Don Det, the place time never found, let alone had the chance to forget. All my muscles atrophied; except for those responsible for passing tasty and / or intoxicating objects to my mouth. Only coffee kept my metabolism going and the paint stripper and sweet milk that was dished up to me one morning, by a lady wearing a radioactive suit, was strong enough to help me digest the past 6 meals, make up for and entire holiday of missed toilet appointments and kept me wide awake for the next 4 nights.
We are staying in some basic $2AUS bungalows at the point of one of the 4,000 islands in Southern Laos. No electricity except from a generator for 4 hours a night, squat toilets and ice was boated in by the block, washed in the same river that bodies and clothes were washed in, then chopped up and served in fruit shakes. Good thing my immunity was super fit right by then.
It is not the best place for an animal rights person to be staying, but Laos isn't in general. Pigs kept in the blazing sun on short ropes with no water. Chickens whose wings have already found their way onto the dinner table. Cats whose tails have suffered the same fate, as their bodies would were they not so emaciated.
Don Det is also the first place since Ko Pha-Ngan that was new to me and so, after many of my recommendations failed to live up to my expectations, let alone Adam and Gemmas, I was more than happy to let them dictate plans. I washed my hands of all responsibilities, the first time I had washed anything in awhile, and happily avoided writing, the internet, or waking up.
There is no activity offered there more strenuous than having to wipe your own bum. Everything is designed to live life at one speed; stationary. The hammock is the only place you spend more time than swimming in the beautifully cool and clear river water.
Against this pandemic of inertia, we hired another non-English speaking guide to take us to the Tom Somphamit waterfalls. The mighty Mekong bottle necked and dropped 15 metres over a huge rocky outcrop. The massive force of the water was not enough to stop locals risk life and limb to sling a dodgy net over a large expanse of imminent death in the hope that a fish might make all that ball-shrinking effort worthwhile.
A quick paddle in a rock pool far removed from the angry beast and it was off to find some fresh water dolphins. We had to board a construction that was losing its inherent boatness to gravitational forces alone. Add 6 humans and water to the equation and the sum total could have been a sinking motion for us and centrifugal separation for wood once assembled in the form of a canoe. All fears aside, it fulfilled its task even though it took on a lot of water in the process. After spending most of the day in the sun, another afternoon likewise exposed watching barely recognizable shapes break the surface in the distance, ensured that sunstroke was guaranteed that night.
The other guarantee was that relief was to be found in one form or another of Happiness. That it is so common in Asia can be inferred not only from the boat taxis containing names like 'The Snoop Dog Express' or 'The Munchies Tour' but also from the fact that Lisa was the FIRST person I have met on this trip that is not a pot smoker. Not willingly anyway. There's nothing like a big trumpet to ease the burden of baked skin and her proximity to its circulating goodness meant that unconditioned, Lisa ended up so out of her tree, you would think it had been a cactus. That included Steph, the canary, whose low tolerance was our sure-fire guide to any foods happiness content.
Dinner that night couldn't come fast enough for Lisa and she stared long and lustfully enough at a fellow diners pancake to move it in front of her on sheer will power alone. Not prepared to discount eating it based on the fact that we didn't know them, that they had also ashed a cigarette on part of it, obviously served as no deterrent either. Probably familiar with the effects of Happiness consumption, they agreed to let Lisa eat what was left, realising that denying her may have resulted in blood being shed. Lisa then finished off my pancake, had a quarter of Stephs then ordered one of her own as well. This act of extreme munchies induced gluttony best demonstrated that even non-stoners get caught up in the Happiness phenomena here in Don Det.
