Is there anybody out there?
Sunday, 9 January 2005
In Southern Laos, the answer is no. Not really. We've journeyed down through Savannakhet and now are in Pakse on various slightly dodgy buses that have peoples whole house full of furniture in the isle along with people eating rotten eggs on sticks and whole chicken road kills and various animals. I can see why bird flu got to the humans in asia now...
This country has a tiny population and down here it really shows. Even the large towns have hardly anyone around. It's really quite spooky. Last night we spend a night "out" with Sam and Beth from Aussieland practicing our Australian relationship management skills in Savannakhet. Under the entertainment section in Lonely Planet it has one place. It says something like: "The Lao-France Cafe. This is the only place thats open and serves beer. All travellers go here." So, there you go, we had no choice. The place itself was just a dingy room with mosquitos and all the other westerners we were on the bus with in it. Still, we had a good laugh and chatted about bollocks in the time honoured British way.
At one point we left this place to try to crawl to another cafe. It failed. All we found were some dogs wearing 80s jumpers. One of the dogs was even sporting an excellent camo vest in the "crackpot military leader" style loved by many a Lao bloke. We ended up back at the Lao-France cafe. When we walked in everyone smiled knowingly at us. "Failed eh? I could have told you that...", the manc bloke said. He was bitter because, earlier on while he was trying to persuade his girlfriend to live in Manchester, they heard Catherine telling Sam and Beth that she'd "only ever seen it sunny on one day..". I think that really spoilt his chances.
Now we are in Pakse, which is bigger but seems to have even less people in it. There is however a Curry area so we is happy enough. It turned out that some nonce had put a bottle of Lao-lao (really harsh Lao whiskey stuff) in their backpack which had obviously smashed during the bumpy journey (as it was bound to) which meant that nearly all of catherines backpack was drenched in extremely pungent smelling extra strong alcohol which was just crap. Catherine's not had good luck recently. Still it was kind of funny when we handed our laundry over then watched a discusted looking bloke load it all into the washing machine thinking "Why has she got laolao on her pants??? On every single pair of pants???". He must of thought we'd had a rockin night. Ah, the shame of having to get people to do your washing for you.
On another note, in a bar in Vientiane the other night when we were out with Helen and Jez, we met a Finnish journo who had just come back from Phucket. He was clearly shook in a bad way. Apparently, he knew people out there so was sent out straight away by his boss (Just after his wife left him on xmas eve) and when he got there he knew about 10 of the people on the casualty list. He was saying that his wife run him to have a relationship talk when he was stood in a field full of bodies...Not a happy bloke. The stuff he described was terrible though and our sympathies go out to everyone involved. We've been quite isolated from it being in Laos so were a bit unaware of the scale of it until later on.
Hmm, yes, so that's it. Not much to report really but hopefully we will encounter some form of civilisation to talk about soon. By the way, you know I said about a woman eating rotten eggs? Well, I wasn't joking. They sell them on sticks here....properly green and manky inside. It was making me hack in a big way....surely rotten eggs are not a good idea though? Salmonela???
On January 09, 2005, Catherine said:
To be fair my luck hasn't really been that bad, I wasn't in a Tsunami. It's true about the rotten eggs though!
On January 10, 2005, Barbara said:
Hi Dan and Catherine
Talking about washing..... I had a rather embarrasing experience at Christchurch Airport yesterday.... as the carousel came round with all the baggage I could see our rucksacks..... then I could see pants... then bikini top.... to my horror mine (not Julian's......) had come undone and strewn across the bloody carousel were some of my underwear........ much to everyone's amusement.... where's Jul when I need him I thought (.... in the bog)...... I couldn't grab everything quick enough and round it went again..... I WAS NOT AMUSED.... but I suppose it could have been worse..... it could have been dirty washing - luckily it was clean.....
Regards B
On January 12, 2005, Dan said:
Oh no, thats really not nice. Bloody rucksacks...are you in Aussieland now?
On January 14, 2005, Dad said:
Hi Dan
No we're on the South Island - here till 10 March then on to Australia....... we've just got off a boat which took us whale watching and it was ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC to say the least........
Dad
On April 03, 2005, Jane said:
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