Making back from The Loop did not bestow upon me the hero's welcome I had hoped for (I mean just kidding, people think I'm very pompous when I use language like that. It's a rhetorical device meaning it wasn't a real soft or glorious return).
As I pulled into town, New Year's celebrations were going full swing, meaning crazed teenagers were throwing water on every passerby and shooting people with water guns from the back of trucks. It was like civil chaos! If civil chaos were a giant squirt-gun fight.
Not a shop was open. Including at the guest house (The Travel Lodge, once again utterly failing me). So that meal that I had been postponing so I could make it back in time for the bus? Didn't happen. I was hungry, exhausted, cranky, with a kink in my left shoulder from holding the handlebar so long.
Luckily, I had a plan for this. It was called, Get the Hell Away! The last stop on my trip was 4000 Islands. The only bus to 4000 Islands left at 6pm, so I took a tuk tuk there with a couple of German tourists (my mood was somewhat lifted by the profusion of snacks in the bus station).
It was a 12-hour bus ride. Luckily, I found a hole (yes, on the bus) and slept in it for 9 of those hours after eating a profusion of fetal eggs.
And then we were at 4000 Islands, last stop before Cambodia.
Four Thousand Islands is like some sort of archpelago in the middle of the Mekong--but there are probably more like 10 000 islands, some of which sustain a single bush, others of which stretch for miles. We were obviously on one of the bigger islands.
It's like Stonerville, I could just tell by walking though. Luckily, it's also rural Laos, so I rented this strictly low-quality bungalow (I mean run down and very basic) for 5 dollars. And then just relaxed. Just sat on the hammock by the river and chilled. So glad my vacation was nearing its end.
I was hoping to see the dolphins that live nearby, or take a sunset cruise...alas, it was day after New Years, and everyone was too lazy/sleepy/drunk/whatever to actually cater to tourists. I tried to explore, but if you go across the island, you basically have to pay to access the other half, what the hell.
To compensate for boredom, I took pictures of the only two fully sober individuals I found on any of the many thousands of islands:
So yep. A day of rest and not much more.
As I pulled into town, New Year's celebrations were going full swing, meaning crazed teenagers were throwing water on every passerby and shooting people with water guns from the back of trucks. It was like civil chaos! If civil chaos were a giant squirt-gun fight.
Not a shop was open. Including at the guest house (The Travel Lodge, once again utterly failing me). So that meal that I had been postponing so I could make it back in time for the bus? Didn't happen. I was hungry, exhausted, cranky, with a kink in my left shoulder from holding the handlebar so long.
Luckily, I had a plan for this. It was called, Get the Hell Away! The last stop on my trip was 4000 Islands. The only bus to 4000 Islands left at 6pm, so I took a tuk tuk there with a couple of German tourists (my mood was somewhat lifted by the profusion of snacks in the bus station).
It was a 12-hour bus ride. Luckily, I found a hole (yes, on the bus) and slept in it for 9 of those hours after eating a profusion of fetal eggs.
And then we were at 4000 Islands, last stop before Cambodia.
You have to take a ferry to get there.
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| The Ferry to Four Thousand Islands |
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| See that lil bush island? Yep. |
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| See how rural that is? |
I was hoping to see the dolphins that live nearby, or take a sunset cruise...alas, it was day after New Years, and everyone was too lazy/sleepy/drunk/whatever to actually cater to tourists. I tried to explore, but if you go across the island, you basically have to pay to access the other half, what the hell.
To compensate for boredom, I took pictures of the only two fully sober individuals I found on any of the many thousands of islands:
So yep. A day of rest and not much more.
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