Don Det to Champa"sick"

Apparently, hammock time isn't as good for your health as you might think. After living the island life for a couple of slow days, I managed to come down with my first real illness of the entire trip - no, not malaria, tapeworms, or even simple giardia (although Emilie's money is on Dengue fever). No, I've been taken out by the common flu. The past two days have been spent mostly curled up in the fetal position underneath my fan, with occasional attempts to choke down a little bread and orange soda. The mere thought of yet another bowl of rice kickstarts the dry heaves. Ok, I'm being slightly dramatic, but still - being sick with something as lame as the flu, in a foreign country sucks. That being said, I did manage my first full meal in 48 hours this evening. It hasn't come up for round two yet - life is looking better.

The trip from Don Det (flu island) to my next stop in Chamapasak town was pretty straight forward by Laos standards: river ferry, pickup truck, hitch hike, pickup truck, river ferry, sweaty 2 km hike into town. Made a couple of friends along the way - a Zimbabwean-born Kiwi and a kid from Los Angeles. Between the three of us, we managed to get from point A to point B without too much drama and plenty of Mugabe-bashing all around. The main mode of transport in Laos is the sawngthaew, sort of the bastardized offspring between a pickup truck and tuk tuk. If you happen to see one heading going your way, wave it down, negotiate a fare, and climb into the covered back. If you're lucky, there will be a little room amongst the bodies, livestock, produce, and luggage.

Heading out of Don Det, I wedged in between a couple of betel nut-chewing old ladies and a younger woman carrying a string of (very) freshly caught Mekong catfish - they were still flipping and flapping all over the place. Finally she just tied them up into a ball with some twine and stuffed them into a plastic sack. As I sat down, I accidentally kicked one of the big burlap sacks that was taking up most of the floor and the entire thing jumped up about six inches and started squealing. Then the bag next to it started squealing and thrashing around. The old ladies started cackling and laughing, red betel juice dripping from the corners of their mouths, until one finally shoved the bagged pigs back to the floor. Eventually everything calmed down and off we went, in a cloud of road dust. Minus what I hope to be the tail end of my illness, Champasak turned out to be a pretty cool little place. Sleepy riverside towns seem to be a dime a dozen in Laos but Champasak also has a UNESCO World Heritage Site going for it. About 10 km south of town lies Wat Phu Champasak, an ancient Ankor-era temple complex that, like Angkor, has been slowly reclaimed by the surrounding jungle. Wat Phu Champasak is unique because it was built up the side of the nearby mountain, peaking out at a sacred spring. The spring is still flowing (I took a holy splash bath after my hike to the top) and some of the ruins are being restored with the new UN money. It's no Angkor Wat, but its location is arguably more stunning. Climb to the upper temple and you can look out across the Mekong and beyon eastern Laos into Vietnam. Riding my bike down to the ruins at sunrise let me beat the crowds of tourists that bus in from nearby Pakse - I had the it all to myself, save for a French couple and the Lao women setting up their shrine-side snack snops, for an hour or so.

The rest of the day was spent curled up in a ball on my bed sipping Orange Miranda soda. By evening I was feeling well enough to pedal around town a bit and eat a little. Asleep by 7:00, up with the neighbor's crowing rooster at 4:00am, and off to Pakse after an omlette and cup of Lao coffee. Starting to feel better.