4,000 Islands, Lao ponderings.

The time I spent in Laos can be roughly divided into three sections according to the groups of people I was travelling with. First week and a half spanning the time in the slow boat, Luang Prabang, Phonsavanh and beginning of Vang Vieng I spent with a steady, fairly academic group. Vang Vieng and Vientiane was a group that was slightly crazier, more coffee-consuming and book-loving. In 4,000 Islands I randomly met a friend from home, who had friended a big group of people living next door to him, as well as a guy who's friends with one of my good friends. The world is small.

Anyhow, the last days in Vientiane included amazing French and Japanese food, midnight bowling on Valentine's day, and numerous refills of Lao coffee at Joma's. Vientiane ended up being very expensive for me, but I couldn't help but to eat all the delicious food available! The bus ride to 4,000 Islands took 12 hours and was in a sleeper bus with bunkbeds suitably sized for Lao people. I spent the night soundly asleep, most of the time spooning with my bunk-mate, a lovely Swedish girl, as there was no other way to fit to the bed space otherwise. At least I didn't have to share with a local old man!

Siphandon, or 4,000 Islands, is a group of tiny islands in Mekong just before Cambodian border. I stayed in Don Det, which is a paradise full of lovely small riverside bungalows with hammocks in the front. I spent the days reading, tubing (much more relaxed than the Vang Vieng party version), and going on a trip to see freshwater dolphins that live in a deeper section of Mekong, as well as the biggest waterfalls in SE Asia. The internet connection on the island was sloooooow, so no reason to spend time for blogging there! My favourite spot on Don Det was a small organic veggie restaurant called the Veggie Patch. It was run by a French couple and they farm all the veggies for cooking. They serve only one (or two with good luck) dishes a day, so typically no choice on what you're eating... but let me tell you, those veggie cannelloni with amazing salad and homebaked bread were delicious!

The departure from Don Det came all too early when I got a text message informing me that I've been kindly sponsored flights to Europe to visit my boyfriend, and the flight out will be in five days from Hong Kong. Booking a cheap flight from BKK to HKG turned impossible in the backwaters of Lao - mainly because my credit card kept getting declined (not a new problem with Asian flight operators). So throwing any previous plans to chill out aside, I booked the first ticket to Bangkok and took a 20 hour journey on a boat, a minivan, a bus and finally a nightbus to buy a ticket (which worked out in about 5 minutes and the service came with a lot of smiles). In Laos, there is a weird way of always ferrying people with minivans to a bigger bus which takes you to another bus, and then to a boat, and a bus, and a minivan, etc, and every so often you need to change your ticket to a new one, so there will be lots of little pieces of paper and lots of changes. There also has been rucksacks falling off the top of minivans, and friendly people trying to carry rucksacks to wrong directions. But in Laos PDR People Don't Rush - it always works out in the end -which sort of leads me to general ponderings about Laos.

When the bus crossed the Laos-Thailand border, the change was drastic. Suddenly all green well-farmed rice paddies, nice cars, painted houses, flags, ad boards, colour. Somehow I enjoyed Laos a lot, although it is a poor country. I enjoyd the lack of fake watches and sunglasses on the markets, the lack of supermarket chains, and the somewhat simple and rustic lifestyle. Everything was relaxed and slow - a good way to deal with things in my opinion, especially when it's so hot. The downsides of the country were obvious though; there were lots of children begging, and it turns out that the schooling actually costs quite a lot. The lack of education, the lack of healthcare, the lack of everything I guess... but still people appeared happy.

To understand the Lao history better, I read the Bamboo Palace by Christopher Kremmer, and it described some of the places I've visited in scary detail alhtough his experiences were from 15 years ago. Everything has changed in those years, but in the end, very little. Also, the description of the communist overtaking and rule made me wonder - I saw only a very few communist signs; flags and the newspapers were communist, one or two massively pretentious buildings were obviously owned by the state, but I never saw any police or army personnel or never had a feeling that I was in a communist country. It all just makes me want to learn more and above all, return very soon to explore more!