Been There, Don Det (# 4 in series)

Making for Don Det.  Note rain clouds forming.

As our boat motored out toward Don Det Island, traveler's luck was with me once again.  The weather was on the cusp -- the steamy monsoon, marked by afternoon downpours, was ending and the dry season beginning.  It hadn't changed over yet, but refreshing breezes boded of more comfortable days to come.

All this by way of saying, it was still "low season" there -- generally sweltering, but with prices low and very few people.  If you wanted a good look at the locals and their culture, this was the time.  Come December, backpackers and the like would be descending on the place en masse.  

Located where the river widens and forms into the 4,000 islands, it's in southern Lao, almost as far as you can go in the country.  The Falls of the Mekong and the international border with Cambodia lie just beyond.

Some of the 4,000 islands.

At this stage, I was four-weeks-plus into the trip, more than halfway through.  I had come almost the length of Lao, including the lowlands and the Bolaven Plateau, where it was so chill and rainy that I needed a jacket.  I had spent time with the hill tribes and in the capital of Vientiane, with its French-inspired architecture.  Now it was time to meet the islanders of the Mekong. 

Rice harvesting, Don Det Island.

You get away from the strip by the boat landing, with its bars, eateries and tourist agencies, and you step back in time...to when people in conical hats scythe down rice and pile up the bundles, to when farmers pull the teats of cows by hand (ever hear the sound of milk squirting into a metal bucket?).

In short, you land on Don Det and you enter into a sort of time warp.  A Lao version of the Twilight Zone.  It reminded me of the farm life in Choconut, PA, back in the Fifties/Sixties.  After a few days, it seemed that I was back there, back in time, when I was milking cows and piling up bundles of grain myself.

The whole island was enveloped in tranquility.  Almost like a gigantic bubble had settled over top of it.  Sometimes I sat on the guesthouse balcony, watched the river go by and just took it all in.  It was like popping a doctor-prescribed med or nerve pill, just by breathing in the air.

Lest I get too idyllic here, let me say that the quiet often was shattered by the usual motorbikes blatting through, and I (and my camera) did get drenched in the occasional downpours.  Once I was huddled in a goat shed for two hours, soaked to the skin, waiting for it to end.  As I mentioned, it was still the monsoon.

Generally though, I was there at the right time...before the crowds.

The view from Mr. Mo's guesthouse and restaurant.

 

Lao noodle with egg and vegetable, at Mr. Mo's.

In a sense, the whole country is along the lines of Don Det Island.  It's largely rural, bypassed by a lot of technology and advances, and seemingly not overly concerned about it.  The scenery is beautiful, yes, but Lao's greatest asset may be its people.  The fastest smilers I've ever seen are in Lao, fastest smilers in the East.  

Time after time, I would nod in a traditional bow or say "saibadee," the greeting here, and the person would burst into a grin -- and not just with the lips; expressed with the eyes, the cheeks, the whole face.  If that's any sign of happiness, of contentment, then these people have it, regardless of all the gadgets and "advances" that they don't have.

And this is a country that's had a rough time of it, not just with poverty but with war.  People are still being maimed or killed by "bombies" dropped by the U.S. in the Vietnam War.  In addition, Loatians, a lot of them teens, are hauling in bomb fragments and parts of wrecked aircraft for scrap.  It's a thriving business here, forty years after the end of hostilities.

Monument in Vientiane to victims of the bombings, made of pieces of U.S. ordinance.

  

Wrecked U.S. helicopter, Army Museum, Vientiane.

But these people are not complainers.  Belly-aching seems to be against their religion, so to speak.  Dare I say it?  They seem glad for what they have and grateful for it.  Sometimes I think that we Americans should study some of these countries, as far as mental well-being; we have a lot to learn from them.

However, a lot of them do like a good toke on something.  Cigarettes go for about 50 cents U.S. a pack.  Because this is expensive for many Laotians, many roll or concoct their own, and you see people with various kinds of rollings -- bark, leaves, paper, etc. -- protruding from their lips.  God knows what's in it.

This is especially true among the hill peoples.  Up there, many walk around with pipes or else chewing on roots, nuts, etc.  I saw a woman with a child in one arm and a bamboo bong, like a military mortar tube, in the other -- surrounded by a cloud of smoke.

At any rate, onward and upward.  Thank you, Lao, for everything...It's been a helluva time.  Tomorrow it's off to the boat landing; then back to the mainland again and on to Cambodia.  Who knows what adventures await there?

 

[PART FIVE TO FOLLOW NEXT WEEKEND]

(This post is dedicated to Peter S. from Australia, who played the "mouth harp" so beautifully up in Vientiane.  He's a reminder that genuine talents are not always up on-stage somewhere, but at-large among us, revealing of themselves when least expected.)