Gooooooooood Morning, Chau Doc

We arrived in Vietnam and all the memories of why we loved the place so much the first time came flooding back. The vivid, sprawling emerald greens of the rice paddies, the old ladies trundling along on their bicycles sheltered from the searing sun by their non la, the Mekong Delta splaying out in all directions.... Who are we kidding? 

It's the fact that you spend your time with your eyes glued to the streets watching cart after cart after cart serving up the freshest, tastiest food you've ever had, it's the waft of something delectable coming in from the street not leaving the bus for the three hours that we were on it, it's the old lady that made sure Nix's pants didn't catch on the rusty old bus seats as we got off, it's the personal jokes I share with Vietnamese men with them pointing at me, pointing out the window, firing a few sentences at me and then bursting out laughing with the expectation for me to join in despite me having not the slightest idea what we're laughing at and it's the madness that a million and one mopeds weaving around you creates. We're back and we sort of feel like we're at home.

**As I write this, now on a different bus, a lady has just handed Nix a mandarin. A lady that we hadn't made eye contact with up until this point. And here comes a second one...**

About Chau Doc. We had one night there on a tour a few years ago but we were in the teeth of those dreaded Malaria medication side effects and didn't see much more of the city than the hotel room. It deserved another chance and presented an opportunity to adjust to the rhythms of Vietnamese life.

Our time in Chau Doc was spent wandering around going from ca phe to pho to sugar cane juice saying hello to every kid under ten and even having 18 year olds waving and yelling hello.

We had a tiny little girl one night pointing to the different pictures on a drinks menu and demanding that we pronounce them properly in Vietnamese in between bouncing her rabbit puppet around in front of us and trying to press our noses down flat in an attempt to make us look more normal.

We woke up early on our final morning and in a sleepy stupor remarked how nice everyone had been here, in particular the old man who had crossed to road twice to point to Nix's tattoos and say, "very beautiful!." As we walked down the street looking for breakfast a couple of stall owners sort of made an attempt to get us to sit down but one from across the road started yelling very intently in our direction. It was the old tattoo man again.

He sat us down and soon Nix had a fishy broth complete with chunks of succulent Mekong fish and super soft udon-like noodles but I had nothing. I waited patiently and out came my breakfast - a strong ginger gruel laden with bits of congealed blood, strips of pork, some strange sort of pork cake and the strongest, most bitter pork intestine I've had. All the world's ginger could not have masked the flavour of that intestine. It turns out the fish noodle soup is for the woman and the offal gruel for the man. Make me strong ;)

The fun didn't end there. He brought out coffees and demanded that Nix put in more and more sugar, ran into the back of his shop to bring out a pink lily for Nix and a chrysanthemum for me, again for the woman and the man respectively and then made another dash inside to to find some Buddhist beads to place around my wrist. So yes, the man that took convincing to wear a watch and a wedding ring now also wears a bracelet. 

It's moments like those why we love to travel and it's people like that that make this part of Vietnam so endearing to us.

4,000 Islands, 4,000 Stories

Si Phan Don translates as 4,000 Islands and is an archipelago within the Mekong in Laos that's made up by an absolute s load of islands, hence the name. I counted them though, there's only 3,987 - it's clearly just a marketing gimmick.

We reached the first of the main islands - Don Khong - with 11 days left on our visa and the intention to nail doing S.F.A. and maximising the equation of beers drunk + time in hammocks.

After three nights in Don Khong we squeezed into a long-tail with the rest of the foreigners and puttered down the Mekong to spend a night on the bottom of Don Det before crossing the Old French Bridge to spend the rest of our time on Don Khon. Yes, Don Khon not Don Khong. Both pretty much sound the same but make buying bus tickets to either a whole heap of fun.

A variable that we hadn't factored into the above equation was the stories that we'd walk away with. You genuinely couldn't walk down the street without seeing something strange, interesting or funny thanks to the locals that still call the islands home and a lot of the rustic beauty that's been retained. Little kids still run out into the street to give you high five and yell sabaidee and there's still a nice feeling of community on the islands.

Here are some of those stories.

Honk-a-Doodle-Do

My favourite is I was going for a walk to get beers one night and about seven or eight kids had just been for a swim in the Mekong. The youngest of the group was stripping down nude and as he did one of the older boys leant over, gave his willy a bit of a honk, they both had a bit of a giggle and the little boy wandered back home.

They See Me Riden'

From eight days old to eighteen years old the average Laos kid is so much more capable and mature than a kid of the same age in the Western world it's borderline embarrassing. It should therefore not have come as a shock when we watched an eight year old take four of his five year old buddies around for a ride on his Dad's tuk-tuk but it still did. It always will. The kid has swag.

Motorboating Monks

When you think of a monk you think many things - speed demon is not one of them. The young kids around this area build these tiny, one man, streamlined boats and soon as school's off they tear up and down the Mekong fighting tooth and nail to edge the other. Watching this was fun enough but seeing a monk in one... Well that's certainly a sight that you'd never expect to see. And unlike their normally peaceful, harmonious demeanour they're gunning it as hard as the next guy.

It's Curtains for Kermit

In the search for our perfect bungalow we were shown through a heap and got sick of the 'thank you, we have think, will come back' line and the owner's look of yeah, sure you will. This one time we didn't feel so guilty.

By this point we'd picked up this guy (whose neck sweat and shoulder are a cat's best friend) and we waited around whilst the guesthouse owner grabbed the keys to open up her bungalows.

We walked into the first one which was nice enough and came already furnished with a fist sized frog. I pointed out to Tom he had a friend in this one and we all had a bit of a laugh but whilst we were looking at it the old lady noticed it too and made a half hearted attempt to shoo it out the door. It was then, about mid strike, we learned this poor frog's fate and gasped in unison.

Down came the hard end of her straw broom, in went a few straw barbs and she then picked it up and placed it on the balustrade before pounding it into oblivion and turfing it into the garden - it wasn't even dinner!

We had a friend of our own at one of our bungalows. A foot long gecko who guarded the entrance to the room. It's like seeing an artist take something small and make it huge, it just looks cool. This giant gecko also had a lot of swag.

Waterfalls and Stuff

On Don Khon there are two waterfalls. We made it to Khon Pa Soi early one morning which in all honesty was pretty average. The only fun bits were our own personal guide, who was beyond excited to have her first visitors for the morning, and the varying degrees of difficulty and construction of the bridges that connected the place together.

The other however - Tad Somphamit - is a sight to behold. By volume of water it's the biggest waterfall in SE Asia and in wet season would be one hell of a dangerous beast. You can look out over the top of the falls and see the Mekong just meandering along, as it does, then it reaches the end of the plateau and gushes down in bone crushing torrents. It's a stark reminder of the Mekong's deceptive power - I can take life as quickly as I give it, DO NOT f*ck with me.

Despite that word of warning, there's a pool around a bend in the river, just down from the falls, where you can cool down in the heat of the day in bath temperature water. So refreshing.

The greatest pleasure down near the pool was watching three little boys running amok. Two were d*cking around playing some ramdom game with a polystyrene disk that they'd found whilst the more mature of the three went off hunting. Fifteen minutes later the hunter emerged from over the top of the rocks with five giant frogs slung over his back, he rounded up his pals and off they went. Job done. 

Can You Drive a Boat?

Years ago a heap of Irrawaddy Dolphins made their way up the Mekong with some finding themselves a home around Si Phan Don. Thanks to continued dynamiting of the Mekong by the lovely Khmer Rouge a lot of the dolphins were killed. However a pod still exists in a pool off the bottom of Don Khon.

We rose early again (what is this "alarm" business?) and made our way down to the southern tip of the island where boatmen would be waiting to take us out to see the dolphins, or so the internet had informed us. We got there and a young guy looked at us and said "dolphin?", to which we nodded and he looked at another bloke and you could see through each of their mannerisms that the conversation went something like this:

Young kid: Can you drive a boat?

Older guy: Sure

Young guy: You know where the dolphins are?

Older guy: Yeah, out there somewhere. Do these guys need life jackets?

Young kid: Nah, the cheap bastards didn't pay for a tour. They should just be happy that you drove a boat once when you were fourteen

Maybe a slight exaggeration because our boatman was great. Through a lack of sleep, food and caffeine we scanned the waters around us hoping to spot just one in the distance. We saw one, then a second, a third and possibly even a forth. Given they believe only 10 still exist in the area, we were pretty chuffed with the experience. And we got a super close-up of one of them. Jealous much?

Your Galapagos photos ain't got nothing on that, MM

You might want to check out photos of them here instead. They're far from your average dolphin.

Brown Mangoes 

And finally, Nix's favourite story. We were sat there having lunch one day and Nix said, "look!" At the exact moment that we all turned around a boy who'd hitched his shorts up into a silky g-string to expose his little brown butt instinctively spun around to see us all looking and laughing. He very quickly pulled his shorts back down and sheepishly ran inside. It was a good moment. 

Laos is beautifully simple and simply beautiful. We very forlornly left our hammock and this great country behind and prepared ourselves for battle at the Laos/Cambodian border. 

War was waged, blood was shed, we saved US$3 each on the other foreign suckers who used the services of a visa runner at the border. Travel isn't a contest but if it was we'd be winning because we know how to fill out a visa application form all by our self-righteous selves. 

It may not look like we covered too much ground but when 400km is a 10 hour journey, I think we did OK...

Why the French Aren't the Best Thing about Luang Prabang

All those great things you've heard about Luang Prabang? They're true.

But no, they're not true thanks to the French. They left behind some nice buildings, coffee and baguettes as good as you'll find anywhere but let's not kid ourselves, the French were here because they wanted the place for themselves. At the time, the bastards couldn't look at an ant farm and not want to colonise it. Maybe they did do that and there's a colony of ants out there running around in berets, sipping cafe noir and annoying the shit out of any other ant that comes within earshot of them. I lost that analogy near the end there but what I'm trying to say is that Luang Prabang has way more going for it than just some nice French colonial architecture and a European feel about it (in the tourist zone that is).

What made Luang Prabang great for us then?

1 - meeting these crazy coots (brokelemons) and convincing them into just one more beer (after sharing snake/lizard/centipede/other unidentified animal infused whisky) that caused them to miss their overnighter to Vientiane

2 - squeezing into a sampan with locals to cross the Mekong and wander through the villages checking out a couple of lovely old temples and constantly getting stuck in the mud, much to the pleasure of the locals

3 - some delicious street food including a perfect Khao Piak Khao complete with blood chunks

4 - enjoying a beer in the fancy part of town, down on the Nam Khan with "free peanut"

5 - reflecting on the top of Phou Si Mountain and chatting with a monk on the way up who drilled us with questions about the world and our own country

6 - finally finding a decent Laos coffee

7 - heading out to the spectacular Kuang Si Waterfall

Observations Made on the Songthaew to Nong Khiaw

Given we were packed in like sardines it was hard to see much but we did share the ride with one very well behaved chicken and almost ran head on into a truck. Fun times were had by all, chicken included

Barrie-ometer of "Feel" - "I'm Monsoon Moon, I rain down the pain!!"

Chiang Khong on the Mekong

Any night on the Mekong is a good one so the opportunity to have a night in Chiang Khong before heading into Laos sounded like a good idea.

We went all out on our final night and got a bungalow with a hammock. Drinking our final few Leos and gazing over the Mekong at the possibilities in Laos was the exact stopover that we'd envisaged.

And just like that, our month in Thailand was gone. Here's where we hit.

Dances with Shrimp Starring Chiang Khan

The journey to Chiang Khan required an hour and a half introduction into yet another method of transport - the songthaew. Essentially, an old pick-up truck with bench seats in the back that acts like a local bus, picking people up and dropping them off along a prespecified route. The beauty of the songthaew is that it's semi open in the back allowing the fresh air to rush past your face as you creep towards your destination, observing water buffalo rolling around in the mud and rural Thai life pressing on in the distance.

Chiang Khan is quite a hit with Thai tourists however is, as yet, quite undiscovered by us nosey farang. It's a beautiful old town filled with old teak houses that have now been converted into kitschy (did I really just use that word?) bars, cafes and clothing shops. 

We'd read how beautiful Chiang Khan was however it was the promise of a particular regional culinary speciality that got us over the line. On a TV program a few years ago we'd watched the presenter chow down on the dish in the video below and we had the simultaneous epiphany that we had to have it

Apparently it was going to be on offer at the Kaeng Kood Koo market, five k's out of town so we set off one morning, unable to justify what seemed like an exorbitant price for a tuk-tuk, and walked the hot, sweaty five k's to find our Kûngtên, Dancing Shrimp. We wandered around hopelessly for half an hour, I think expecting the shrimp to jump into our mouths, but had no luck. Until a Thai lady with perfect English walked by and asked if we needed help just before we were about to walk up to a counter and spout Kûngtên at someone. 

Before long we were sat on the bank of the Mekong in a little bamboo hut with Ray and her family enjoying unfathomably fresh, grilled fish from the river, a Thai style papaya salad with the Lao addition of fermented crab and the pièce de résistance (how f*cking fancy am I?) - our Dancing Shrimp.

The little bastards are full of life when they come out, hence the plate, and the idea is that you pop them in your mouth immediately to feel them jumping around before you crunch down on the little suckers. Along with the fish sauce, chilli and lemongrass that they're covered in, they are a seriously flavourful delight. Mission accomplished.

The rest of our time in Chiang Khan was spent watching the longboat races, 

getting up early one morning for the almsgiving,

discovering Miang Kham ('wild pepper leaf' wrapped around other tasty stuff that you should just read about here) which after her first bite Nicola implored, "will you have one of these so you can experience the flavour explosion that I am right now!",

and finishing our days with a beer on the most romantic of rivers - the mighty, mighty Mekong.

There are many very apparent reasons why Thai people love this place so much.

If you haven't gathered yet, we're excited for and energised by travel again. A day of travel in Asia equates to about five in Europe and we're only just touching the tip of the iceberg at the moment. Next stop is a city we've longed to visit for a v long time.