Word: si
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Tucked away at the southern most tip of Laos, Si Phan Don (Four Thousand Islands) is an 8.5-mile-wide (14 km) archipelago where the Mekong fans out and the land dissolves into thousands of muddy, grass-covered islands, islets and sandbars. The fact that only three islands offer tourist accommodation (rudimentary at that) tells you that this far-flung part of Champasak province is in no danger of being generally discovered - yet. But the more astute backpackers are trickling in on tiny wooden ferryboats, in slowly growing numbers, lured by the chance to do not very much at dirt...
...Si Phan Don is best reached from Pakse, a midsize city that serves as a transport hub for southern Laos. From Pakse, you can make the 90-minute journey by minibus to the Mekong where longtails wait to ferry passengers across to Don Det and other islands. As for the timing of your visit, well, now would be good. All the disquieting signs of backpacker tourism are appearing - the Internet cafés, cheap pizza parlors and beach bars blasting reggae. There are rumors, too, of 24-hour electricity: great for business, not so good for lovers of sublime escapes...
...progressive, prolific Wellwoods - prolific in both writing and childbearing, Olive and Humphry have a brood of seven - and their artsy friends and acolytes form the core of Byatt's novel, and they are an invigorating bunch. Fin de siècle England was bursting with new ideas and beliefs (socialism, suffragism, anarchism, free love), and Byatt's characters are exuberant participants, joining, lecturing, writing, rebelling, and navigating the fallout when their experiments (particularly in the free-love category) come to grief...
...multimillion-dollar concession fees to the government. The remote islands are guarded by dozens of armed men - in effect private armies - and are often run "like independent states," says Jandam, the author of the industry study. Companies discourage all visitors, claiming they might disrupt the birds' habitat. In Koh Si Koh Ha, a string of islands in Phatthalung province, 14 suspected nest thieves were shot dead in two separate incidents in the early 1990s...
...splendid capitals three centuries back, gets lost in the modern Thai glitter. Aside from two museums and a famed crafts center, this UNESCO World Heritage Site offers too many temples in every which way. Less diligent tour groups never make it beyond the emblematic columns of the Wat Phra Si Sanphet to the many parks strewn with headless statuary and palace foundations. But Wat Mahatat, with a stone head emerging from gnarled bodhi (or fig tree) roots, is as good as historical rummaging gets. And the reclining Buddha, speckled with fresh squares of gold leaf, seems hundreds of miles from...