Moving to Laos

Sunday, July 25, 2010—Khong Chiam

With all the extra people who checked in yesterday, I was worried about noise during the night or this morning.  Therefore, I slept with my earplugs during the night.  They worked, but I needed nose plugs, too.  I didn’t realize it, but apparently Thai families take food with them and cook in their rooms.  So at 6:30 I was awakened by the smell of food coming from somewhere.  It makes sense.  They have come in large vans—extended family groups.  There may be 6 of them staying in the same size room as mine. The room beside mine has two large mattresses on the floor. That saves money.  Eating out would cost a lot for so many people, so I can understand their trying to save by cooking some meals, especially breakfast, in the room.

As planned due to their being fully booked, I checked out of the place where I was staying.  I walked down the main street to where I had made a reservation, and my room was waiting for me.  It is smaller and lacks the wi-fi; also, it is more expensive.  It has satellite TV, but the stations are all Thai, Indian, Pakistani, Nepali, Laotian, or Cambodian.  Nothing is in English.  The new place does provide coffee and Thai donuts for breakfast.  That’s nice.  And the people staying here seem to be a higher class than those at the other place.  All but one group has come in private cars.  I bet they won’t be cooking their own food tomorrow.

There must have been rain north of here in the past day or two.  The Mekong River seems to be flowing faster and seems to be a bit higher today.  Here, we are having only occasional showers.

I searched for information about how to get to Chong Mek, the border crossing to Laos that is only 30 km (18 miles) from here.  At the bus “station,” there really is no station.  It’s just a parking lot by the market where buses and songthaews park.  Therefore, there was no one there to answer my question.  The lady at my new place could not tell me anything.  I returned to the old place where the owner told me that I must take the songthaew and that I needed to leave around 6:30 or 7:00.  Finally, in the evening, I heard someone call, “Randell!”  It was a lady who had talked to me last night at the roti stand.  She speaks good English, so I asked her.  She told me that I can no longer take a songthaew directly to Chong Mek.  They had one for a while, but it is only tourists who want to go there; local people have no reason to go between the two villages, especially since only in the last few years has there even been a way (a bridge) to get between the two.  The lack of that bridge all that time effectively kept the two villages isolated from each other.  She said I will have to take a songthaew from here to Phibun, a market town that is the nearest “city” to both Khong Chiam and Chong Mek, and then take another songthaew from there.  That will make what could have been a 30 km trip into about a 65 km trip.  And it adds the waiting time involved at Phibun, since songthaews are privately owned and do not go until the driver has decided he has enough business to make the trip worth the money he will get.

All my things are starting to feel damp.  My bag feels that way.  My clothes feel that way.  Even my money feels that way.  I will need to spend US dollars in cash for much of the time I am in Laos, so I took out my cash to count it again.  All the bills were limp.  Hope I don’t get mildew growing on things before my trip ends.

The food being so good and the portions being so generous there, I returned to the same place to eat again last night.  As on my first night there, I had the fried rice with chicken.  Everyone I had seen while exploring was eating in the late afternoon, so, having had nothing other than some donuts in the morning, I went there at 16:40.  Then I walked along the riverfront again. Rain was coming, so I decided to retreat to my room by 18:30.

Monday, July 26, 2010-Khong Chiam

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I was up early again this morning with thoughts about the coffee and donuts at the office!  I could hear the sounds of people along with roosters crowing in the neighborhood.  The people sounds were from a large family that has apparently paid to have breakfast brought and served to them in the courtyard here.  They had several large platters of food.  Too bad it wasn’t for everyone.  When they abandoned the table, I took a bite of one item I thought was potatoes, and it was a wonderful morsel of fried fish.

During my visit I have met a number of couples and families by offering to take photos of them together when they have been taking pictures of each other beside the river.  From these interactions, I can tell that most of the Thai families visiting here are either middle class or upper class.  Often someone speaks English.  And the way they dress indicates so, too.  An interesting fact is that almost everyone has a friend or relative who lives in the U.S. and often one who lives in Texas.  They never know the city, however.  Last night there was a funny experience.  A family was taking a photo of their small boy.  I stopped to watch because he was cute and because I wanted to ask if they would like me to take a group photo for them.  Somehow, the little boy who was standing at an angle to me sensed that I was there.  Just as his father snapped the photo, the boy moved his eyes, but not his head, to my direction.  Therefore, they got a photo of him facing them but with his eyes turned as far to the side a possible!  One couple whose photo I took this morning gave me a Thai pastry from a box of them that they had.  It was like a small pie—an empanada or a pastie.  It was filled with a nice curry-potato mixture that may have also included some finely ground meat.  It was savory tasting, but also with a bit of a sweet flavor.  UMMM!

The river is up even higher today.  The French couple has moved into the room next to mine since they also had to vacate the other place due to advance reservations.  He had already been to the river when I came out of the room this morning and told me about it.  I went there to walk and to watch people while the weather was still comfortable.  Pleasantly, there was a slight breeze so that I could sit on a bench and read without mosquitoes bothering me.  Therefore, I spent about 2 hours doing that while occasionally looking up at people or at the boats on the river.

The weather has caused me to have a heat rash under the band of my watch.  It’s a cheap ($10) watch with a fabric/Velcro band which I bought at Walmart.  I wear it when traveling, since thieves grabbing watches off the arms of tourists is a common travel problem in many countries.  Someone caused deep purple bruises on the top of my wrist once in Brazil trying to get my watch.  It was moving with a crowd following a concert, so the person could not tell it was a cheap one.  I’m sure he was just hoping that a foreigner would be wearing a nice watch.  Anyway, the way that Velcro holds, he had to dig in and tug hard.  He had no success, however, except that he gave me an interesting story and convinced me I had been right to wear a cheap watch.  Anyway, I’m trying wearing it on the other wrist now in hopes that the rash will go away.

I finished reading Money by Martin Amis late in the afternoon.   It is well written and is quite funny at times.  The big problem I had with it is that the main character was despicable.  I don't really enjoy books where I do not like the main character.  I gave this one 2 1/2 stars (out of 4), but it would have been much higher if the guy had not been such a boozer, womanizer, brute, etc.  Wanting to get rid of the book, I took it to the Australian man who was staying at my old guest house.  He seemed happy to get it.

I considered trying to use the wi-fi quickly at my former guest house to post this.  But I knew it would be wrong and didn't want to take a chance getting caught, either.  I could have asked them to let me do it, but then they would have thought that I gave the book to the Australian just so I could ask about using the Internet.  I decided to wait until Laos to post it.

Tuesday, July 27, 2010--Khong Chiam to Pakse in Laos

No one seemed to be able to give me specifics about how to get to Laos from Khong Chiam.  There is a direct road  that is only 30 km long to the border crossing point of Chong Mek but there is no public transportation on it.  As I wrote earlier, I as told I could take a songthaew to Phibun, the market town for the region, and another from there.  But still there was no specific information about this except that I should be near the market early.  I set my clock for 5:45.  I was at the market this morning at 6:10, but everyone kept trying to get me to pay for a taxi to Chong Mek at four times what taking songthaews would cost.  No one would tell me where or when a songthaew would be there.  Finally, one nice man who was a taxi driver told me where to wait.  And while we were talking a songthaew came.  He put me on it and told the driver I needed to connect to Chong Mek in Phibun.  

We left Khong Chiam at 6:30.  As soon as we arrived in Phibun at 7:30, there was a songthaew to Chong Mek ready to go.  I quickly switched and was on my way.  By 9:35, I had completed all my paperwork at the border and was in Laos in a songthaew waiting to go to Pakse.  It didn't leave until 10:00.  When we arrived, it was in the southern part of town.  I was so tired of riding that I walked the 2-3 km (1.2-1.8 miles) into town.  I was booked into my hotel room by 11:55.

From there, I needed to get money.  I used Thai baht to pay for my songthaew.  I used US dollars to pay for my hotel room.  I had tried to use a credit card to get cash from an ATM, but they now have the same system here that they have in Thailand:  They charge an exorbitant fee for cash withdrawals using foreign bank cards.  Fortunately, I had known from my previous trip to Laos that there are few ATMs and that it is good to have cash.  I brought some with me, so I went to a bank and exchanged cash for kips, the local currency.  The rate I got was less than 1% below the exchange rate shown on xe.com.  I would have had to pay a 1% fee to Visa for getting money from an ATM through them, so I got my local money for about the same cost as using an ATM WITHOUT the added fee of the local bank.  

It's hot here, but it doesn't seem to be THAT hot.  I walked far today in the afternoon.  When I returned to my hotel, the Salachampa, the power was off, however.  I asked if that happens daily, and I was glad to hear that it doesn't.  The hotel is in an old colonial building and has a few bungalows built around the outer perimeter.  I'm staying in a bungalow, since the price was much (about 40%) cheaper than one of the rooms inside the colonial building.

Spending Update:   I spent $687.42 over 27 days in Thailand for an average of $25.46 per day.  Since leaving Texas, I have spent $2489.92 over 83 days averaging $30.00 per day.