Bamboo Island, Cambodia

I was told about this place by a few friends that I HAD to go to Bamboo Island in Cambodia.   What I didn’t know what that it’s not advertised to tour companies to stay at so we didn’t exactly know how to get there in the off-season.  A lot of people go there on the island hopping tours to stop at and have lunch on it’s beautiful beach with calm, warm waters not knowing that you can actually stay there and stay in some cottages on the other side of the island on the beach.  Since Damien and I didn’t know that we could get their via the island’s cottages own boat for a lot less, after a lot of hassle, we took the island hopping tour to drop us off there.  Now, let’s talk about one crazy-ass boat ride.  Off-season is not meant to have casual boat rides.  With the storms coming in and out, the ocean was CRAZY.  It’s not like we were in a little row boat, this thing could hold 30+ people, it was two stories, it should have taken those waves in stride.  Well, the boat was riding parallel with the waves so we were swaying side to side at over 45 degree angles where the water came up to the edge of the boat about to spill in.  Madness.  Several people got seasick and there were a few lucky of us that weren’t hanging over the sides.  Once we got to a place where the water was calmer, many of us went swimming just to get off of the boat and feel calm for a little while.  Afterwards, we did go to Bamboo Island for lunch where I ended up having one of the best grilled fish I’ve ever had.  Afterwards, Damien and I stayed on the beach for about 4 days just walking, swimming, reading, resting, petting the cat that wouldn’t leave the bungalow, watching movies on our laptops, adding to the coral wind chimes at the end of the beach where others had contributed their portion, laid in hammocks, and I built a dream catcher out of things I found on the beach.  Considering electricity is only available from 6pm-12am, this place is meant for nothing but pure relaxation.

My one complaint that I shouldn’t even be complaining about (that I NEVER thought I would complain about) is that the sound of pounding waves became annoying to me.  It’s not like those nice, little, relaxation CD’s you can play softly in the background as you fall asleep.  This was the real thing and it is LOUD.  Crazy loud!  I couldn’t sleep it was so loud and I just wanted to turn the volume down or head back to the mountains. 

Noise or not, it’s a gorgeous stay on a very remote island.

An employee enjoying a swing at sunset 

Flip flop hammock, just some of the flip flops found on the beach

Storm rolling in

Been There Don Det

This is the look of disappointment.

Don Det… sleepy little island of Don Det located in the 4,000 islands.  Granted, I was there in the off-season so not a lot going on.  It’s a one road “town” that doesn’t even have a paved road and the width of the street is about 15’ wide and maybe an eighth of a mile long with the shops and restaurants and probably half a mile long with all the guest houses.  The rest of the island are crops and water buffalo roaming around.  The first day my friend, Damien and I got there, we decided we needed a drink so we do our own little pub crawl to get to know the town.  It ended up being a lot of fun and a great way to get to know the town especially the barbeque that we had a few nights in a row at a restaurant that I don’t remember the name of but it’s the only one and is owned by a British gentleman and his wife.  Some of the best bbq I have had in a long time!  I definitely recommend it! 

Damien and I finally got around to doing something cultural and rented bicycles to ride around on the two islands.  It’s quite a lovely trip along relatively flat dirt roads through fields, crops, more forested areas, and through small towns.  Not too many locals were seen in the middle of the day (they’re smart enough not to be physically exerting themselves in the middle of the day while it’s super hot) but a few were found here and there in the fields or riding their tractor/car along with some monks going to and from town.  Most of all, it’s just nice to get on a bike and ride with the wind blowing through my hair and being able to explore the island freely. 

On our way to the tip of Don Khon, I spot some kids in a field where their parents were working and they were running with the twirly like toys laughing.  I didn’t have my camera handy, so I took my mental snapshot.  On our way back we went through the same area only to run into these kids on the road, one of them not even wearing any bottoms.  They stop us and start pointing at our water bottles outside of our backpacks, they wanted our water.  I’m standing there thinking, “Really, water?  Not money or toys?”  So we hand them our half full bottles of water.  Then they make a gesture pointing to our bags and their mouths to ask if we had food or candy.  Neither of us did so we didn’t have anything more to give.  I ask about their toys to have them demonstrate how it works and they oblige my request.  One of the older girls points to my camera and wants her picture taken.  So she poses with her twirly toy and rushes to look at the photo I’ve just taken.  The others want to pose too (except for one boy who I think was disappointed that we didn’t have much to give – see his photo above) and look at their photo .  Shortly, their mother was calling them and they all go running down the road with smiles on their faces and their twirly toys whirring in the wind.  It’s the simplest things that make these kids so grounded and whole-heartedly happy... except for that boy, he just wanted food.  

A little dose of Don Det lifestyle

What a portion of the day included, relaxing.  This cat obviously knows cat people.

The son of the owner at our favorite bbq restaurant

Kids with homemade twirly toys asking for water and food

Hearing their mother calling them...

and running home.

Now, the unfortunate part is that Laos is a very poor country and many of the children have to contribute to the family's survival so they often have a lot of responsibility and are quite resourceful.  

This girl walked up and down this steep hill at least 10 times while I was sitting there drinking a Coke,
and she was getting full buckets of water from the river for her family.  She couldn't be older than 7 years old.

Repairing his homemade sling shot.

Pakse

Not even ONE photo was taken.

Honestly, I’m not entirely sure why I even came to Pakse, Laos.  I think it was because I thought that I would rent a motorcycle and tour around for a few days, but I realized I didn’t have enough time once I got there because I slept half the day after my bus ride from Thakek after taking those sleeping pills on the “overnight” bus.  So I did the one thing I could do, go to a sauna and massage place.  I found a place that wasn’t as rural as the other place in Vientiane but this place was just a good but a with a little less charm.  Clinic Keo Ou Done is not in the main part of the town but a short tuk-tuk ride away and the prices are just as cheap as the other place, like $4 massage and $3 for sauna.  The cool part about this place besides the great massage is that women in the sauna area used it as a their own personal luxury spa.  Since the sauna is divided between men and women, between sauna sessions, they would wash their hair, put a deep conditioner in, go in the sauna, come out and rinse.   Then they would do a sugar scrub treatment, wash off and then put a lotion on, then go back into the sauna.  In and out, they would do different types of grooming. I felt like I was on the inner circle of knowing how Asian women care for themselves.  Is this how they look so young?  Or so slender?  I need more information!  I want in on the secret.  But safe to say that this and regular massages have something to do with it, so I’m already working on it.

Oh, and this town has GREAT noodles!  Two big places on the main drag have really good noodles, Xuan Mai Café and Jasmin’s Café.  Super delicious!

Kong Lo Caves - The Real Adventure

The Kong Lo caves are… wow!  Incredible!  7.5km into a mountain!  That’s over 4.5 miles, yo!  INTO solid rock and water.  And it’s pitch black!  I kept having thoughts that Gollum should be spotted at any moment out of my peripheral vision and I would spot his beady little eyes with the light of my headlamp.  OR that this would be the worse place to be in an earthquake.  OR to be around rabid bats.  OR for the boat to capsize in the pitch black on a river miles into a mountain.  BUT it was thrilling and unbelievably interesting.  I’ve never been to a place like it.  It's an amazingly crazy, beautiful, wondrous, thrilling and scary place! The cavernous spaces inside are often like being inside a cathedral.  Huge and vast spaces, small and pointy spaces, one right after the other.  We boated upstream along the winding river and took in a little walk to see some stalactite and stalagmite  formations lit up for us and continued upstream.  Safe to say that my jaw was open wide during the entire trip.  We’re not talking about some little cave, it was a place where people lived during the war and hid out in.  Entire villages could easily hide there.  At one point, we did run some ground, which I gotta admit is a bit scary.  I think I was more worried about my backpack that had ALL of my electronics and memory cards in it, but after a few minutes of our guides pushed us off of the high spot, and we were back in the water.  We finally reach the end of the cave and spot some light.  Big glorious light with beautiful jungle all around it.  Quite a spectacular relief of sight!  Then our guides turned us around and went back through the caves to get back to the beginning.   

Should you ever come to Laos, this is a MUST SEE.  It’ll blow your mind!  

Inside the cave where we could walk around

Before going in... 

Looking in.. yes, it gets pitch black rather quickly

Coming out the other end...

Safely back on the other side of the river

Stylin' it up!

Cave entrance.  Yes, we travel upstream first

Thakek - The Town

Million dollar smiles

There really isn't much to see in Thakek that the average tourist would be interested in.  There really are no "sights" to see.  Since I was stuck there for a day, I decide to go and explore this town on foot.  What I found were a lot of people really curious about me as they don't typically see tourists wandering on foot in the locations I wandered into (local villages waaay off the beaten path), a town teeming with life and old, and unappreciated, beautiful, and broken-down architecture that was once occupied by the French.

I was met with a lot of curiosity, smiles and two particularly big smiles from a man and his baby son who had the biggest smiles I've ever seen, the kind where you can see every tooth in their mouth because they smiled with all their heart.  I bought some fruit from them after an exhausting day of walking around and checking out their town.  We had lovely conversation and continued to do whatever I could to get his baby to smile that smile.  It was pretty easy.  He's a happy baby.

Another great day in a town that I initially had zero expectations of.  I love those kinds of days.

He really wanted his picture taken.  Mr. Cool...

And the boy's little brother wasn't sure he wanted his picture taken
These kids I approached because they had a tiny kitten that kept mewing near their home.  They were watching
it and I just wanted to make sure the kitten was ok.  I hope it still is...

This is the best!  It started pouring rain when I was in this square and these boys started running up and down through
the town's long fountain just having a great ol' time... of course their mother was on the side yelling at them to get down.

Proud of their achievement.

Herd of goats all over the neighborhoods eating