Scott G Trenorden

Well hello..!

I’m currently in Pakse, Laos, waiting the hours away until I can get on the overnight bus to Vientiane.

It’s currently pelting with rain, which is a nice change from intense sun (through the haze) and heat.

Laos is a stunning place, scenery-wise. The people seem lovely too, though they seem more than willing and able to take you (or moreso your wallet) for a ride. I’ve left my pack at the bus station, so am hoping it’s still there on my return…

So:
From Phnom Penh I made my way north to the border region, stayed overnight in Stueng Treng and crossed into Laos the next day.
I encountered the slimiest, dodgiest man in Stueng Treng (think that spelling is wrong), the kind who tried his hardest to get me to convert $200 US at 6150kip because you’d get less on the islands (exchange rate is currently 8550kip to the dollar). I humoured him and changed $10 so that I could by lunch in Laos.
Of course, they exchanged at 8200kip on the island.

The thing that slimey idiot forgets is that I am now going to write all about their guesthouse on TripAdvisor, telling people all about it!

I met a Dutch couple who fell for the scam too… They were not happy!

So, I headed into Laos and to the 4000 Islands, staying on Don Khon island. It was quiet and hot with no electricity bar from a generator from 6-11pm, and it was loooovely!!
I had to convince myself after a day that it was fine to do nothing!
And so I did. Stayed three nights, socialised, met lovely people, ate nice-yet-simple food.

I was on the quieter island (nearby Don Det was the so-called backpacker island, yet was nowhere near as nice accommodation) and there was a generally older tourist set there. Which I didn’t mind at all.
I befriended a lovely couple from my parent’s vintage, a Melbourne couple, who I think rather took me under their wing.
We shared several lovely meals and drinks, joined by other nice travellers.

Sadly, the bus trip from Don Kron to here, Pakse, was a complete shambles and Gayle and Derrick, the Melbourne couple, ended up on a different bus to me. The buses stopped at different places, so we got split up and this I was not able to say goodbye or pass on my details etc.

Gayle and Derricks house was miraculously saved from a firery destruction, and they’ve offered it up while away as housing for a family who lost their home. Humbling stuff.

Pakse is nothing extraordinary. Glad I’m moving on, besides which I want to get north ASAFP.

Oh, I’m writing this via WiFi on my phone too, so no photos to accompany the post.
I really didn’t take too many in Don Kron anyway, to be honest.

I shall mosey on for now. My apologies for not responding to mails at this point. I’ll try do so tomorrow in Vientiane or soon after in a northern town.

Take care, and thank you all for your well-wishes.

Scott
Xx

PS - for ease of use, if you need to or want to mail me, please use pduvphoto@gmail.com as it’s very hard to access my own server mail when there is no wifi and slow Internet.

Post-note:
Immediately after writing this blog post, I wandered back out onto the street, only to see Gayle and Derrick walking towards me. So we caught up again and swapped details.

Ok, Internet here is slooow so I’m not even going to attempt doing a full photo blog post.
An iPhone update will have to do. Please excuse spelling mistakes!

So I’m in Sihanoukville, staying at the very lovely Sunday Guesthouse; highly recommended if you want peace and quite or to be away from the beach, with air con, hot water, big bed and safety for $12 a night.

Am currently at Cinderella’s Cafe, near the beach, waiting to meet Laurie (another female Laurie, M D), a fellow Aussie (Kiwi expat) also on the Ream national park tour today. Two guys are supplying live music here it seems and they can’t even get their guitars tuned, let alone tuned together. Oh man, not looking good!

The trip down here was long and uneventful. 13+ hours in the end.
We were picked up by a small school type bus, a 20 seater, that called past the guesthouses, and by the time I got on there was already 25 people plus bags aboard.
You often see big coach liners around town, so we were all a bit confused and generally quietly worried.

After scooting through a few backstreets and squeezing in three more people, we finally pulled in to a big bus depot and were told our bus was waiting; a coachliner.

There was a very audible all-round sigh of relief and nervous laughter..

And that was about as exciting as it got.

Phnom Penh seems very unfriendly (locals-wise) going on the one hour I was there.

I headed out on a tour to Ream National Park today which was a bit of a let down.
It was more a mangoves (1.5 hours) to beach through forest for 15 mind to beach and 1.5 hours back…

Good part though was meeting Laurie, as we were fast friends and will hopefully stay that way.

Holy hell on earth… Do you reckon it’s rude to go ask if I can tune their guitars??

Ok, so it sounds as though Bokor National Park is closed off at the moment so I don’t think I will get to do that trip sadly.

And I am back to thinking of going to Laos again, not Vietnam. I’ve not heard a single bad or slightly negative report on the place yet..!

Good to see it now before it changes too much.

Ok, sorry about the very unexciting post.. More just to say I’m alive and this place is rather cool!

It’s not like Goa at all, more like Cottesloe Beach..

Will try get a decent post done tomorrow.

Scott
x