most hilarious day of my life. I could waste words trying to describe why Irish Andy’s unfortunate mounting mishap made us all laugh quite so hard…maybe it was the Lady-of-the-Lake like quality of his beer-holding hand breaking the surface, beer intact, while the hand’s owner languished below the waterline….maybe it was the countless fruitless attempts to haul himself out of the water whilst surrounded by an extra 4ft of rubber waistline…maybe it was purely the force and durability of the gales of laughter that overcame me and Mad Irish Dave as we floated, helplessly downstream, in serious danger of busting a gut. Most would fail to understand why jumping in the river with a pair of 3 week old sunglasses on your head and losing them is funny…but it was. All I know is that, 5 hours later, as we hauled our soaked, shivering forms from the river in the gloomy dusk we were all agreed that it was just the funniest day ever. Later that evening, at a succession of meals with Swedish girls (the ones from the departing tuk-tuk earlier in the tale), British buddies and Irish lads we all complained of the pain emanating from our over-used stomach muscles. The last time I can recall laughing for so long and so hard was when being tickled near-to-death by my merciless aunts as a poor, defenceless boy of 7. The ultimate reaction then had been to burst into tears and to beg them to cease their torture…this time I had been purely at the mercy of my own perceptions and the antics of my companions. Unable to stem the flow of mirth, I’m pretty sure I came close to giving myself a hernia…probably just as well I didn’t…we’d probably all have laughed even harder! ;-)
I retired reasonably early with promises to undertake the adventure again the following day and, after only a few pages of Homer, I was soon in the land of Nod.
The following day dawned unpromisingly cold and grey and I soon decided that, after my recent illness, a cold day on the water was probably the least favourable option for enjoying myself. There was also the nagging feeling that the heady heights of the previous day would be difficult to match. I was still keen to tube one more time and put back my plans for travelling to Vientiane for one more day. This suited me more so because it would mean that I would spend less than 12 hours in the city, which, given my previous experience with modern capitals was likely to be a good thing. Instead of hitting the river, I curled up in front of a DVD player and widescreen TV to watch, for me, an extremely topical film: Troy. It was interesting seeing how the characters differed from those of my Homer-inspired imagination and there was the inevitable deviation from the book to produce blockbuster status but, on the whole, I enjoyed it and further augmented my opinion of Brad Pitt as an awesome actor.
January 18, 2005
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