Vientienne 27/03/06

Back in Vietienne, just got back from a two day hike to the Elephant tower, which is a look out you stay at over night in the middle of the nature reserve "Phou Khao Khouay" It is next to a salt lick where wild elephants come to, well lick salt.
We started out in the morning, me hiking over those stupid little bamboo bridges and fallen logs in the only pair of shoes I currently have (DM mary Janes). Let me just point out that however fashionable they may or may not be they leave a lot to be desired on the hiking frontier. (I will also note while on the subject of my footwear, that an overweight German in an orange hawaian shirt and a black leather sort of waist coat thong thing covered in tatoos on Don det told me I looked weird, if he did not look so much like a biker dude, moustache and stuff I may have said something about pots and kettles but as he looked mildly deranged as well as mean my preservation instincts kicked in).

Anyway back to the hike, Lao is full of the coolest little frogs, and I mean little but they can put on a great hop, they were the first "wild" life I saw, I mean I know they are wild and all but I guess I just associate wild with things that could possibly do me damage (butterflies and dragonflies also come into this category). We had started early and as we followed the river upstream we were lucky enough to come across a little family of otters, out for their breakfast, they were quite far away and we had to be very quiet, it was hard to contain my delighted squeals (yes otters make me act like a five year old I admit it). But some of our party didn't realise that the flash on the camera is not a good idea around wild life and unfortunately they disappeared all to quickly. The fact that I did not drown said camera flasher I still view as a small miracle that may hasten my beatitude once I am gone!

So creeping about in the jungle with two guides, Mr Tho and his son Auto (OK his name wasn't really Auto but he just reminded me of the simpsons dude)a couple of Dutch guys Karl and Sven (if you think thats bad, I had a bungalow next to a German called Wolfgang for a few days) and Kathy the French flasher all trying our best to be sneaky was difficult, I am surprised we saw anything at all, I disturbed a skinny yellowish snake who was sunning himself on the path, he almost turned into a spring coiling himself out of the way so fast. This eco-tourism is great go out into the forest and see how many poor little furry, feathery and scaley buggers you can scare the bejesus out of! It was beautiful and the walk was not terribly arduous, but we didn't really see much else till we got to the tower itself, The tower is made out of wood and is basically a circle with a bunch of matresses and mosquito nets strewn about it, but it does have a great view and so we ate and drank away the late afternoon (Auto, bless his rubber jandals carried the beer and lao lao in his back pack). With the early evening sure enough first the uninspiring though apparently very rare goaty things wandered past on their way to the river and not long after the elephants rolled into view and up to the salt lick, they were great, the politics of salt licking is something I don't quite understand but the elephants know who gets first lick and you don't want to be upsetting one of them, they are BIG.

I can't believe how late we stayed up, but you just didn't want to miss anything and the plague like noise of the crickets makes it impossible to sleep even if you wanted to. The trek out the next day was very laid back, probably because we were all still dozy from lack of sleep and too much adrenalin, still nice to have a shower and put on some clean clothes. At the end of a couple of days like that you can brush the salt off your body onto a bundle of greasy fish and chips, and still have enough left over to fill half a salt shaker. (have I put you off your dinner yet?).

Went to the market this morning and there was a whole avenue of marigold and incense sellers in the dawn light it was really beautiful, the last sunset was fantastic, much clearer than yesterday, but the heat has been pretty intense, I'm sure Bangkok will be just as bad!