Jungle Beach. Paradise Found

Jungle Beach is like summer camps for grown ups - with beer. You pay a set price and get a bungalow and all meals are included and served communally. I opted for the relatively new "deluxe suite" and got a 3 bed, 2 story villa with views of the surrounding mountains and most importantly (to me) an ensuite. The upstairs where I opted to reside had a double bed and a hammock in the window. The grounds are lush with vegitation and at the end is a private beach with sun shades. And the view - nothing but blue skies and endless ocean. The water was clear, warm and calm. For four days I did nothing but eat, sleep, read, swim and lie on the beach. At night were card games and a bonfire under the stars. I know this sounds like an advertisement but JB deserves all the accolades it gets. I travelled 12 hours from where I needed to be but it was worth it. Hands up who wants to join me on a return visit? But all good things must come to an end. Sad to leave all the wonderful people I'd met there I jumped on an overnight sleeper bus and headed north to Hoi An, Tet and a friend from home.

You go now! To Vietnam.

After a chicken/rice sack/people on little chairs down the isle bus ride from Savannahket we hit the border. The configuration of the bus did not change (and I have the scar on my knee to prove it) but the landscape changed dramatically. The road to Dong Ha (my destination) goes through the DMZ and the landscape looks like many an American Vietnam war film. We passed through Khe Sanh ('cmon all you Chisel fans - I left my heart to the something something Khe Sanh...)and onwards to Dong Ha. Luckily I'd met some fellow travellers who were going straight to Hue so we banded together and found ourselves on a returning DMZ tour bus. The You Go Now! of the title refers to the touts that surrounded us at the bus stop as we tried and failed to get a decent price to Hue. Its was late in the afternoon and so they had us over a barrel. It was either $5 or a night in Dong Ha. "We have bus. $5. You go now! You go now!" Apparently the road up to the border is pretty much the tour so I could tell touts been there, done that. I ended up in a hotel room complete with a PC and internet access and contemplated my next move. Hoi An was out as I would be returning for Tet. I thought about Ninh Binh but finally settled on the beach. I'd long known about Jungle Beach resort 60kms north of Nha Trang and it felt like the perfect place to unwind and get ready for the craziness of Tet. I faffed around in Hue before my next adventure - the overnight train to Nha Trang. This particular train only had hard sleepers so I opted for a soft seat AC. I admit I was apprehensive about catching an overnighter solo but surely I could stay awake for 12 hours? Ha! The train had not aged well, faded wood panneling and squat toilets (I know these rate the occasional mention but you try it on a moving train!) but in keeping with the cacophony of Asian travel TV screens blaring local news and True Lies - not dubbed but with a woman reading the lines in Vietnamese. The train travelled along the coast I would later backtrack to get to Jungle Beach. An hour and a half after arriving in Nha Trang I got to paradise. Jungle Beach is in the middle of nowhere and truly the perfect place to get away from it all.

Books read

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo - Steig Larsson
Well plotted with the threads of interconnecting stories brought together nicely. A couple of the plot twists jarred somewhat but a good holiday read!

Roadkill - Kinky Friedman
A rollocking good laugh (a LOL book) from start to finish. Who but the Kinkster would be on the road with Willie Nelson who thinks he's under an Indian curse?!

Water for Elephants - Sarah Gruen
In a word, lovely. Beautifully evocative of the great circuses of the Depression with a bit of suspense thrown in.

Sons and Lovers - D H Lawrence
Started off well but the main bulk with the focus on second son of the title was tedious and bogged down in an unsympathetic character. I only finished it as I can't waste a book as I never know where the next one is coming from!

The White Tiger - Aravind Adiga
Really, really good. A scathing look at modern India. Interestingly I felt it could have been a bit longer and more fleshed out. Thematically it reminded me of Transmission by Hari Kunzru.

Not finding the love in southern Laos

I left the 4000 Islands, lovely as they were for Pakse. It had what the islands didn't namely an ATM and decently priced internet. Not a very romantic reason to move on but there you go. Pakse doesn't have much in terms of sights but is more of a jumping off point for places like Champasak and the Bolevan Plateau. The maxi bus (bigger than a mini bus but smaller than a coach - not the official term, just my interpretation) from the islands to Pakse was relatively uneventful. Even though the roads are good for some reason the speed limit is quite low so it takes forever to get anywhere. More of that story later. I booked into one of the most interesting hotels I've stayed in so far. The Hotel Salachampa is an old French villa and the room was a huge suite with beautiful heavy wooden furniture. It looked like the kind of room Ernest Hemmingway might have written in. In between doing practical stuff I hired a bike and had a good tour around. I headed to the Historical Museum and while at first glance it was predominately photographs and charts with a scattering of objects it was quite an interesting insight particularly into modern Laos history. Also did a must do in Pakse which is breakfast noodle soup from the Lankam Hotel - delicious!

So practicalities done I doubled back south to Champasak to see Wat Phou, an Ankorian era temple. By good fortune I arrived in the middle of a three day Buddist festival at the site. Equally lucky was my ability to get a room! Champasak is not a very prepossessing place with no decent places to stay or eat but it is right on the Mekong so the sunsets are gorgeous. I arrived at 9am from Pakse so by 10 I was on a bike (a slighly better adjusted but still single speed number) and rode the 10kms to the temple. The traffic was constant with sangthews full of people coming and going. After paying my 5000 kip bike toll I headed through the gates to join the hoards of people heading for the mountain. At the base a big market with food tents and stages for entertainment had been set up - I even saw a boxing ring which I later found out would host Thai boxing in the evening. Streams of people swarmed past the lower ruins and up the stairs to to upper temples bringing offerings of insence and flowers. Monks chanted and families picniced as the the smoke from thousands of sticks of incence sent a cloud of perfumed smoke over the mountain. (Sorry, that prose was a bit purple but it really was amazing!) I had a lunch of noodle soup within sight of the lower temples fully aware that this experience is only available a few days a year.

The next day I decided to head all the way to Savannaket, from where I would cross into Vietnam. I took a sangthew from Champasak to Pakse. One thing I didn't note is that Champasak is on the opposite side of the river to the main highway. To get across there are these amazing ferry contraptions which look like 2 canoes lashed together with a platform in the middle but on a massive scale. The one I was on held two sangthews, a mini bus and a ute. So over the river and an hour to Pakse brought me to the bus station to catch my bus to Savannahket. My only option was to catch one of the local, slow, non airconditioned buses that leave every hour. I know I might sound like a bit of a princess here but 6 HOURS to go 230 KILOMETERS on good road??!!! WTF? Carrying rice bags, chickens and god knows what else, stopping every 5 minutes to pick up and drop off and then the lack of a speed limit over 50 - christ! Yes its all part of the joys of travel (and would be repeated on the bus to Vietnam) but it doesn't half make me grumpy! I was not finding the love in southern Laos. And Savannahket wasn't any different. As soon as I arrived I wanted to leave. But given enough time it revealed some charms as Pakse did. Namely the Dinosaur Museum. Yes, you read that right. In the 1930's a French paleontologist disovered 4 species of dinosaurs in the region. Its a typical regional museum with dusty display cases and basically labelled (mostly in French) specimens. But the staff were so enthusastic, proudly showing me each object and the rest of the museum and even let visitors hold a dinosaur bone (about which I felt equally guilty and chuffed!). The outline of biggest of the specimens was done in coloured lights! Such a singular experience! Unfortuately things went a bit down hill when I got bed bugs on my first night which made me a bit miserable. Then it was time to leave Laos. I'll probably head back after a few weeks in Vietnam and fly to the north but for now it was time for Vietnam.