This morning we had
breakfast at a place opposite Mr Mo's, having a giggle as a little
tabby cat jumped onto a nearby table between two French girls and
they struggled to find a way to get it off (just pick it up!). After
packing and checking out we walked down to the pier and sat for some
time in the stifling heat, chatting to Josh and his girlfriend, a
British couple who had been on our horror journey up from Cambodia
and had moved into the same guesthouse as us on our recommendation.
When the boats arrived we all hopped in and made the short journey
across to the mainland, then shouldered our packs and trudged up to
the ATMs and bus station. While we were waiting for our bus, we
bumped into Laura and Sam from Chi Phat, who had been staying on Don
Khon, and the Dutch girls we had met a few days ago during our walk
around Don Det.
Most of the people
on our bus were heading up to Vientiane, and they were visibly
surprised and perhaps a tad concerned when the bus stopped and
dropped us off in what certainly appeared to be the middle of
nowhere. But this was Kilometre 48, location of the turn-off to our
destination for tonight - another CBET (community-based ecotourism
project), set up by a group of conservation NGOs in the village of
Kiet Ngong. After we got our bags off the bus, we started trying to
figure out how we were going to make the journey up into the hills to
the village. But although there was a sign pointing up the road to
the CBET, there was no other information and not that many other
people – just a few women cooking chicken over charcoal grills. We
had read that there was a national park office where you could
organise a lift, but there was no sign of the office nor any
indication of how far away it was.
Just as we decided
that our only options were to walk (not appealing, given the heat and
the uncertain distances) or to hitch a ride, a van with a load of
bricks in the back came around the corner. Kate ran over and
convinced the driver to stop – and to give us a lift – and I
chucked the bags in the back and jumped in after them while Kate and
the girls climbed up front with the driver. As we drove up through forest-clad hills along an alternatively dusty and muddy road (passing the
national park office several kilometres from the turn-off), Kate had
a rudimentary conversation with the driver, ascertaining that he was
from Vietnam but not much more. He dropped us off at the turn-off to
the village and refused to take any money from us. We still had a
kilometre to walk along a very muddy road, so the girls changed out
of their flip-flops/thongs and into shoes and we set off.
When we reached the
village, we walked past a few houses, a guesthouse and some very
basic shops and then arrived at the visitor centre, where there were
some displays about the animals and activities in the area, and group
of people watching some sort of lurid Asian costume drama on
television. A lanky man with a slightly gormless expression on his
face came down the steps and greeted us with wide-open arms, saying
Kate's name and introducing himself as Toui, with whom Kate had been
corresponding about a possible guesthouse stay. He apologised
profusely for not replying to her most recent email, but, he
explained, his wife was in hospital and had just given birth to a son
via caesarian section. And then he apologised again, and explained
again. And again.
He suggested that
someone went with him to look at the guesthouse, so while I joined
him on his scooter (he first suggested that I drive, but not being
terribly experienced at riding a scooter on a paved road, let alone a
slippery, muddy one, I declined), Kate and Zoe set off to walk a
kilometre further along the road to the Kingfisher eco-lodge, which
was the other accommodation option Kate had been exploring, and Sarah
stayed in the visitor centre to look after the bags. When we reached
the bungalows, Toui took me up some stairs to the middle one, but
then discovered, to his evident surprise, that it was locked. He went
off and got some keys and then stood there looked at them in
confusion for a while before handing them all over to me. I
miraculously found the right key first go, unlocked the lock and went
in. The bungalow was nice enough – very basic, with a double bed, a
fan and a small bathroom, bit evidently quite new and clean – but
with only the one bed, it seemed too small for us, and as the price
was pretty steep, we couldn't really afford two. The two of us then
stood around awkwardly for a little while before I headed back
downstairs. Was I supposed to walk back now? Thankfully not - after a
while, Toui rejoined me and we hopped back on the bike and rode back
to the visitor centre.
When I got back
there, Sarah and I wandered around the gardens for a while, trying to
get away from Toui's incessant babbling about his wife in the
hospital. Sarah tried to ask him if his son had a name yet, but
although his English seemed pretty good, and although she tried
phrasing the question in a number of different ways, he just looked
at her blankly. I also asked him about the possibility of doing an
elephant ride, and although he agreed that yes, he could arrange
elephant rides, he said nothing more about it and refused to be drawn
further on the subject. By this stage we were beginning to wonder if
Toui was all there...
We wandered away
again and finally managed to successfully detach ourselves, and were
looking in a bush at a lizard Sarah had spotted when we noticed some
movement nearby and looked up to see several elephants ambling into
the garden and offload their passengers at a sort of elephant
passenger terminal. Sarah could barely contain her excitement and it
only got worse when Toui called us over and invited her to touch one
of the elephants. As we watched the group disembark and head for
their cars, I noticed a young local girl who seemed to be in charge
of the operation, and as she made to leave the centre, I asked her if
she organised the elephant rides. As I started to speak, she turned
to me with fear in her eyes, raised her arm as if she was trying to
shield herself from me and hurried away, saying something in Laotian.
Weird...
A little while
later, Kate and Zoe arrived back. Their shoes were caked in the
sticky red mud that we had done our best to walk around on our way
here, but which they had had to walk through to get to and from the
Kingfisher lodge. They reported that the lodge's were too small and
very expensive, so we were going to have to find something else to
stay. There were two places on the road opposite the visitor centre
that had signs saying that they were guesthouses so Kate and I hunted
about for someone to show us the rooms. While we were looking, we saw
Toui ride past on his scooter. What we saw in the guesthouses was so
grim that we walked back to the visitor centre to ask some of the
people we had seen earlier about other places to stay, but when we
got there everyone had disappeared. So now we were alone in the
village with nowhere to stay and no-one to ask about alternatives. We
walked around for a while trying to find someone who spoke English or
knew Toui, but without success. After about an hour or so, it
occurred to me that Toui may not have locked the bungalows –
perhaps we could just let ourselves in and stay there.
I walked back and
just before I got to the bungalows I saw a group of people standing
around a big woodpile, with big sticks in their hands. I figured that
there was probably a snake in there somewhere, and the hand signals
the people frantically started making to me confirmed my supposition.
Indeed, it looked from their signals as if it might be a cobra. I
immediately set to work helping to move the wood, the locals all
looking at me as if I was crazy and making frantic biting signals. I
nodded to let them know I understood and went back to work. I
eventually lifted a large piece of wood and saw a large striped snake
underneath – not a cobra and, I was pretty certain, not venomous. I
quickly put the piece of wood back down and gestured for everyone to
back off. I then lifted the piece of wood off again and grabbed the
snake's tail as it tried to escape. As I lifted the snake clear of
the wood, the locals all piled in and started trying to hit it with
their sticks. So there I was with a very irate 1.5-metre snake
swinging about, mouth wide open, trying desperately to bite me and
several Laotian villagers doing their best to hit it with big sticks.
Dividing my attention between snake and villagers, I waved them all
back again and gestured for one of them to hand over their stick,
which I then used to pin the snake's head on the ground so that I
could get hold of it. An audible sigh ran through the group as I held
up the now slightly calmer snake and one of the villagers stepped
forward to touch it. I gestured to the group that I was going to take
the snake down the road and release it and as no-one seemed to
object, that's just what I did, followed all the way by the guy who
had touched the snake.
Excitement over, I
went across the road to the bungalows. Sure enough, the one that I
had looked in with Toui was open, with the fan and lights still on
and the key in the lock. I walked back up the road to tell the others
the good news and found Kate talking to an old guy on a motorbike
outside the visitor centre. He was one of the elephant handlers, and
on the basis of what we've seen, one of the only people in the
village with any idea of how the whole CBET thing is meant to work.
He had seen Kate and come over to see if she wanted to ride an
elephant, despite the fact that he clearly had only the most
rudimentary English at his disposal. Through the usual mixture of
spoken word, hand gestures, arm waving and notebook action, we
managed to agree a time for us to meet for a ride tomorrow morning.
On the basis of our experiences this far, we weren't keen to stay
another night in the village, so we next tried to ascertain whether a
ride at that time would get us back to the visitor centre in time to
catch the bus to the town of Pakse, from where we hoped to get an
overnight bus to Vientiane. It seemed as though he understood the
question, but his response was to nod and smile and say 'No.'
Repeatedly. No matter how we phrased the question. We eventually took
this to mean yes, thanked him, grabbed our bags and walked back to
the bungalow. With the sun setting over the rather idyllic wetland
that was situated behind the bungalows, everything finally seemed to
have turned out alright. We even managed to spot some little yellow
frogs in the tall grass that filled the wetland.
We walked back into
the village to buy some snacks for tomorrow's journey and then found
somewhere to have a pretty decent meal for dinner. When we got back
to the bungalows we switched to one that had glass in the windows –
in the hope of minimising the mosquitoes – and then stood out on
the little balcony in the pitch dark watching the little glowing
embers of a myriad of fireflies floating over the wetland, before
going inside and getting ready for bed.
After we had been in
the bungalow for a short while we heard a scooter drive up and
someone coming up the stairs outside. I went outside and was
surprised and slightly disconcerted to discover that it wasn't Toui.
He spoke to me in Laotian and then handed over his phone. There was a
woman on the line who spoke pretty good, if heavily accented English.
She explained that I should pay the money for the bungalow to her
brother, who I assumed was the guy before me. I thanked the woman,
handed back the phone and then gave the guy to 100,000 kip that I was
pretty sure would cover the cost of the bungalow. But when I handed
the cash over, the guy seemed far too pleased to see it. He even
hugged me. It just didn't feel right, so I got him to get the woman
back on phone. This was her brother, right? I'm meant to give him the
money, right? It should be 100,000 kip, right? Well, it seemed okay,
so I gave back the phone and the guy hugged me a couple more times.
It even felt as though he kissed my neck, although in hindsight, I
began to think that he had been sniffing me.
But then, finally,
he left and I went back into the bungalow. And then Toui arrived. He
seemed a bit emotional and asked me if someone had let us into the
bungalow. I was a bit concerned that he as going to be angry that we
had just let ourselves in, but when I explained what we had done, he
looked even more pained, said 'I'm crying' and walked over to the
railing around the balcony leaned against it, his head hanging low.
When he had composed himself, he came back and apologised ad said
something about his wife and son in the hospital. I wasn't completely
sure whether his 'tears' were over something that had gone wrong at
the hospital or distress at abandoning us, but as we talked some
more, it appeared to be the latter. But he managed to cheer up a
little and when I said that we had arranged for an elephant ride
tomorrow, he brightened up and said that he would go and find out if
that was all organised.
I went back inside,
but was called back again soon after when Toui returned to announce
that he couldn't find the guy. He apologised some more, talked about
his wife and son in the hospital again and then hugged me a couple of
times and told me that he would be staying in the bungalow next door
if we needed anything in the night. And then I went back inside and
went to sleep. It had been a long day.
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