Scott G Trenorden

Just a quick recap with photos… sorry.

After the hassle and aggravation of Steung Treng, it was nice to finally move from Cambodia into Laos.

We crossed the border without too much affair and made our way to the islands of the Deep South. One rocky road after another and we were on a small boat, chugging our way towards Don Khon Island.

Waiting on the Laos side of the Cambodian border crossing… For no apparent reason. “Yes we leave now” after which we waited another 15 minutes. We were of course waiting for more people to help fill our bus to the Islands.

After a quick bit of exploring, Derrick and I found a nice place to call home for a few days, in the form of ten bungalows lining the edge of the Mekong River.

A quaint area; there is no electricity; no cars apart from the odd tuk-tuk style minibus transport; most transport is done via the longboats on the river.

The downside to this was the lack of a fan during the day. It was rather hot for the first couple of days we were there and thankfully cooled slightly in the latter part of our stay.

Come 6pm (until 11pm) the generator is turned on and we had a fan, a plug to charge batteries and ‘brown light’ too dim to read by.
Therefore, most evenings were passed via the imbibing of a Beerlao or two in the company of often a half dozen or more people in one of the small restaurants in the area.

A quick snap of my bungalow with the LX3 camera. The mosquito net, the soft glow of the sun, the water reflections across the ceiling.. It was all very endearing and romantic.

Most of us headed to bed before 10pm to try get to sleep while the fan still ran (as it got rather hot coming 11:01pm when the electricity, and thus your fan, was turned off) which wasn’t a hard task.

Going to bed so early makes one think you’d be up early and into some important task of island exploration the next day, but alas, it was not to be.

Quite often people wouldn’t congregate until 9 or 10am for a breakfast or brunch, a coffee, a book swap and a chat.

Yup. It was a hard life on the island.

A view of the Mekong River and Don Det Island from the bridge between Don Det and Don Khon.

The lack of electricity was a bit of a let down as it meant I couldn’t while away the days with writing and working on photos.

Added to that, the noise of the generators definitely detracted from the otherwise beautiful evenings sitting on restaurant balconies that literally hang over the edge of the Mekong.

Oh, and you had to avoid sitting near a light as the bugs came in their millions.

But after from that it would be easy to still be there.

Rice paddy fields that double as grazing areas for cows in the dry season.

One of the ladies there mentioned a town north of Luang Prabang called Nong Khiow which she thought was nicer than the islands, similar in style, but more ‘modern’.

I may just have to make my way up there to have a look. And while away a few days. Maybe work on a book.

Maybe do nothing at all.

A second view of the Mekong River with Don Khon Island on the left and Don Det Island on the right, taken from the bridge between Don Det and Don Khon.

So far Laos has been a welcome slow-down from the comparatively hectic Cambodian experience.

It’s a lot cleaner and mellow; in fact it’s hard to believe that this place is actually a war ravaged country at all. There are no beggars, no constant hawkers and no limbless people that I’ve seen - in the capital at least. This may change when I travel up to the ‘touristy’ towns to the north.

The food here is nicer than what I found in Phnom Penh, the locals are happy, smiley people, the tuk-tuk drivers just say “Sabaidee!” (hello) when you walk past and other tourists are mostly smiling and jovial.

I have been thinking that if I do travel to Mongolia and China I may just fly into Vientiane and move north through Laos and into China, granting me the opportunity to see more of the northern regions of Laos which I hear are simply stunning.

I have also been thinking - as much as it’s been so great having the D700 here to capture the photos I have - that my next trip will be the black and white film trip I’ve been planning to do for a while.

This is not due to the size and weight of the camera and lens plus extras; in fact that’s been easily manageable.

I want to do it purely for the look and quality of film. Besides, that LX3 takes some lovely colour photos and video!

Bangkok in April will be a good test run.

And so currently I am spending a second day in the capital Vientiane, which sure is a sleepy little place for a capital city.

From here I think I will head to Vang Viang to meet up with Lori and to take photos of the idiots in tubes sucking on opium milkshakes while floating down the Mekong.

From there? Who knows?
That’s the beauty of unplanned travelling, after all.