Part 5 - Northern Cambodia and Laos

Moving north towards the Laos border, I stop in the town of Kratie (pronounced Kra-chay). This is one of the few places where it's possible to view the soon-to-be extinct Irrawaddy dolphins. Dead infant dolphins have recently been found in the Mekong. Scientists predict that the dolphins will be extinct within 15 years unless new policy is established and enforced banning the international trade of the species. Fisherman use the fresh and salt-water dolphins to help herd fish into their nets, where the dophins often become entangled. Along with pollution and isolated breeding, the dolphins have little hope of survivial without immediate government interaction.

I arrive exhausted, as I seem to be all the time. I take a quick nap before the hotel wakes me for my 20 minute motodup ride up river to see the dolphins. I hop on the back of a motorcycle. There's another couple on the back of a second bike. As we're leaving the town center, there's a police checkpoint. A police officer motions for my driver to pull over, which he does not. A second officer 20 feet further up the road steps in front of us. We slow down. However, before we come to a complete stop, the first officer reaches us, almost pushes us over, takes the key out of the ignition and without even glancing my way, angrily walks away.

I'm slightly shaken up, more from the lack of control I always feel when I'm a passenger rather than the fact that this policeman nearly pushed an economy-boosting tourist from a moving vehicle.

"What's going on?" I ask. "Why did he do that?"

"The motorcycle isn't registered."

"Why not?"

"It costs $20."

"How can you get the key back?"

"Pay $2."

The driver pushes the bike to a nearby shop and they preceed to try to hotwire it.

After watching these guys fiddle with the ignition, I suggest that the other couple continue on and that someone call the hotel and get another motodup out here. No one has a cell phone. This is odd, as everyone in the country has cell phones.

Magically, somehow, a new key is produced. We start the bike and continue on.

Riding down a narrow, poorly-paved, one-lane road that runs along side the Mekong, I ask my driver to go slow. He laughs.

Finally at the "Irrawaddy National Park", we pay our entrance fees at a make-shift booth obviously started by locals looking to make some easy cash. I highly doubt that this is a government initiative, though I'm also sure that the police are happy to take their cut.

A small group of us board a long boat and we noisily proceed to the middle of the river and wait. Everyone is ready with camera in hand. The surface of the water is broken by the square heads of the dolphins. And down they go. What with the delayed reaction of the point-and-shot digital camera, there's no way I'm going to get a picture. We stay on the river for a half hour or so, watching to sun descend and waiting for a short glimpse of the top fourth of a dolphin head. "Don't they do flips or something?" It's a pleasant, relaxing afternoon, but Seaworld it ain't.

I skip dinner and go to bed early. I have no appetite, which is a rarity.

The next morning I awake to 50 dead cockroaches on my hotel room floor. They are the flying kind and will land on you in the middle of the night. I carefully tip-toe on clear spaces of floor, back my bag and go to meet a Dutch couple for a share taxi further north to Stung Treng. Chris, Karine and I share the back seat while 4 people ride in front. Yep, there are 2 people in the driver's seat. It is peddle to the metal all the way. Red dust coats our clothes, skin, tongues.

In Stung Treng Chris and Karine order breakfast at a riverside restaurant. I lay on a bench feeling nauseous and burpy.

Soon enough we board a speed boat for the hour trip to the Cambodia/Laos border. Now, when I say speed boat, I'm not talking Miami Vice, Charlie's Angels speed boat. I'm talking 3 feet wide, 15 feet long, 2 feet high. The seats are level with the bottom of the boat and one is only able to sit with knees folded up to the chin. But it does go fast.

We skirt along the top of the water, weaving through groups of trees that grow from the middle of the Mekong. The water is brown. The river is wide. I imagine Khmer Rouge hiding along it's banks. This is fun.

At the border, 3 boats of travelers pull up to the left bank where the Cambodian immigration shack sits perched at the top of a muddy incline. We patiently wait for the uniformed officer to stamp our passports. We then board the boat again and cruise to the opposite bank. We are now in Laos. We need to pay an extra overtime fee of $1 because it is Saturday.

There are 7 of us and a Belgian guy negotiates a ride in a large transport truck to the nearest town. The negotiation process is long, as there is one truck and the driver knows that we have no other choice but to pay the exorbitant fee. Jack is a savvy diplomat, but the driver ultimately drops us off at a point in the river 20 minutes further south than we had agreed upon. For me and the Dutch couple, this results in a higher price to reach the island of Don Det and the impossibility of the Belgians catching a bus to the next town north. They have no other choice but to go to Don Det for the night.

Don Det is one of what they call The 4,000 Islands. Electricity operates for approximately 3 hours a day. Mosquitos are abundant. Accomodations are basic.

While everyone else spends the rest of the day talking and drinking, I sleep in a stifling room. It has now been almost 2 weeks since I started feeling ill. My initial self-diagnosis of heat exhaustion or dehydration seems less plausible. But I push on, not feeling bad enough to spend an entire day in a room without fan or air/con.

The next day I take a walk around the island. At what looks like the community Buddhist temple, a huge festival is under way. Family and friends eat together, make offerings to Buddha, play sports and dance. Everyone smiles at me and happily lets me take their pictures. My guest house owner later explains that this is a roaming party, with different islands taking turns playing host.

I continue down the path that crosses the island. It is longer than I expect and the heat is gruelling. A tourist truck, not totally unlike the ones at Universal Studios, comes up behind me and I need to stand on the shoulder of the road to let it pass. Instead, I flag it down and join a small group of Thais on holiday. We are brought to one of several waterfalls that populate the island before returning to the Don Det docks. This is the common Asian tour. Get on bus, go to destination, take picture. Rinse and repeat.

While Don Det is beautiful, I gladly leave the next day with the Dutch/Belgian crew, hoping for respite from the heat in the next town.

It's a 2 hour drive north in a jumbo truck. Two chain-smoking monks sit opposite me. An old lady is chewing betel nut. Her teeth are solid lumps of black tar. Another women has just bought fish at the market and is spilling fish juice on everyone's feet. The truck is packed, with people sitting on the roof and hanging off the sides.

We are dropped off at the Champasak junction and must take a small wooden ferry across the river to reach this former capital. Champasak consists of one main street. The buildings are quiant and well-kept. Souchitra Guest House looks out onto the river and the distant mountains. It is cool (the temperature that is) and chill (the vibe that is).

I arrange a 5am tuk-tuk pick-up for the next morning so that I can see the sunrise from Wat Phu Champasak, as my Lonely Planet suggests. It is only as we approach the locked gates that I double check "The Book". Why would the authors suggest a sunrise viewing when the place doesn't open until 8am? But my tuk-tuk driver is resoureful. We go to the side entrance, wake up the grounds keeper and he not only lets us in, he takes me up the mountain side. This is, of course, not an act of altrusim. A tip is in his very near future. He's a kind man, though. He waits patiently while I take pictures of blades of grass and cracks in rocks.

Wat Phu Champasak is the most sacred site in Southern Laos. At one point it was part of the Angkor Empire and it's said that there is a road that leads straight to Angkor Wat.

That's it. One night in Champasak and I'm on the move again, thanks to the initiative of the Belgians. They have rented a boat to take us all 2 hours up river to Pakse. We try to play word games in the boat, but one girl doesn't speak English all that well. She is using French names for countries which often have different spellings. For instance, in French Uganda and Uzbekistan start with an "O". Germany starts with an "A". Chad starts with a "T". I ammuse myself with singing songs with the word "boat" in the title.

If I had a boat (Lyle Lovett)
Rock the boat (Hues Corporation)
Michael row your boat ashore
Row row row your boat

Okay, that's all I can think of.

Enjoying the fact that I haven't had to plan anything in days, I accompany the Belgians (along with some French and Germans) on an all day tour of the Boloven Plateau, the fertile plains north of Pakse. We visit coffee and tea plantation, both of which are grown in abundance in this area. At the tea plantation I ask where the lemon zinger tea plant is. Every single one of these arrogant fucks thinks I'm serious. Just another unrefined American.

I must mention that I am the only native English speaker in the group. Not really in the mood to talk, I have a good excuse to tune out the sound of their voices. When the different groups want to converse with each other, they use English. So, what I do get to listen to is a bunch of anti-Semites complaining about Israeli travelers. I am equally as sick of defending Israelis as I am of defending America so I keep quiet. I've had this conversation too many times. Yes, large groups of young Israelis can be loud and complaining and they're always trying to get a better price. But you never hear anyone complaining about Brits who drink themselves into oblivion but not before picking fights with anyone who walks by. Uhg! Fucking Nazis! I don't see any of them making friends with Israelis. Their limited observations are from afar. Nope. Everyone self-segregates. Except Americans. Last thing I want to do is hang out with a bunch of loud, complaining, wacko Americans.

American nut-job example: A man walks into an Indian restaurant and asks for Italian bread. This is a true story.

With the discomfort of my bloated stomach and the excrutiating pain of the skin boil that has been growing in my armpit since Sihanoukville, I decide to leave the French speakers and take an overnight bus to Vientiane, where I can recuperate in a cushy hotel room with a/c and cable. The bus ride is horrible. All through the night music keeps coming on, but only through the speaker directly above my head. The aisle is filled with people so there's no way I can get to the front of the bus to tell the driver to turn it off. Then, while in the bathroom the light goes off. I don't know where the switch is and I can't get out. I have no idea how I manage to finally open the door.

After two days in Vientiane with no change in my health, I go to the international medical clinic. I try to take a tuk-tuk, but when the driver quotes me a price more than double what I know it should be I start yelling at him. "I NEED TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL AND YOU TRY TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF ME!!! WHAT KIND OF PERSON ARE YOU!!!" Of course I know what kind of person he is. He's the kind of person who wants to feed his family. He takes a shot, as chances are good that he'll come across a tourist who doesn't know any better. I know I'm in a bad state, as I only yell at these guys when I'm over-tired or ill.

I walk to the clinic. Two doctors look at my armpit and suggest that it's a spider bite, which I know it isn't. They prescribe amoxicillin and some other meds for my stomach. The combination of the meds give me such severe heartburn that I'm throwing up.

There are two English movie channels on cable. For 4 days straight not one movie is repeated. This is an amazing thing is Asia. They show every Rocky movie. It is my opinion that the Rocky / Adrian romance is one of the greatest movie love stories ever told. Dumb, good-hearted, street thug falls for shy, homely pet lover. You don't get more real than that.

I spend 10 days in that hotel room with my arm raised above my head trying to keep the now cigar-sized crater of an open wound clean and dry. My stomach has not improved and I am forcing myself to eat so that I can take the medication.

I have now come to a critial point. I can barely move my arm, making it difficult and painful to carry a backpack, let alone put on a bra. The medication has not worked. I have no choice but to spend the cash to fly back to Bangkok. No Northern Laos. No Vietnam. These things happen.

As soon as I get on the plane I feel better. The psychological relief of a good decision I suppose.

In Bangkok I go immediately to Mission Hospital, which has been recommended by Steve Goodman. In the waiting room are pictures of hospital scenes where Jesus is standing in the background. Jesus in the operating room behind the surgeon with one hand placed supportively on his shoulder. Jesus standing over a doctor who assiduously researches G-d's latest plague. Jesus standing with the family of a terminally ill patient.

I am entered into the computer system and given an ID card. The comfort of a modern, networked computer system far exceeds that of the "Jesus is watching over you" evangelism.

For my skin ulcer I see a dermotologist who informs me that amoxicillin (prescribed by the Laos doctor) is for sore throats, not skin infections. She prescribes the correct anti-biotic and says that if my wound doesn't improve within a week I will have to have a biopsy. Freak out #1.

The internist tells me that I may have hepatitis. Freak out #2. I give a stool sample (yuck) to check for parasites which comes back negative. I then have blood taken to check for hepatitis. I have to explain to the nurse that people are really bad at taking my blood and to please get it right the first time. I have never gotton over the paradox of taking myself to do something I despise so much. If my mother isn't pushing me down the hallway, why don't I just turn around and leave?

Turns out I don't have hepatitis. A few anti-nausea pills and my symptoms start to fade. My terribly sexy armpit also starts to improve. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!

In the two weeks I am waiting to get better, my good friend, Shai, arrives in Bangkok, having just been released from an Indian hospital where he was on an IV drip for 8 days. We recount our illness stories. He helps me negotiate a good price on a wedding present (Not that your wedding present was cheap, Danny). You see, if you want to get a discount, take an Israeli shopping with you.

I go to the movies at the shopping mall. After previews but before the main attraction, a salute to the King comes in the form of a short multi-media presentation. Everyone stands. Still pictures of the King and the grand landscapes of Thailand move across the screen while deafening Thai music plays in Surround Sound.

I also wander around the mall trying not to buy anything. The most curious item is "Pink Nipple Cream". I had no idea there was a market for this type of product.

So now I'm better. In the past 3 months, I've had my money belt stolen, been forced to socialize with men who'd rather pay $15 in order to NOT talk to women, had an upset stomach for 5 weeks (which curiously started just about the time I had the oatmeal cookie from the euthanasia activist), had fits of vomitting due to incompetent doctors and have cryed my eyes out watching my flesh fester and ooze. I'm sick of Asia. I haven't been home in a year. My cousin is getting married.

I'm going home. For now...