Beware of the bearded man in Pakxé

The day after our opium experiment we drove back to Luang Prabang. I had a terrible pain in my stomach and we had to wait before geting back on the road. We managed to choose the right road and the drive was the four hours it was supposed to be. Close to Luang Prabang we were pulled over by the police. The only thing they asked us was were we where from and when replying “Sweden” no further questions was asked. We could just go. Being from a somewhat politically anonymous country that nobody had any strong feelings about usually worked when being in contact with authorities. It was different being from the US in Vietnam, I’ll get to that later.

Back in Luang Prabang we arrived ten minutes late to return the scooter. The lady that had rented it to me wanted to charge us with another day of rent but I decided to try my luck and just say no. To my suprise the argument was over, her reply was simply “Ok”. Which was reasonable, ten minutes should never equal an extra day. A year ago I would’ve just payed her to avoid confrontation. This was a small victory for the sligthly braver version of myself that I wanted to spawn but it was a long way to go.

Next stop for us was the Lao capital Vientiane. We tried our first sleeperbus, which is the best when backpacking. You save a night of hotel expenses and you wake up in a new city. We had no expectations for Vientiane and it turned out that no expectations was exactly correct. There’s absolutely nothing to do or to see and after spending two days the most exciting thing we found was a pub that had Belgian beer. My ex had the idea of this trip to be ours so when I turned out to have my own ideas and not neccesarily wanting to follow her all the time she openly expressed her disapointed towards me but not towards Anna. We wanted to go to Don Det to see the Mekong river at it’s most violent side in the area that’s called The thousands islands and yet again we parted ways. She flew to Phnom Penh and we got on a sleeperbus.

Vientiane sunset.

At 5am the bus stoped in Pakse. We needed to wait an hour and a half for a new bus that would get us the last 100km to Don Det. This was not something we were told when we booked the trip but it was neither something that came as a suprise. Things are bound to change and details aren’t always mentioned when you travel by chartered bus in South East Asia. Me, Anna and a Belgian girl sat down on a bench to wait. After a couple of minutes of waiting a rowdy local in a yellow jacket approached us. He stepped out of a minivan with a beer in his hand saying he was going to take us to the office but we needed to pay him five dollars. The warning signs was pretty clear that this was not someone to thrust and the three of us said “No thanks, we’ll wait right here for the bus”.

This was not something that he liked and he instantly started to scream at the belgian girl. She wasn’t having it and told him to leave us alone. The situation seemed to be over and he went back to drinking and trying to lure other people into his van. Somehow he got other european looking people with backpacks to step into his van and the Belgian girl shouted -”Don’t go with him, he’s drunk”. Some people got out and some went with him. A bus stoped in front of our bench but it was not ours. The drunk guy was back and of course he had business in the bus. A tractor tyre needed to be unloaded and he thought he was the guy for the job. His plan was to somehow use the tyre to attack us and I noticed it as he was looking at us as he was pushing it out of the bus. I asked if he needed help and told him that he was doing it wrong all to let him know that we saw his bullshit. The guy rolled the tyre straight to the Belgian girl and it hit her leg. She lost her shit and screamed at him to leave her alone.

We managed to get the girl away and walked to the other side of the parking lot to a different bench. A new bus rolled up and it said Don Det. We asked the busdriver if we could get on it as it was the bus that was ours in an hour or so. The answer was yes and we got on hoping that we could sit down and sleep until departure. Two minutes later the drunk guy was inside the bus looking to bother us again. This is when I felt that I’ve had it.

-”You should leave, you are harrassing us” I told him with my most grown up voice.

-”You’re a tourist, I’m from Pakse, You listen to me” he replied and walked towards the Belgian girl.

I stood up and blocked the way. I’m no fighter but I was a lot bigger than him. My odds was good to take him down if needed to but I knew that the racism was strong towards foreigners that decides to be cocky towards the locals. I was likely in trouble with everyone if we actually got into a fight but someone needed to stand up to him and I was the only man around. Being close to his face I noticed that he had a single straw beard growing out of a mole onhis chin and I laughed to myself. What a life, to be a alcoholic man with a molebeard at a busstop in Pakse that assaults women with tractor tyres.

-“You leave us alone, we don’t want you to be here.” I said and I tried to look as intimidating as possible.

-”I’ll wait for you at the border and put drugs in your bag.” He said and gave me a furious look.

-”See you there then” I said and that was the end of the conversation.

He left the bus and my heart was racing. I followed his every move until he disapeared out of sight. I was never thinking that it was over, I was expecting him to come back but nothing happened. Half an hour later the bus departed but stoped in the city of Pakse and who showed up to get into the bus one last time if not our friend. The belgian girl managed to talk to someone responsible that spoke her language and the guy was in no way associated with the buscompany.

What he was up to was his way of making a living. Harrasing tourists and hoping to scam them out of money. As he walked into the bus I figured he would start shit with me again but as he passed me he didn’t even notice that I was there. That was quite a relief for me as it made me think that it wasn’t just alcohol, it was likely something heavier aswell which made him forget about me quickly. Who knows? We left Pakse and arrived to Don Det without more trouble.

The Thousand islands of the Mekong River.

Don Det is a tiny little island with approximately 50 inhabitants that has made an effort to host tourists looking to see the thousand islands. We rented a bike and we had made our way around the island in something like fiftheen minutes. The commcercial part of the island was one hotel and a couple of homestay hostels. Besides Singha and Tiger Beer, all the bars sold mushroom- and weedshakes from which I had myself a weedshake the second night with no result at all. I was hoping I would atleast fall heavily asleep.

By crossing a little bridge we could make our way down the river to the waterfalls. I’ve never seen so many waterfalls in the same area. The local fishermen had setup traps for fish to fall into in extremely dangerous places. If someone like me would slip and fall I would be dead and gone within seconds and that’s what they do every day to feed their families.

Don Det sunset.

We only stayed two days in Don Det and to be it was hard to entertain ourselves. It was a beautiful area but very hard to get around as boat was the only option to really see everything. Talking to other backpackers I told the story of the guy that threathened me with drugs in my bags in Pakse and how ridicolous I found him. The response wasn’t at all to my favour. I had no idea that a canadian guy named Nara Pech had been killed after passing the security check at the Vientiane Airport just a year earlier. I was probably lucky to make it out of Pakse without being stabbed and I still had to cross the border to Cambodia.