Lost in Laos by Lydia Laube

Author:Lydia Laube
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: WTL, TRV003000, book
ISBN: 9781743050781
Publisher: Wakefield Press
Published: 2012-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

15 Tha Khaek

Following the night of rain the morning was relatively cool. The Southida Guesthouse is in a small street that runs down to the Mekong, and soon I was walking along the river’s edge under shady trees. Thailand was clearly visible on the other side of the river. Tha Khaek is a river port, a crossing point between Laos and Thailand, and freight boats and ferries were coming and going busily.

It didn’t take me long to decide that I liked Tha Khaek. The riverside road was not very wide and almost no traffic came along it. Dotted under the trees on the bank were small local eating places and stalls selling drinks in bottles and cans as well as junk food in packets. Not the touristy cafes of Luang Prabang and Vientiane, but mere wooden benches and stands. No one pestered me to buy. The river scene was much more relaxed here.

Now and then along the edge of the river I came to rough-hewn steps in the riverbank that led down to small timber landings where wooden boats waited. Further on there was a floating restaurant. Merely a big pontoon with a roof, it looked like a fun place for mosquitoes and sandflies. I reckoned they would be doing most of the dining there. So far I’d only collected one more bite – a beauty, two inches across – since the initial mess I’d been made of by the insects of Vientiane.

On the other side of the river road were houses and a few small shops, in one of which I was served by a tiny four-year-old girl. We got on just fine. When your only method of communication is pantomime you are on the same level as a four year old anyway. Cruising along the shop’s two wide, sparsely-filled shelves looking for some hand cream, eventually I found something that looked hopeful. Made in Thailand, it cost less than two dollars and promised anti-aging as well as vitamins. Having recently read in the Vientiane News that a company in Thailand had been prosecuted for selling cosmetic creams containing lead and horrible nasties like tetra carbonates, I hoped that this was not one of their products. Incidentally, I also read in that paper that twelve people had been sentenced to death in Vietnam for fraud – selling or making fake goods.

Further along the road curved around, left the river and looped back through the town. I kept walking and passed the ‘square of the fountain’, of which latter item there was no sight. Much building was happening in the square; perhaps the fountain was away for R and R. Around the square and the street behind the river road, which seemed to be the main part of town, some interesting old buildings remained from the days of French colonialism. Streaked with black tropical mould, they looked ancient. Some had been restored by the United Nations. Different from colonial architecture I had seen elsewhere, they had balconies on the upper levels and arched colonnades in front of their entrances.

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