Gong Shopping and Island Hopping

January 22, 2015

The Mekong captures all kinds of lost souls

Kong Chiam to Champasak 58

Champasak to temple 31

Temple to Muang Khong 33

Muang Khong to Don Det 15

Dear little friends,

We ended up staying in Kong Chiam for four days, with some journal updating, noodle eating, clothes washing, bike maintaining, late sleeping, and gong buying.

Our guesthouse owner had a lovely garden area, this giant orchid bloomed the day before we left.

Yes, you heard me right. Somebody sent us an article from the New York Times about the "Gong Highway" between Ubon Ratchatani and Kong Chiam several weeks ago and Bruce said wistfully, "I've always wanted a gong." I promptly forgot about it and so did he but when we arrived in Kong Chiam somebody at the guest house was planning on going to buy a gong to send home, so we went along. Generally, Bruce can be quite the shopper when we travel and our house is rafter-packed with interesting and beautiful things from his travels that he has stuffed into a backpack or mailed home, textiles, baskets, music, you name it. But every ounce counts when you are on a bicycle and the very few things we had acquired we mailed home. But a gong?

We hit the Gong Highway knowing just how much of a gong we could send home by two-month seamail. It had to be under a meter wide. A meter wide! That's a really big gong! We all rode in a Honda with the guest house owner, so it was a bit cramped but hey, this was the first vehicle we had been in since we were involuntarily bussed across the Mekong bridge way back in Chiang Khong, it was novel to be in a car again. They go really fast. On the Gong Highway, like everywhere in Thailand, they pass each other at uncomfortably small distances and we did a lot of wincing and flinching.

Although there are several gong-building families on the Gong Highway we only stopped at one place, and it was interesting if deafening to watch them hammer out the steel gongs and tune them, paint them, and voila, a gong. The brass ones are cast and we didn't get to see that process but that is the type both Bruce and Gunter bought. They scrounged up some boxes for packing and Bruce, who has packed Buddhas, bathtubs, and everything in between, worked for a couple of hours and finally got the thing encased in cardboard and packing tape and safely off to the post office.

The gongs are pounded out by hand on a sand bed.

Direct quote: "I've never packed a gong before."

Our cat gets up around 5 am, so that coincides nicely with the meditation hour that gongs here signify, we'll get everybody in our neighborhood up for that and they'll thank us nicely, I should think.

On our gong highway field trip we also went "to look at some flowers". This is a park in Phiboun full of Dok Fai trees in full bloom.

Our visa was running out so we left sleepy Kong Chiam for the border at Chong Mek, which was a nice morning's ride, if a bit hillier than we had anticipated. The border crossing back to Laos was something else, in Thailand it was clean, orderly, no hassle, we just rode up in the car lane to a booth, stamp stamp, photo taken, out we went. Entering Laos, I remarked to Bruce, "Does Thailand have a border with Nigeria?" It was that disorderly, unpaved, garbage-strewn, unsigned. There were goats and cows running around stirring up plastic bags and dust.

Having said that, once we found the proper immigration building, the man behind the pitch-black glass cheerily welcomed us to Laos, took our pretty money, and we were in in less than ten minutes, easy peasy. From there we had a straight-on highway to Pakse but we were going to turn south right before the bridge and go south to Champasak instead. It was a long ride but we made it there in late afternoon and went back to the humble guesthouse we have stayed at before.

Native grasses are harvested and dried to be made into brooms, displacing the usual tapioca drying operations on the roadside.

A rare Christian cemetery on the road to Champasak.

Winter rice, irrigated by the Mekong, being planted next to the road to Champasak.

This guesthouse, however humble, does have a great dining room overlooking the river.

Champasak is pleasant enough, and we visited Wat Phu again, which even though I am pretty templed out, is a gorgeous setting and good-feeling ancient site. You approach Wat Phu from the east and it is tucked up and into the side of a beautiful mountain that is full of hidden springs that keep it green and lush, it is a temple fully aligned with the nature of its location. We highly recommend it. It was originally a Hindu site made by the Khmers in the same style as the Angkor Wat sites to the south in Cambodia. Now of course it has been appropriated by Buddhists but they haven't tempered its charm and mysterious feel, trees tower at the top, and frangipani line its incredibly steep stone steps up.

This beautiful apsara (dancer) with Khmer features beckons you into the temple doorway.

The Dok Champa (frangipani) trees at Wat Phu.

We knew it was possible to go directly south of Champasak, but we didn't really know how far or where we could sleep but off we went and that was a delight that Bruce will describe for you better than I can. It was just amazing, pleasurable cycling, a highlight of the trip. After two days we were on Don Khong island, the beginning of the Si Phan Don, Four Thousand Islands of southern-most Laos. It's hard to believe we have traveled this far along the Mekong.

Any hesitation about crossing these bridges is overcome after a motorbike with three people on it crosses first. Note the beautiful little gardens on the banks.

Although you want to pay attention now and again to the road surface.

People over the years have remarked to us that Don Khong is pretty boring but we thought, "We like boring," but I have to say, it was even more boring than we like. The food was pretty good, and we met fun travelers, but the town of Muang Khong seemed pretty lifeless, just a collection of guest houses and restaurants, and a tiny morning market of local produce. We did find a bank just in time before taking off for Don Det.

Ho hum, another beautiful sunset on the Mekong. Muang Khong, Don Khong island.

I'm sure we are not the first to do this route, but I haven't really read about anybody else doing it, unless once again Chris Pountney hijacked our route. We are several days behind him but we never know that because like us, he is behind on his journaling, we think we are the first ones to be in this place or that and confound it, he posts a photo of the place we were a few hours before.

From Muang Khong we rode straight south to the bottom of the island, then caught a ferry to Don Som, rode on a single-track path through newly irrigated rice paddies to the southeast end of that island, and then caught a ferry to the northern end of Don Det, it was only 15 miles in total and a lovely ride, one you can only do by bicycle or motorbike.

Causing water buffalo stampedes is my specialty.

Landing on Don Det, of course, is a trip. We were mentally prepared because we stayed on Don Det six years ago and knew it is part of the Vang Vieng/Don Det/Pai triumvirate of banana pancake travel. I am leaving out the Thai islands because often the Full Moon crew don't really seem to ever leave them. We pushed our loaded bikes up onto the beach and then down the path past reggae bars, "happy shake" places, and VIP bus ticket offices. As we wended our way down the island it got quieter, but there is still a lot of building and growing going on. The river had claimed "The Big Tree" that used to reign over a neighboring small island. The bakery Bruce had been daydreaming about for six years is now a bar, no more pastries and Lao coffee there, sad to say.

Further south on Don Det, it gets much more rural and peaceful. Bungalows line the shore with small rooms for a few dollars.

It is the height of high season now, and our favorite old bungalows were full and going to stay full, but it's okay, they've been spiffed up too much anyway, the woven bamboo walls that were so beautiful in the sunrise now covered with boards, the Lao owners replaced by a German guy and his Lao wife. We are back in another funky place for $5 and are visited by ducklings, chicks, and the numerous children that live next door. We are seeing a lot of hot, tired backpackers wandering around the island with full packs and frustrated faces. It was certainly a lot easier to find a place while on a bicycle, it can be two miles to go to dinner, the place is so spread out. So we are staying put, trying to get decent wifi (nearly impossible) and plan for the next part of our trip.

A beautiful bee eater on Don Det island.

The changes in the Mekong have been remarkable since Champasak. It is very wide now, and moving slowly enough for sediments to settle and the river plants to filter it, it is now clean enough that I would consider swimming in it and that is saying something for me, the spoiled-by-Montana's-crystal-clear-water girl. A mile or so downstream from our bungalow is a gigantic waterfall whose roar we can hear from here, making the Mekong unnavigable from the south. In its rock stairway, the Lao believe the river keeps lost souls, people and animals who drowned in the river and got caught in its currents and roiling pools. So maybe I won't swim in it after all.

But it's been fantastic being near the river in all its forms, slow, fast, muddy, clear, always different, full of life. In every local market we see different species of fish pulled from it. It's an amazing and wonderful ecosystem. Here in Don Det it smells and looks like a lake, and the lapping and sunlight soothes and slows us down. There's a reason every bungalow has a hammock. I wake up feeling like I am camping in NW Montana, that it is summer everywhere right now, even though of course it's not, as our friends and family are quick to attest. We do a little writing, we check the internet (still down), try to do a little posting, get our post cut off halfway through, go have a fruit shake, wash some clothes and hang them on the porch, do a little writing, and check the internet. Then we eat. It's not a bad life. Too bad the internet is down and we can't tell you about it.

Today's ride: 137 miles (220 km)
Total: 1,211 miles (1,949 km)

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