It was far too long since either Courtney or i had been on a bus and we needed to remedy this. So, we went to another of Laos’ famous ‘Piers’ to catch a small boat over to a bus to take us down to the 4000 Islands.

The Mekong, at it’s widest part is 14km across and within it are loads of islands. Now I’m not really sure if there are actually 4000 to be honest- it looked to me like a bit of guess work but there were certainly quite a few; ranging from a tree sticking out of the water to fully inhabited isles.

On the boat over to the bus was the Annoying American who spoke to everyone like they were his new best friend and were fascinated by everything he had to say. Get out of my traveling face annoying American! When the bus turned up, it was full. It was full as in there was 1 seat left. It was full as in; you’ll need another bus to get the 16 waiting people to the Islands. But this, being Laos, is not what happens. A man appears with a stack of plastic chairs and they are distributed amongst the waiting passengers who then plonk themselves down in the aisle along the bus. This is how they do it in Laos. I was last on so I had a lovely comfy journey virtually on the bus driver’s lap. Every time he changed gear, he whacked my leg. My chair had 3 working legs and one that bent if you put pressure on it which meant I had to hold myself up by the back of his seat or every time he braked I lurched into the 5 men sitting on the dashboard. The driver was also continually shouting angrily into his mobile phone whilst lighting cigarettes for the entire 3 hour journey. Those of you that know I’m a back seat driver can only imagine how difficult it was for me to relax on 3 lurchy legs as the bus veered here and there dodging cattle and motorbikes. In the end I had to listen to an entire Scott Matthews album with my eyes shut just to calm down.
Meanwhile, at the back of the bus where Courtney had managed to get an actual seat next to some hotties, there was a crazy Australian that was ranting at everyone about how tourists were ruining Laos and how it’s not how it used to be and how he’s been coming here for 30 years. Which, for someone against the tourism of Laos, is quite dedicated I thought. He looked like a small sun-dried ginger leprechan and wore a hat with corks, big black boots and khaki shorts and shirt. It was astonishing. There was also a very funny man-couple. I say man-couple rather than Gay couple as was confused as to their relationship. One was definitely; he was very tall with a body like watermelon balancing on 2 stilts and he wore the most fabulous Hawaiian shirts and bizarre silver jewelry adorned each one of his fingers. He wore very tight jeans with a crazy belt and a cowboy hat too small for him. His bleached hair sprouted from under this hat in all directions. His posture was terrible and whenever we saw him (as much as The Annoying American) he looked completely vacant and like he had just been dropped into wherever we were by a space-ship. The reason for him being in Laos was perhaps because of who he was with. Beside him, everywhere we saw him was a small, Laos man, also in a cowboy hat. Now, I assumed first they were lovers. Then I thought he might have been his guide. Then one time I saw them having a bit of a lover’s tiff over a motorbike and I went back to thinking they were he oddest pairing on the gay scene. I wish I’d got a picture of the happy couple. Mostly silent, mostly just wandering around, we saw them everywhere that little man and his blow-up bejeweled scarecrow of a lover… What with them and the Annoying American who looked like the cartoon character of him self trying to arse-lick everyone in sight, I think I was better off squashed against the nonchalant driver up front.

We then arrived at Don Kong, and boated over to Don Det, the smaller Island. It is like one big farm. We wandered around and found a nice little place with 7 bungalows facing the river on the sunset side of the island called Mr K-Y’s. No that’s NOT the reason I stayed there. I just liked the BeerLao crate planters in the front and the fact that it was 20,000 kip per night which is about £1.30 a night between the two of us. It doesn’t have electricity so everything is run on generators from 5-10pm everyday. I was quite excited by this. Until I realised that that would mean no fan. And it was hot. The hottest I had experienced actually. Oh yeah, and my tooth was hurting a bit…

The hut was just what we were looking for; cheap, nice view, 2 hammocks. Done.
Suddenly, the Annoying American turned up to look around the hut next to ours with an English girl he had bestfriended on the bus. Please go away, please go away, please go away! Unfortunately he, and she decided to stay but she took the one next to us and he took one a bit further down the row. AHHHHH HIS VOICE! Everything he said sounded patronising and derogatory. I think he was on a ‘find myself after a mid-life crisis’ trip as he looked about 45 and had this shit-eating grin that filled his angular jaw. His eyes were a bit too open, if that makes sense. Why I hated him so much, I’m not really sure but I’d been so tolerant for the rest of the trip, I needed someone to aim my abuse. Bad luck Annoying American, you won the prize. *Just to make it clear- I never actually made any of these feelings obvious to him. I am more of a coward than a bitch. But my! Courtney and I laughed over it. WAh-haah what an idiot.

We didn’t take enough money to Don Det. There is only electricity for 4 hours a day, there is hardly going to be a cash machine girls. Still, this was Laos. We can survive on peanuts right? Well, yes, but there was nothing to do really in the heat other than eat and drink and read. So we rationed our money for the next few days, eeking it out between all the many delicious restaurants. We got bikes and rode along the bumpiest path in the world down to the bottom of the island, across the old railway bridge onto the next island south; Don Khong. We went to see another waterfall but it was more like major rapids than a pretty waterfall. There were flimsy bamboo bridges across the incredible falls which I later found out were fisherman’s cages. It was all very loud and rushy and looked like the most dangerous thing I’d seen that day.

On the way back, we passed a hand written sign saying ‘CASH- THIS WAY’. What!? How?! The sign led us to a guesthouse called ‘Pans’. We spoke to a lady and asked if we could get some readies. ‘How much do you like?’ she said. We were only staying a couple more days so we thought probably about 500,000 kip should do (about £35) ‘About 500?’ we asked. ‘I’m not sure I can do that much’ came the reply. ‘Well whatever you can do please lovely Lao life-saver lady’. ‘Okay, come back tomorrow at 2pm’
That night we spent the rest of our Kips on LaoLao Whiskey mojitos, Laap and sticky rice whilst watching the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen.

The next day and now the poorest people on the island, we rode the bumpiest path in the hottest sun to the secret Pan’s bank. This time we met Pan himself. ‘How much did you want’ he asked us. ‘About 500 would be great’. ‘I can do 420′ Ok, we thought, funny to be able to 420,000 but not 500,000 kip eh? I mean, the difference is only £5 but hey hey it’s Laos and it’s a bit odd after all. Off Pan goes with Courtney’s Visa card. Back Pan comes. Hey starts laying the money out on the table. 420 US DOLLARS! Whooops. That slight communication problem meant we were now the richest people on the island. We swapped a 100 dollars for Kip and cycled back laughing and throwing money at passers by. We roll deep!

There are children and animals everywhere in Laos. Everywhere. Don Det was no exception. Not begging, not hassling like Thailand or selling stuff like Vietnam, just being children. They all seemed so happy. Like genuinely happy. Playing with stones in cups, jumping off things into rivers, playing with their puppies. I think it might be law that every Lao child has a tiny puppy under their left arm. I’m talking tiny puppy, still shaking from being born. I’m talking puppy that should still be with it’s mother. I saw one little girl feeding a mewing pup popping candy. Those Laos!

I had some tooth trouble. Horrible, crippling tooth pain in a few teeth, on one side whenever I ate, drank, talked or breathed. And only paracetamol to numb the pain with. A nice Lao man gave me something on some cotton wool to numb the pain that worked for a few hours but other than that, I actually thought I might have to leave the island in search of painkillers. I cycled to a nearby island to the ‘clinic’. Well the clinic was a few bare rooms with a couple of beds in and holes for windows. There was a man on a drip on a bare wooden bed with his wife and 2 children asleep next to him. He looked dead. One of the children, about 3 was playing with an empty glass Pepsi bottle and just wandering around the rooms. There eventually appeared a nice lady with a badge on identifying her as the nurse. I explained through the medium of dance and mime that there was a lightening storm party happening in my jaw and that I needed something, anything. I had money! She reached into a cupboard that contained one pot. That pot had paracetamol in it. That’s all there was in this whole clinic. I took some from her, thanked her and rubbed them on my gum, knowing that it would make no difference whatsoever.

A lovely NZ couple Jess and Tim that we had met after our bike tour in Pakse turned up on the island and during some drinks that night I discovered that Tim had had a similar dental ailment and had a single anti-inflammatory in his bag. It was like fucking Christmas.

When the generators all shut down at 10pm, something amazing happens on Don Det. Obviously, it gets very quiet and peaceful, but with no light polution, the Milky Way is so clear. I had never seen it before and so many beautiful stars took my breath away totally. Ahhhh the lovely Milky Way.

The next day, Courtney, Jess, Tim and I decided to do a bit of Tubing, Don Det stylee. This involves getting in a boat with you tube, going 4km upstream and then floating back at a snail’s pace to the beach from which we came. ‘When you see the small islands here, make sure you keep to the left handside okay?’ advised the boatman. If we strayed into the right hand side, there would be trouble. Rapid and waterfall type trouble.
So up we went and back we floated. In the sun, in the quiet. Twas very relaxing if not a tiny bit boring. Why we didn’t take 2 bottles of BeerLao each, I have no idea. As we neared the beach, I was very good at keeping left. A bit too left. So much left in fact that i got caught in a rip that suddenly swept me fast past the beach. I kicked and kicked and paddled so damn hard with my flip-flops but it was useless. Then i started to panic, which is, as we all know, the one thing you shouldn’t do when you are in trouble in water. I couldn’t breathe and the fucking tube was stopping me being able to swim but If I let it go, I’d just sink, I knew it. Courtney and Jess by this time had got to the beach but Tim was a bit closer to me and I screamed at him to ‘Please!!!!! Don’t leave me!!!!’ It was all very dramatic, let me tell you. Bless him he did, and eventually he caught up with me and, exhausted I clung to the crotch of his trousers (only thing i could grab) as we both fought the current to get back to the shore. We ended up a long way from the beach but, luckily, no where near the rapids. I don’t think I had been that tired or shaky before. But for those 15 adrenaline filled minutes, I forgot all about my tooth. Thank you Tim, for saving my life.

That night, more delicious laos food was taken, more BeerLao drunk, vodka shots endured, cards played and a 15,000 kip spliff purchased and smoken (new word) at Josh’s Place, the Israeli restaurant. I liked it there and the food was top-notch.

I didn’t sleep a freaking wink due to my tooth that night. It was time to leave. Gutted.

The next day we bused it back to Pakse, checked into a lovely hotel, enjoyed the first hot shower in over a week, ate great curry at Nazim’s on the strip and then I went on a drugs mission. I was after antibiotics.

I found out the word for ‘dentist’ and got some guy to write it down for me. I found a tuk tuk driver to aid me on my mission. Showing him the word, he nodded and I climbed on board, clutching my jaw for effect. He took me to a tiny house the other side of Pakse. On the door was a cartoon picture of a tooth drawn on in what looked like blood.
‘Wait here’ I said and went inside… Inside, a rusty chair served as an operating area and the nice ‘dentist’ had a look at me. He banged each of my teeth with a metal hammer and when I yelped he nodded slowly and said ‘Root root’ then took me to a fading picture on the wall of a tooth and pointed to the root. ‘Yeah… I kind of know that’ I replied and politely declined his offer of pulling it out. ‘Painkillers?’ I said, again doing my ‘it fucking hurts’ mime. He pulled out a box of Paracetamol and I did a big sigh.

I did, however, find a French back street pharmacist with a cabinet filled with drugs. For him, probably completely illegally, I bought Amoxicillin, anti inflamatories, valium and some strange numbing patches to stick on my face. Laos rocks!

The last bus of my trip beckoned. Pakse to Bangkok. 17 hours. No problem.
In Bangkok I checked into the Novatel hotel at the airport and watched movies all day from the bath until my 6pm flight to see my little bro in Sydney. Asia, you have been great.

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