Ari's Planet

Been off the air for a bit. This post is a shortie. Finally figured out 1. guidebooks suck; 2. the LP southeast asia guide especially sucks; 3. I really needed to get away from cities and typical tourist attractions. Looked up info on travelfish.org. Got to Ban Konglor village which has a well-organized homestay. The attraction is a 7 km underground section of a river, but the real treat is the far-away village and homestay, the delightful people, the beautiful karst landscape. Not to forget the capoeira-performing Israeli, watered-down home-brew lao lao (rice whiskey) sipped from a communal pot, and all-night music heard throughout the village. Possibly gibbons heard in the forest, but maybe it was some bird--I don't know. There's a brand-new road put in there and this place is going to become tuk-tuk tourist ATM land in a few years, but for now it is one of the most wonderful places I have been to. They grow tobacco in the dry season (now), have turkeys, lay small-animal snares just like natives in northern Canada, and dry the tobacco in special buildings. I almost thought I was back in steamy North Carolina.

In the village of Na Hin, on the way to Konglor, walls of blasting cicadas, children spear fishing in pools doing backflips, party music that forces me to find a new guesthouse at 10 pm, trucks carrying dogs to market in the direction of Vietnam in inhumane stacked boxes in the heat (estimate mid- to upper 30s), a young dog that joined me to take pictures of the karst formations chasing birds and acting and even looking like my father's dog, a taste of lao beer and wild squirrel pounded with chili paste, sticky rice. Sabaidee and kap chai!

I've made it down to Savanakhet, but heading on to Pakse. I only have 9 more days on my visa. Still want to see the Bolavan Plateau, maybe even find the buffalo sacrifice in a few days on the full moon of March. The Si Phan Don and Cambodia. Will fly from Singapore to Darwin and onward to Melbourne then Tasmania to hike the Overland Track, for which I need to book tickets (tigeraireways.com) and reserve a slot for the hike.

Did I mention that the Lao (or Thai, not sure on languages) love to do translations of popular songs? Yes, there's an ancient Israeli Eurovision entry that they play here. I heard it crossing the Mekong into Lao on a cellphone, then in the only shopping mall in Lao in Vientiane where I just stood agog as I watched the well-to-do Lao browsing the shops. Now I hear an American song, and damned if I can't remember the words, but it's old and well known, only sung in another language. It is wedding season and Lao LIKE EVERYONE IN THE WORLD TO HEAR THEIR MUSIC! I'm sure you can hear the DJ? Yes, that's him, see, I knew you could make out his voice.