No t\u0101m uz div\u0101m liel\u0101kaj\u0101m var p\u0101rcelties – Don Khong ir liel\u0101k\u0101 no t\u0101m un vair\u0101k t\u016bristu apmekl\u0113ta, t\u0101p\u0113c izv\u0113l\u0113j\u0101mies otru, kura atrodas pa\u0161os dienvidos, vien nieka 10 kilometru att\u0101lum\u0101 no Kambod\u017eas robe\u017eas. S\u0101kum\u0101 dom\u0101j\u0101m celties p\u0101ri ar mo\u010diem, kas teor\u0113tiski b\u016btu iesp\u0113jams, n\u0101ktos vien pac\u012bn\u012bties, mo\u010dus ce\u013cot laiv\u0101s. Tom\u0113r, uzzin\u0101ju\u0161i, ka salu divu stundu laik\u0101 var \u0161\u0137\u0113rsot ar k\u0101j\u0101m, atmet\u0101m \u0161o domu. N\u0101c\u0101s vien\u012bgi atrisin\u0101t jaut\u0101jumu kur atst\u0101t apar\u0101tus un bag\u0101\u017eu promb\u016btnes laik\u0101, bet ar\u012b tas nebija sare\u017e\u0123\u012bti – ciemat\u0101 Ban Nakasang, no kura t\u0101l\u0101k norisin\u0101s kust\u012bba uz salu, viet\u0113jais komersants v\u0101rd\u0101 misters D\u017eej, kur\u0161 ar\u012b ir att\u012bst\u012bjis transporta biznesu ar laiv\u0101m p\u0101r upi, par $2 nevilcinoties pied\u0101v\u0101 novietot tehniku sav\u0101 m\u0101j\u0101. T\u0101 k\u0101 gar\u0101\u017eas nav, tad vien\u012bg\u0101 telpa ir dz\u012bvojam\u0101 istaba, kur mo\u010di tiek novietoti goda viet\u0101 blakus<\/p>\n
We plan to go to the one of the two biggest: since\u00a0Don Khong<\/em>\u00a0is bigger and also more popular among tourists, we choose the smaller one which lies some ten kilometers away from the border of Cambodia. First we wanted to take our bikes with us, which in theory is possible, we\u2019d just need to lift them to a boat somehow; however, later, we find out the island is crossable by feet in two hours. So, we decide to leave the bikes, the only question is: where at? This is easily solvable one, too. A local guy from the village\u00a0Ban Nakasang<\/em>, named Mr. Jay who owns the boat station here, allows us to place the bikes in his house for $2. He doesn\u2019t have a garage, so the equipment is placed right in the room, next to the TV and a shelf with the family pictures. Himself, Mr. Jay feels very proud of such an opportunity since the crowd gathers around his house immediately to see the wonders of Western civilization.\u00a0<\/p>\n We get to the island within twenty minutes with Mr. Jay\u2019s boat we\u2019ve rented for $6. I assume the price was twice too high, however, this time we decided not to bargain. The Eastern side of the island is covered with tired bungalows, so we ask our captain to drift a bit further and at the bridge built by French we stop. There is a place named \u201cRiver Garden<\/em>\u201d. Sounds nice, and there are twenty more minutes to go to the beautiful rapids stretched across Mekong. Now, when water level is high, they are especially impressive. Allegedly, also limnetic dolphins live in this river; right now they are trying to stay away from the rapids, though. There are very few tourists around. We meet a German professional bagpacker named Sasha who travels for nine years already and whose goal is to visit all the countries in the world. Only forty-nine have left. His monthly budget is $100, which means about $3 per day, so he tries to save on everything. He rather goes around a tickets seller through the scrub than pays fifty cent national fee for crossing the bridge. A weird person. In the evening, Mr. Jay, the owner of our bungalow offers us an entertainment: to drift down the river with the pneumatic cameras and then jump off the bridge. Sounds tempting; however, Lonely Planet says that there are crocodiles in this part of Mekong. Mr. Jay laughs loudly and says that all the crocodiles are scared by tourists long ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n Whom are we supposed to believe? The stream is quite forceful here, so we have to additionally scull with our hands not to get drifted to the middle of the river. The bridge is about five meters high, the stream is muddy and furious, and we feel a bit scared. \u201eDon\u2019t worry<\/em>!\u201d says Mr. Jay and goes down first. I, as a natural born guy from Kuldiga, a Latvian rapids city, who has done this for many times, can\u2019t hold off, either. Janis follows me, too. By the supper we also get to see coconut gathering technique: a guy puts a loop made of an easy scarf around his feet and in a minute he is on ten meters high palm-tree. We are trying to repeat this trick, but somehow it doesn\u2019t work.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" No t\u0101m uz div\u0101m liel\u0101kaj\u0101m var p\u0101rcelties – Don Khong ir liel\u0101k\u0101 no t\u0101m un […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7836,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australija-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewayoffreedom.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewayoffreedom.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewayoffreedom.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewayoffreedom.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewayoffreedom.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewayoffreedom.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12468\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewayoffreedom.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewayoffreedom.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewayoffreedom.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewayoffreedom.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}