Si Phan Don
Friday, 14 January 2005
Well, we are about to high tail it out of Laos and back into North Eastern Thailand. Here is what we did before that:
We just spent a few days in the Four Thousend Islands (si phan Don) which was excellent, and did seem to have 4 thousend islands in it. The mekong is really wide there and there are loads of irrawaddy Dolphins splashing about and trying to avoid extinction. Apparently in Cambodia they are in trouble because of the very typically cambodian way of fishing - lobbing a grenade into the water and scooping out all the fish that you stun, strangely this doesn't do the dolphins any good. To go and see them we crossed over the Cambodian border to a little strip of Cambodian sand in the middle of the river, which was about 30m long and contained a few crack pot ex military leaders, two stalls selling beer, some dirty crying babies and a few AK 47s. The dolphins are wicked, they have really boxy faces like whales do.
We also hired some extremely girly bikes and went for a little ride around the biggest Island (which we chose to stay on due to the fact it had 24hr electricity and didn't use water from the mekong in it's cooking). Dan riding around on a girls bike with his massive shorts on was hilarious. I ride at the same speed as an arthritic Miss Marple so I had a full veiw of the reactions he got out of all of the locals we passed. First, they'd see him coming so they're all waving and shouting "sabaidee! Sabaidee!" like they do to everyone who passes. Then as he gets closer they'd get more excited (especially if they are a child or teenager). And as he passed their mouths would open and their heads turn fully round as they continued to stare at him. Normally when I finally trundled past 5 minutes later they were still looking.
Not sure if it was because they thought he looked like a hip hop star or if he just looked like a big western freak on a girls bike. Anyway sporty freshness was had and we got to somewhere that had more remoteness points than I've ever seen (even in the middle of the Amazon Basin): We found a place where you can not buy coke!
The journey back is by truck which is done in the style of Guiness Book of record brakers - how many people can we fit into a mini?- style. Everyone is rammed in with assorted sacks of ice, rice and dying fish. You can avoid this if you can find ten people willing to charter a minibus with you and it will cost you $5 rather than $3. Could be worth it. Eiter that or be one of the people who hang on to the big bits of metal hanging off the back of the truck - it's much more stable than it looks and you have more room.
Dan has just put up a new load of photos that feature most of this stuff so check them if you dare.
On January 14, 2005, Tim said:
good work on the gurning. I would say a score of 5log14. Not as good as you on the bike though
On January 17, 2005, X-Land said:
It's obvious -- they still have a lot of copies of the issue of FHM East Asia with Dan in knocking around! Or they are keen Bowelwatch readers...