On Wednesday I fell in love – with a bus! You’d probably ask how it is possible to fall in love with a bus but in Laos it’s possible. The bus from Tad Lo to Pakse was a real bus with seats, and the best – there was enough space for my legs! It was half empty, so I could have even put my legs to my virtual seat neighbour. It was early morning and a gentle and refreshing wind was blowing through the small windows. I put on my iPod and was even about to sleep but then I started to realise that the 2 hours on this bus were too valuable to spend them sleeping.
In Laos heaven and hell are close together. I had to change bus in Pakse and the vehicle that expected me for my trip to 4.000 islands was a pick-up truck. Here they call it Song Tauw. It’s a harmless name for a vehicle that was designed to torture their passengers. Well, the truth is that it has never been designed for passenger transport but who cares? I will not mention all the details of the 3,5 hours trip, only the most important facts: Unlike the pick-ups I have used before, it had 3 sitting benches instead of two. That means more passengers, animals and goods per square centimetre. My “seat” was one of the better ones. I was sitting on the edge of the middle bench with my feet on the footboard. That meant I had space for my legs (always watching out not to fall outside) but the flipside of the coin was that the exhaust pipe was below my legs. I breathed a mixture of black and definitely not healthy Diesel emissions and the usual dust from the road. It wasn’t very recommendable neither to turn my head towards inside the torture chamber because the smell was not better. As I knew after the trip there were living fish in a big box under the middle seat (and the box was leaking!). It definitely seems as if my last “bus” ride in Laos was one worthy of this country!
Before I start describing the beauty of 4.000 islands, I have to mention a topic which really makes me angry. It’s the environmental awareness (or better said non-awareness) of the locals. Two days ago I observed the lady from my guesthouse washing the dishes at the river, just below my bungalow. Apart from the dishes there was also a bit of garbage in her basket (such as cans and plastic bottles) and guess where the garbage landed – in the river! I have seen people throwing garbage everywhere but the behaviour of this lady has a different quality because here they live directly from the beauty of this place. I don’t think that tourists would be very keen to swim in a river full of garbage. If they continue like that, maybe in a couple of years there are no tourists any more. The behaviour is so short-sighted and I don’t know if it is because the people have no education (although I think you don’t need to go to school or university to understand this simple correlation) or if they just don’t fucking care. I am really asking myself why other countries give development aid to countries like Laos if the people here are not willing to contribute a tiny little bit to the conservation of their nature (and hence also foster economy through tourism). The country is still lucky because it has only 7 million inhabitants, that’s simply too few people to achieve massive destruction of nature. For the sake of fairness I have to add that I have also seen tourists (mainly the type of Vang Vieng tourists whose single objective is to get drunk) who threw beer bottles and cigarettes into the water. That is even worse because they should have received the education to know what is right or wrong. I have no words to describe how angry I am.
Anyway, 4.000 islands is really a beautiful spot of nature. It’s a delta of the Mekong before the river flushes down a series of impressive waterfalls further south. The region is the southernmost point of Laos, located next to the Cambodian border. In dry season the water has a nice green to turquoise colour. If you also consider the palm trees growing here, you could really think of being at the coast. It’s really nice swimming in the fresh water and relaxing in the hammock of my bungalow. The day before yesterday I rented a bike in order to go to the next island but unfortunately I had a flat tyre on the way. I didn’t want to go back so I stopped a motor bike, whose driver was so kind to take me. On the other island I went to see one of the 6 big waterfalls of the Mekong River (in former times insuperable barrier for steam ships). On the way back there was no motorbike, so I had to walk more than one hour in the midday heat. Due to agricultural use of the soil, there were no trees and no shade, really tough in these latitudes! Apart from this “incidence”, there is not much to tell. I spent many hours lying in my hammock, reading or listening to music, accompanied by a Dutch-Swedish couple who I met on the “bus” ride and who was staying in the bungalow next door.
Tomorrow I will leave Laos and enter Cambodia. In general I would have expected to be nature more abundant in Laos but I am not disappointed. It is a relaxed place and if you are able to accept the people’s relaxed attitude (implying good and bad things) then you can spend a great time here.
By the way, I have fully recovered from my sickness :-)
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