🚀 go-pugleaf

For Veterans. Some kids remember. 

Overland Laos to Cambodia

George Moore
http://www.slip.net/~georgem
georgem@slip.net

San Francisco, June, 1997

There has been recently another question in the Internet newsgroup
rec.travel.asia about the Lao - Cambodia border. This file is based
on the exchange Christopher Arzt and I had about it in
rec.travel.asia in late 1996. If he and I had met in southern Laos
during our respective visits there, we would certainly have convinced
one another to look into this trip more closely! Maybe a future
traveler will find some information in our exchange. 

This trip is clearly not secure or safe, but local people make the
crossing. Maybe a foreigner will also pull it off one of these days?
Where guns are concerned, those who have not visited Cambodia are in
for a surprise:  everywhere you go in Cambodia, there are guys
walking around with AK-47 automatic rifles, more descriptively known
as machine guns. B-40 rocket launchers sometimes back them up. That's
just the way it is. If this idea bothers you, don't even dream of
getting off the beaten path in Cambodia. 

About the new boats on the Mekong River, I looked into it again
during my visit earlier this year (1997). Boats to Kampong Cham and
Kratie still leave daily, at about 7am. There are also boats all the
way up to Stung Treng, but they operate only during those three or
four months when the river is at it's highest level, roughly August
to November. Soldiers with AKs and B-40s ride on top. Keep your head
down if shooting starts.

If anyone actually does this trip (who will be the first?!), please
upload your story into rec.travel.asia. Attached to the bottom of
this file is a news article from April of 1997 which underlines
Christopher's comments about the unpredictability to be encountered
in the countryside around Ratanakiri. Also, check in with the new
English language newspaper in Phnom Penh called the Bayon Pearnik.
The editors are following travel stories in detail. A number of
travelers have now apparently done the whole of the road, on
motorbikes, between Stung Treng and Phnom Penh, including Mondulkiri
on Hwy 7. They reported no problems. But this is most definitely not
a trip for the timid.

I attach also the GNN article by Stan Stesser about his boat trip up
to the Lao border from Stung Treng in 1994 or 1995. Also, there is a
report about travel in southern Laos from Mr Phannara Aing. If a
reader has news on this thread, please upload it to rec.travel.asia!
--------

George Moore <georgem@slip.net> wrote in article
Christopher Arzt <CArzt@worldnet.att.net> wrote in article
Wolfgang Duechting wrote:
Hi folks,
If you enter Cambodia at Southern Laos, is there a "safe"
Mekong-boat going to Phnom Penh? Has anybody been at
that border? Wolfgang Duechting, Hamburg

Very bad idea....
First of all, there's no legal border crossing.
Second of all, the river (or anywhere for that matter) N of
Kracheh is not a safe place to be. When I was in
Ratanakiri in April (1996), all river traffic between Kracheh
and Strung Treng was closed for a couple of weeks because
of Khmer Rouge (which might just mean some local bandits)
shooting up boats on the river. The whole area up there in
Stung Treng and Preah Vihear, west of (and including
the westernmost area of) Ratanakiri is really
pretty dodgy.  If you go, bring a big gun.

Chris
CArzt@worldnet.att.net

For those who haven't been there yet, Christopher Arzt is
joking when he suggests carrying a gun. Foreigners do not 
carry guns in Cambodia. It's the tradition. You will never win
a gun battle in Cambodia, ever. Don't even dream of carrying
a gun there.

On the other hand, I gladly upload what I know about this
trip across the Lao-Cambodian border. It is going to be
possible in the near future. Maybe Wolfgang will be the first
to upload his trip report to rec.travel.asia?

Firstly, the Lao side of the border:  note that #1 Joe
Cummings, the author of many Lonely Planet books
and the author of the new LP on Laos, has once again
scooped everyone and written it all down. See page
252 of the new August of 96 LP on Laos, "To/From
Cambodia". From Hat Xai Khun, opposite the east
shore of Don Khong, it's 35 km to Voen Kham near
the Cambodian border. The crossing between Tha Boei
(Lao side) and Phumi Kampong Sralau (Cambodian side)
is open to Lao and Cambodians only at the moment but
Champassak Province officials are hoping to make this
an international access point for foreigners in the near
future".

Okay, so Cummings does go on to say that "The Cambodian
side of the river falls roughly on the border of Stung Treng and
Preah Vihear provinces, an area known for occasional Khmer
rouge and bandit activity", but it's only "occasional", isn't it?

In short, it is no problem at all to get from Pakxe, in
southern Laos, to the border itself. Wat Phu Champassak is a
must see, and a number of people have already written about
their trips to Don Khong, the big island in the middle of the
Mekong. See the latest LP map on page 249. It is no problem
to get there from Pakxe.

In the worst case, when you get to Don Khong, if you
decide that you do not want to cross the border after all, you
can always go back to Pakxe and then get in a truck or share
taxi for the trip to the Thai border just west of Pakxe, or to the
Vietnamese border at Lao Bao. Transport in and out of Pakxe is easy.

As Christopher noted above, and I must agree with him,
the real problem on this trip is what happens when you get
onto the Cambodian side of the border. The boat trip from the
border to Stung Treng does not seem to be a big problem,
(see Stan Stesser's article below) but between Stung Treng
and Kratie... That is the hard part, in my opinion.

Last year (1995), I made it as far north as Sambor, a
small town on the riverbank about 50 km north of Kratie.
See my articles "Road Warriors" and "A Traffic Ticket".

After a look at the road which continued north to Stung
Treng, I decided that it was way too dangerous. Too quiet.
Also, I heard the stories of a couple of foreigners in Phnom
Penh who had tried it and had a very bad experience (see
my story "Two French Monks"). There are too many spots
on that road for a quiet hold up. The road is moreover in
very bad shape.

In rec.travel.asia a couple months ago, there was the
story from someone who had taken a boat on the river between
Stung Treng and Kratie. An overnight trip, at least. If you end up
overnight in the Cambodian countryside, my recommendation
is to stay inside your hut and not move until the sun comes up.
Cambodian soldiers drink way too much, and they inevitably
want to invite the visiting foreigner out for a drink. Things go
only downhill from there. Stay in your hut, no matter what. Tell
those very friendly soldiers that you are sick or something.

To bypass all of this, there is always the small airplane
between Stung Treng and Phnom Penh. No problem there. 
It flies maybe three or four times a week now. 

Another question is visa stamps:  while it is not necessary
in Cambodia and Laos to specify your entry and exit points, as
it is in Vietnam, there is still the question of a legal entry or
exit
stamp upon entering or exiting either Laos or Cambodia. Can you
get such stamps at the border crossing between Tha Boei (Lao
side) and Kampong Phumi Sralau (Cambodian side)? I do not
think that this is possible at the moment.

If the Lao and Cambodian governments see that more and
more foreigners want to make this crossing, they may eventually
provide their local officials with official stamps for foreigners,
but for the time being, it does not seem that this is the case.
Which means that, if you cross today, you will be illegal and
without official passport stamps.

For this reason, my view is that it makes more sense to cross
from Laos into Cambodia. Lao officials are notorious for looking at
your documents. In Cambodia, on the other hand, it is likely that you
will get all the way from the border to Phnom Penh without anyone
asking to look at your documents. Avoid policemen and Army guys,
in any case. Maintain a low profile, be friendly, keep moving and
don't forget to visit the Immigration Office in Phnom Penh, where
you must be entirely open and forthcoming about what you just did.
Cambodian Immigration guys are not going to throw you into the
T3 prison. They may fine you, however.

Lastly, in case it needs to be said again, there is now a fast boat
between Kratie and Phnom Penh. No problem at all. It stops for an
hour or so in Kampong Cham. Plenty of good food on that boat too.
Takes about 6 hours. Enjoy.

Don't forget to visit the temple complex called Phnom Sambok,
about 20km north of Kratie. It is an interesting place. The Tripitaka
paintings on the walls are excellent.

George Moore
georgem@slip.net

 Heh, yeah the comment on the gun was a joke. Of course, carrying
a gun around there would seem to be a seriously losing proposition.

Regarding the Lao side of the border, Cummings didn't scoop
everybody. I hitched down to Hat Xai Khun.  I don't think there are
any major security problems around there. I was more worried about
all of the (probably) illegal loggers than anything else. Continuing
on down the road to the border would be no problem at all, though
I'd be somewhat worried very near the border. (In the areas
considerably east of there, along the border, I was warned by many
people on both sides that it isn't safe.)

As for the Cambodian side of the border, George has a higher level
of risk acceptance than I do :)  After -lots- of talking to people, I
decided to stop at Kampong Cham. The boat from Kampong Cham
to Kratie seemed probably OK, I would take it, but the road much
less so. And traveling outside of Kratie and to Sambor... not for
me :)  Of course shootings are only occasional, but a 1% chance
of death means you should plan on traveling to only about 100
areas in you lifetime....  There are really all sorts of  shootings
that
go on that you never hear about.  In the 2 weeks I was in Ratanakiri,
the province that everybody in Cambodia calls the safest in the
country, there was a taxi ambush on the main road (banb lung
-lomphat) by a group of 10-15 Khmer Rouge, 2 killed, and a
motorcyclist killed on the road from bang lung - Voun Sai/Virochey.
These are the only  roads to travel on - if you go there, you'll take
them (and the amount of road traffic is extremely low, we're not
talking 2 in a million here).  At the same time, traffic on the river
from Kratie to Strung Treng was held up for 2 weeks because
of people  shooting at boats. These are only the incidents that I
heard of, of course :) I'm extremely suspicious of the claim that
the area from Strung Treng town to the Lao border is safe.

On the other hand, I'll probably get shot in New York tomorrow :)
Whatever risks you want to take, go for it, just be aware beforehand
of what they are.  Don't just take some cavalier traveler's comment
that it's all very safe; sometimes it isn't.

Chris
CArzt@worldnet.att.net

Thanks for the news from Ratanakiri. The fast boat ride from Kampong
Cham to Kratie is no problem. The river there is wide and deep, even 
in the dry season. I visited Sambor and Phnom Sambok and the roads
right around Kratie last year (1995) and didn't run into any
problems. Met a couple of NGO workers too, who were living there. The
situation may have changed,
but I have a feeling that we are both talking about what goes on
further north.

I see that you too met the "Road Warriors", the logging trucks. Did
you get any pictures of them? I was afraid to lift my camera when
those guys rolled by. Get off the road when you see them coming,
because they don't stop for anything. Usually too, there is a small
problem with their brakes. Road Warriors. Straight out of the film!
Maybe you could upload a photo?

Hitchhiking in southern Laos? Don't be shy, please tell all!
Everyone around here wants to read about such things. What is the
name of that border crossing with Thailand just west of Pakxe? I too
crossed there. It is open to foreigners now.

About the river between Stung Treng and the border at Phumi Kampong
Sralau, I got the story from Stan Stesser (see below), another guy
like Joe
Cummings who has written extensively about his travels in SE Asia. He
did a trip last year all the way down the Mekong from China and had
some Web pages up on the GNN server during this past year.
Unfortunately, they seem to have disappeared now (see below). He flew
up to Stung
Treng, then took a boat up to the border and back. He didn't report
any shooting, but it is clear that the situation changes all the
time. Same goes elsewhere. Rural banditry has a long tradition in
Cambodia (see my article "Rural Banditry in Cambodia").

When you were in Stung Treng, did you visit the boat docks? What was
your impression? Old boats only? Any fast boats? Did you ask anyone
about a trip to the border? What was the response?

Thanks too for the news about the roads around Stung Treng. A friend
of mine was up there alone on a motorbike last year and toured the
same roads. He too reported a lot of "quiet", until those two
soldiers stepped out of some bushes and waved him to a stop with
their AKs. They turned out to be friendly and simply curious about a
crazy foreigner who was driving around up there alone on a
motorcycle, but you never know. Next time, it could be some KR guys
or some bandits who don't like foreigners. It is impossible to
predict. I agree fully that travelers should know the risks before
they go. There are many risks on this particular trip.

Another thing that may be of serious concern is the smuggling
problem in Cambodia. There were a lot of bags and soldiers on
the boats I was on. No one paid any attention to me at all.
There was never any police check of documents, or inspections of what
was on the boats. Most of it was of course simply the baggage of the
passengers, but... Who knows? It is known that the border with Laos
is
"open", in the sense that local people cross there. I guess everyone
understands the implications. The gunfights, maybe drugs and/or
contraband are involved? The idea sends a chill down my spine. Yeah,
before you go to places like this, you must know the dangers. I hope
someone can use threads like this. 

How many hotels in Stung Treng? How much is the airline ticket? What
is there to see around town, and outside town? If you could write
more about this. Another interesting thing for Internet users is a
simple search for keyword "Ratanakiri". A couple of interesting pages
pop up.

In Kratie, there are three hotels on the wharf where the boats dock.
I stayed at a place called the 25 December 1978 guest house and
restaurant for 8 dollars per night. Huge rooms, and good food
downstairs. The owner and his wife walked out of Cambodia to Vietnam
in 1978 and returned with the Vietnamese Army. They got a laugh at my
questions about the safety of the local roads. "Of course they are
safe!", they said. Compared to what they saw during the KR years, the
roads around Kratie now are peaceful. 

Don't miss a visit to Phnom Sambok, about 20km north of town. Any
moto taxi driver in Kratie will take you there. Sambor was not really
worth the trouble, but there is an ancient stupa there. The most
interesting thing about that day
trip was to discover the state of the road itself. All the bridges
were long gone. Potholes large enough to swallow whole cars. 

But the local people were doing share taxi trips from Kratie up to
Stung Treng. I
was not brave enough to try my luck with that one. The owner of the
25 December 1978 guest house assured me that it was no
problem that week. His word carried weight with me, but so too did
the stories I heard in Phnom Penh about that road. I returned on the
boat back down the river to Kampong Cham. From what I understand,
there is nothing in particular to see along the road between Kratie
and Stung Treng anyway, so the risk was not worth the reward.

The border between Cambodia and Laos was open to foreigners while
UNTAC was in Cambodia (92 and 93), and it is likely, in my opinion
that it will soon once again be open to foreigners. Foreigners must
even now be showing up at that crossing, asking for passport stamps.
I don't know, but I think we may read some stories about this
crossing soon. Those intrepid western backpackers, they don't sit
around, do they!? Hitchhiking in southern Laos! I imagine that
readers could take more on that angle too.

Joe Cummings' new book on Laos is incredible. Is there some place he
has not been? I'll bet there is a new LP on Cambodia coming out soon,
where there will be more details about this border crossing. But
travelers should not have any illusions about security and safety if
you want to do off the beaten path trips in Cambodia. So many AKs
carried by so many underpaid and badly disciplined soldiers, aye! It
is entirely unpredictable sometimes what will be around the next
corner of the road, or the river.

Other reports:

PHNOM PENH, April 25, 1997 (AFP) - Three foreign aid workers were
Thursday attacked by renegade soldiers, possibly from the Khmer Rouge
guerrilla movement, but escaped unscathed in the remote northeastern
Cambodian province of Rattanakiri, official sources said Friday.

The three -- two American women and one French man -- along with two
Cambodian staff working for the USAID-funded Cambodia Assistance to
Primary Education (CAPE), were fired on while driving southwest of
the provincial capital of Banlung late Thursday, the sources said.

Their four-wheel drive vehicle, which the sources said was clearly
identified as belonging to the aid agency, was then surrounded by
heavily-armed uniformed troops and all were robbed after being
repeatedly questioned about what Cambodian political party they were
affiliated with.

The five were released unharmed only after insisting they had no ties
with any political party, the sources said, adding their vehicle was
set alight and destroyed.

The US embassy confirmed the attack had occurred but said the
incident appeared to be pure robbery and not politically related.

However, sources familiar with the incident said it appeared similar
to an April 16 attack on a group of military police also near
Banlung, about 335 kilometers (200 miles) northeast of Phnom Penh.

In that incident, the military police were forced to give up their
weapons by unidentified uniformed soldiers who one witness said
appeared to be a bandit unit of Khmer Rouge made up of indigenous
tribal people.

The military police were also robbed and repeatedly questioned about
their political affiliation, the sources said.

Political tension between Cambodia's two main ruling parties has been
running high since early last week, when the formerly communist
Cambodian People's Party (CPP) said it would support a renegade
movement of the royalist FUNCINPEC party.

The renegade royalists want to sack party president First Prime
Minister Prince Norodom Ranariddh and abolish the National United
Front, a political alliance set up to contest upcoming scheduled
elections.

The creation of the front has been cheered by the Khmer Rouge, which
has said it would support the alliance if FUNCINPEC broke all ties
with the CPP, the Maoists' arch enemies.

The foreigners attacked Thursday were identified as French national
Patrick Fayland, American Julie Paloma and her sister, who was not
named. Further details were not immediately available.

mvl/kf

Stung Treng, Cambodia 
By Stan Stesser
----------------------------------------------------------------------
--
<Picture: EVERYONE WHO LOVES to travel has a city of dreams
somewhere, a place so remote, one that sounds so romantic, that you
say to yourself, "Someday, somehow, I'm going to see it." For me,
that place was Stung Treng, the northernmost town in Cambodia,
located right on the Mekong River just a couple hours away by boat
from the Laotian border.

Stung Treng is on a part of the Mekong rarely visited by Westerners.
To add to the romance, it is completely isolated, except for a
twice-weekly flight from Phnom Penh. The roads that lead to it are
nothing but rutted dirt tracks, impassable during the rainy season.
And while there is a passenger boat connecting Stung Treng with
Kratie, which is halfway down the Mekong toward Phnom Penh,
foreigners are warned against it because of dangers from bands of
Khmer Rouge guerrillas and from bandits.

For years, I've been dreaming about Stung Treng. But then I made a
big mistake. I actually went there.

My plan was this: I would fly to Stung Treng, spend a few days, and
return by boat over a three-day period, the first day to Kratie, the
second to Kampong Cham, which is a fairly substantial city on the
Mekong, and finally back to Phnom Penh.

Lest anyone think that I'm a traveler of some courage, let me deny
that vigorously at the outset. I choose airlines based on their
safety records, take a sack of drugs for every possible malady, and
consider a cold-water shower to be roughing it. But my sense of
bravado in Southeast Asia has been built up because of the many times
that I've successfully negotiated the greatest danger of all -- to my
mind far exceeding any threat from the Khmer Rouge. I am speaking, of
course, about crossing the street in Bangkok.

<Picture: IN MOST CIRCUMSTANCES, Thais are rigidly controlled in
their behavior by both cultural values and Buddhist beliefs. They are
supposed to be polite, smiling constantly and never raising their
voice. They dutifully obey and care for their parents and elderly
relatives. They gain merit in the next life through charitable acts
toward monks and the poor. They revere their king.

It is only behind the wheel of a car that Thais are freed from any
constraint. They drive like maniacs, finding a 50-foot gap between
themselves and the next car sufficient to floor the accelerator.
They'll drive on the wrong side of the street, on sidewalks, anywhere
that they see a little open space to make some progress in the
world's most notorious traffic jams. Combine this with the fact that
Bangkok has few traffic lights -- and at those lights, traffic is
never stopped in all directions so that a pedestrian can safely cross
the street -- and it is a recipe for mayhem and slaughter. 

Often I rediscover this fact in new ways. Last year, for example, I
was exiting a bus which I thought had pulled up at a curb. But if a
bus leaves just a few inches between itself and the curb, a
motorcycle will quickly fill the gap. A couple of feet and a car will
be there. As I walked off the bus, a Thai friend, just behind me,
shouted and yanked me back by the collar. As I looked to my left, a
Mercedes was zooming between the bus and the curb, doing about 50
miles per hour. The tires of the Mercedes brushed the tips of my
shoes as it roared past.

Compared to what must be a horrendous body count in Bangkok, the
Khmer Rouge have claimed relatively few foreign victims. Cambodians
themselves no longer feel terrorized. They travel much more freely
around the country and, for the first time, the streets of Phnom Penh
are crowded with people as late as midnight.

So as the plane landed in Stung Treng, I was thinking much more about
a nice vacation than about avoiding terrorism. 

<Picture: STUNG TRENG'S "AIRPORT" turned out to be nothing but a
landing strip and a few lean-tos selling food. Although airports
everywhere in Asia are jammed with assorted vehicles whose drivers
look upon arriving passengers as if they were winning lottery
tickets, the Stung Treng airport puzzlingly offered nothing in the
way of transportation. So I hitched a ride on the back of a truck
along with my Cambodian-American interpreter, Chath, who is doing
volunteer work in Phnom Penh.

We hopped off at the main square, and my first impression was one of
desolation. Stung Treng is supposed to have 18,000 people, but where
they all live is a mystery, since it seemed to consist of nothing
more than a couple of streets parallel to the river and a couple of
others perpendicular. Whoever designed Stung Treng apparently
believed that a town in the middle of the jungle should have no
foliage whatsoever. The main perpendicular street features a huge
center strip used as a park, but without a single tree its entire
length to provide relief from the blazing sun. The buildings were
ramshackle, and the couple of restaurants looked unspeakably filthy.

Chath asked directions to the town's one hotel, and even though it
was just a block away, most people looked at us blankly. Hotel Sekong
(Stung Treng is at the confluence of the Sekong and the Mekong, handy
for those who write rhyming poetry about Cambodia) didn't have a sign
identifying it, and with its rusty corrugated metal roof, it looked
more like a barracks or a run-down Third World hospital than a hotel.


I chose a $15 fan-equipped room over the $25 air-conditioned variety,
a wise choice since, while there were in fact air conditioners in
some windows, there was hardly ever any electricity to run them.

Nor was there much in the way of water. With two huge rivers outside
the window, the faucets were dry most of the day. When they did work,
they brought water directly from the muddy river. Shower water
consisted of a big plastic barrel filled with river water, looking
far dirtier than I could ever imagine my body being, with a little
bucket to splash yourself while standing on the bathroom floor. 

Given this sort of bathroom, the inevitable quickly happened -- the
sort of thing you never read about in travel articles. Lunch at the
one seemingly clean and modern restaurant in town brought me dashing
for the toilet three hours later, a toilet that naturally didn't
flush. When I turned on the faucet to wash my hands, water the color
of a chocolate bar trickled out.

<Picture: IT DIDN'T TAKE LONG to discover what most visitors to Stung
Treng must do in the way of recreation. An hour after we arrived, a
young woman whose face was painted thickly with rouge and lipstick
ran up to me and said in a shrill voice, "Where are my pictures?"
Maybe all Caucasians look alike, because she had apparently confused
me with her client of the previous night.

But Chath and I had a far different activity in mind -- to find a
boat that would take us up the Mekong to the Lao border. Stung
Treng's fleet of rickety old wooden tubs were all anchored at the
bottom of the steep river bank, treacherously slippery from mud.
Wrinkled elderly ladies balancing big baskets on their heads had no
trouble negotiating the slope, and cackled delightedly as they
watched me trip and slide on my rear. We learned there was a boat
going to the border the next morning, and the captain would be
delighted to take us there for $20 -- which I found out the next day
was ten times as much as anyone else paid.

The next day we boarded what had to be the African Queen, shipped
from its Hollywood set to Cambodia. I'll have to rent the video when
I get back, but my memory says that no two boats could look so much
alike without being one and the same. Our fellow passengers included
four soldiers armed to the teeth, bazookas and all, going back from a
few days' leave in the bright lights of Stung Treng. They alone could
have repelled a whole battalion of Khmer Rouge, but they said there
hadn't been a single incident on the river in over a year. 

The boat was also crowded with women coming back with goods from
Stung Treng's market to sell at a profit in their villages. One woman
had a sack of sugar-coated puffed rice balls, and she told us she
made a profit of a penny each.

Not only would I be deprived of seeing the Khmer Rouge, but I quickly
learned from the passengers that I wouldn't have a hope of two other
possible stories: dynamiting and dolphins. Dynamiting refers to the
environmentally devastating practice of catching fish by killing
everything in the river with sticks of dynamite or hand grenades.
Fishermen blame it on renegade soldiers, soldiers blame it on greedy
fishermen, but it's a practice that is rapidly depleting the Mekong's
stock of fish. The passengers told us, however, that it is only done
in the spring, in the dry season, when the water level is low and the
fish collect in deep pools. 

As for the rare and endangered Irrawaddy dolphin, which used to hang
out in large numbers in this part of the river, no one on the boat
had spotted one since last summer.

So that left nothing to do but enjoy the ride. It began to rain
almost immediately, and we all took shelter under the leaky wooden
roof covering the center section of the boat. The fourteen passengers
huddled on the filthy plank floor, with dirty water dripping from the
roof onto our heads. There was little to look at, since in most
places the river had flooded so broadly that I could see nothing but
muddy water in every direction, with treetops sticking out. 

<Picture: THE THIRTY-MILE TRIP against the current took five hours.
(I realized with amazement that I had run a 26-mile marathon in 3 1/2
hours, and considered myself very slow.) That whole five hours had to
be accomplished without a toilet. To pee, you had to balance yourself
precariously on the edge of the boat, holding on for dear life with
one arm. For the other function I had absolutely no idea, and I was
grateful that the rumbling in my stomach, left over from the bout the
day before, remained a mere rumble.

Finally, the border -- a little grass area with four wooden buildings
housing Cambodian army and customs officials. They told us we had a
slight problem. To get a boat back, we would have to go to the first
Laotian village and negotiate with fishermen. But we couldn't do
that, because the Lao border guards intercept all foreigners and turn
them back. So we would have to go across the river, where an extended
Cambodian family lived in a huge house, and plead with them for help.

The family's house, with 20-foot ceilings and a dining room table
that seated 16, was a veritable mansion for these parts. It was no
doubt built in large part on the proceeds of stranded tourists like
us. Their son would take us back to Stung Treng in their boat, they
said, but not for a penny less than $60. I agreed, but first begged
them for something to eat, since we had eaten nothing all day but
bread and water. They claimed the only food they had were packages of
ramen noodles, which they would heat up for us -- for a price. It
felt very odd in one of the world's most remote spots to see the
bright aluminum foil of a ramen noodle packet.

By the time we started back, the rain was falling in torrents, and a
brisk wind had sprung up. The roar of the boat engine was so loud
Chath and I couldn't even talk, and I began to shake from the cold. I
rolled myself up in a bamboo mat that was on the floor of the boat,
and tried to fall asleep. I dreamt of a place so remote, so romantic,
that I said to myself, "Someday, somehow, I'm going to see it." It
was my nice, cozy hotel room in Phnom Penh. 

----------------------------------------------------------------------
--
This is the sixth in a series of dispatches by Stan Sesser, author of
Lands of Charm and Cruelty: Travels in Southeast Asia, published in
paperback by Vintage Books. Click on the Mekong map for a complete
index of Mekong Diary dispatches. Next: Bolaven Plateau.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
--
Copyright (c) 1996 Global Network Navigator, Inc., ALL RIGHTS
RESERVED.


Phannara Aing <phannara.aing@IOTA.U-PSUD.FR>
wrote:

I went to Wat Phu in Champassak Province. I am no historian or
specialist in Khmer art but I found it very nice. I spent 2 hours
there. Big mango
trees have taken root on the stairs to the upper level. There is now
a
Bouddha statue in the temple of the upper level. I saw the crocodile
stone
but it was difficult to recognize a crocodile shape in the carving.
To get
there, the most reliable way in early May is to take the big boat in
the
morning (scheduled at 9AM but departed at 11AM when there were enough
people and arrived at 12:30PM) from Pakxe to Champassak city
(300kip).

There is only one very nice hotel so far with double rooms starting
at 20000 kip
but you can bargain a little and they are building a cheaper
guesthouse
for next year. The staff speaks fluent English and French. They have
a car for
rent for 10000 kip to go to Wat Phu and I think they also have
bicycles .
There is also one tuk-tuk in town for 8000kip for the trip. It takes
20minutes to go Wat Phu by car and the road is very good. The temple
is open till 16:30.

In the afternoon, there are no boat or buses to Pakxe or to the 4000
Island, so you will to stay one night there. There is direct bus from
Pakxe to Muang Khong on Don Khong, the largest island of the 4000
Islands. To go there from Champassak, I had to take a small boat to
cross the river (the one at 6AM), then on the other side of the
river, there are bus waiting for the boat and going to Pakxe. Take it
and tell the driver you want to stop at Lak30, 4km from the pier
(name of the village at 30km from Pakxe). And wait there for the
first bus from
Pakxe to the south and tell them that you want to stop at Hat Sai
Khun which is
the village opposite to Muang Khong. And finally, you can charter a
boat
to go to the other side (there is a car ferry, but it goes or comes
back only
when there cars or trucks on the side where it is!). On Muang Khong,
there
are now 4 hotels with large price range, and you can rent a bicycle
to
visit the Island. If you have time, it is really worth it, the
landscape is
beautiful and people are very friendly and haven't see many tourists
yet.

On the other side of the Island is the Cambodian border. The next day
I
Rented a boat with 4 other tourists (which is a large party according
to the
pilot) and we went to the Somphamit Falls on Don Khon  and the Khong
Pha Phaeng Falls (by tuktuk from Ban Nakason 10km north of the
falls). On Don Khon, there is the famous French locomotive but it
seems that locals have taken
the rails to make fences for their home. Khong Pha Phaeng Falls is
really
spectacular and more touristed, mainly with rich Thai or Lao who came
on
minibuses or Toyota trucks. It is still very peaceful though and
there is
no sign yet of mass tourism (I mean garbage, beggars, children who
want to
sell you postcards and other things). The pilot of the boat spoke
French and
said that the border can be unsafe because of the Khmer Rouge: On
10th of
April, a tourist went to the southern part of Don Khon by boat to see
the
Freshwater Dolphins and he and the pilot of that boat were captured
by
Khmer Rouge and they had to pay each 10000 Baht.

File uploaded by
George Moore
http://www.slip.net/~georgem
georgem@slip.net