Southern Laos, part 2

We got to downtown Pakse and found some rooms - we settled into separate hotels but agreed to meet up a bit later. At about 3, we set off to find an ATM for the boys, which turned out to be a task that was easier said than done. We found a couple, but both were out of money (it was a Sunday), then we finally found the last one, which miraculously had money. One of the first things in our favor that way after the delayed bus, the lack of English speakers to point the way to Pakse, and the lack of functioning (and nearby) ATMs.

What else is there to do in a boring town at 3pm other than sit down and have some beers? We couldn't come up with anything else, either, so that's what we did as we completed Operation: Feed the Boys. We had a couple of beers, then it was naptime, so I went to my room for a couple of hours. Later on, as I headed to the internet, I ran into them again. It turns out that they hadn't been napping - when they got to the hotel, there were some Laotians there sitting around drinking beer and whiskey, so they joined them, as any good traveller would. I promised them I would stop by when I finished up my internet time.

Thankfully, when I got there, the booze was nearly out, and when it was, the party broke up and I went out for dinner with the two guys I'd been travelling with.


The next day, we arranged to be picked up at 8am so that we could get to Champasak early enough for the two boys to mosey on down to the Four Thousand Islands at the southern tip of Laos. Our van dropped us off on one side of the river, and we hired a guy with a dugout canoe to take us across to the other side. The guy started out paddling, then switched to a motor when we were in deep enough water. About halfway across the river, the Argentine started fidgeting, which caused the boat to start rocking and nearly provoked a heart attack when I started to think about the murky water claiming my camera and ipod. But we made it safe and sound.

After haggling a bit, we got a tuk tuk ride to a hotel which had not only a restaurant with beautiful views of the river, but it also rented us bicycles. We chowed down and then set off on our bikes to head to the ruins.

I loved our bike ride! I hadn't done much exercise besides tote my backpack from bus to hotel, and seeing the countryside by bike was very refreshing. It was about a half an hour through some rural areas until we finally reached the ruins. We propped up our bikes against a sign (we weren't given a lock), and we headed towards the ruins.


Had I already seen Angkor Wat, I wouldn't have made the effort to see these ruins, but since they were described as Laos' best ruins by my trusty Lonely Planet, I decided to check them out to get a taste of what was to come in Cambodia. It was well worth it. There were some bigger buildings down below, but then we tackled a big staircase up the hill. The views from above were spectacular! The ruins weren't too bad, and there were a couple of cool carvings in these massive boulders up top that we were climbing around. It was pretty hot, so after about an hour or so, we climbed back down and onto our bikes, which were still propped up next to the sign down below.

The ride back was equally amazing, and school had just gotten out, so we passed a lot of uniformed kids for about 10-15 minutes of our ride. The rest of the time, it was rice paddies, oxen, and wooden houses. We nearly grabbed some lunch on the way back, but in addition to the lack of English spoken, we also were able to deduce that there was a lack of items on the menu, and our lunch would have been ramen noodles.

So we peddled on and arrived back to the hotel a bit sweaty but in good spirits and happy that we'd taken the time to make our way to the ruins.

We retraced our steps across the river and back to the main road where my last view of my two travelling buddies was them climbing into a mini-van with a random Laotian family they decided to hitchhike with. As my luck had it, I had to wait about 20 minutes for the first bus to pass by going north back to Pakse, but the bus was super-luxury and even included (broken) massage functions on the nearly horizontally-reclining seats. Too bad my ride was only about 30 minutes. I still dozed.

The bus dropped me off at the fancy first class bus station which was much cleaner than the previous day's market/bus station, but I found myself only about 2 blocks away from a massive market. I walked through it, snapped a few shots (like this one), then got a ride back into town in a motorcycle sidecar-type thing.

Pakse remained uneventful when I got back in town, but I was tired ater my action-packed day, so I basically did nothing. In true traveller fashion, I did run into a couple in the internet cafe that I'd more or less bumped into in nearly every town since the Thai/Laos border.

Southern Laos, part 1

Post Vang Vieng, I headed to the capital of Vientiane, which proved to be little more than a bustling city. I was there for an afternoon and a full day (which was enough for me) before boarding a night bus, my first since I had a credit card stolen in Thailand. They sent a pickup truck around to pick up everyone before getting on the bus, and the Spaniard's words rang true (the one from the boat to Muang Ngoi), as it seemed to be a squeeze to fit me on, but they definitely doubled the number of people in the back of the truck before we were finally dropped off at the bus station. At about 6am the next morning, we were at the bus station in Pakse in southern Laos.

I set off immediately for Tadlo after recruiting two guys (a Canadian and an Argentine) from the night bus to follow me, and after another couple of hours in a bus, we were dropped off at the side of the road in a dusty village (calling it a village is a bit of a stretch... let's say grouping of houses and stores). We asked about tuk tuks, and after finding out there were none, we set off by foot down a narrow paved road. About 10-15 minutes down, we found Tim's Guest House and checked in.

We were pretty much in the middle of no where, and it was great! After breakfast, the three of us set off to check out some nearby waterfalls. We found one, then we set off for another one, but midway, we stopped off at some rocks in the stream and I had a short nap in the sun with the sound of rushing water lulling me to sleep. I woke up, and the three of us continued upstream until we reached waterfall #2. One of the guys set off across two narrow logs which led to a very rickety-looking bridge-like structure to get to the other side of the stream. Luckily, there were no casualties and we made it to the other side, some of us (me) less graceful than others.

Our time in Tadlo was spent lazing about, playing cards, chatting and reading. But I both due to a tight schedule (I had a flight a couple of days later to Cambodia), and lack of much to do (also the beauty of the place), we left the next morning. Funnily enough, a small restaurant about 3 minutes away from our hotel had "local special herbs" in some of their dishes, such as "Fried banana with local special herbs," or the same with Lao Lao whiskey, or even a shake with "local special herbs." We sat around debating as to what the special herb was and if it truly was just a special herb or if it was a Vang Vieng-style "special herb." Well, we asked the restaurant guy what it was, and he replied that it was "weed." Well, we didn't get around to trying that, but they did have some pretty killer coffee shakes for $.50. Yum.

My destination was Champasak, a smallish relaxing village on a river that is close to what my trusty Lonely Planet called "the best ruins in Laos." The two guys decided that that was an ok destination as well, so I had some travel buddies for the ride. We grabbed a tuk tuk after breakfast to the road in hopes of getting the 10:00am bus, but unfortunately, our traveller's luck had run out, as we waited for nearly an hour for the bus. While we were waiting, I crossed the street to check out a market just across the way and I was a little surprised by some of the things they were selling there. Toads, snakes (i think they were alive..), a dead bat, geese, chickens, some sort of lizard (also dead), an owl and a few other random things. Yuumm. After seeing all of that, I sent the boys over to check it out themselves. Eventually, we hopped on board a very rickety bus and set off back to Pakse, which is where we had to go for our next connection.

We were dropped off in a market just as it started to pour down rain (greeeat...) and we ducked for cover in the waiting area shelter. The two guys had little to no cash and were on a mission to get to an ATM. Unfortunately, we seemed to finally have found an area of Laos that didn't have so many tourists, which is usually a good thing, but in this case, it meant that no one spoke English. One guy left to go look for an ATM (it had stopped raining) and I set off trying to figure out the best way to get to Champasak with my trusty Lonely Planet Laos/English dictionary, asking in broken Laos when the next truck for Champasak left. Everyone recognized "Champasak," and I think they understood my pronunciation of Sawngthaew, which is one of their fabulous pick up trucks with benches along the back, but that's where things started to go bad. Apparently the answer to my question of where the next Sawngthaew leaving for Champasak could be found was not quite as easy as a gesture or point. I asked several people who looked at me blankly, several who pointed to some random sawngthaew (and at that sawngthaew, they'd point at another one, and so on..), or even to some random corner of the market.

I returned back to the shelter to find the Canadian who was looking for an ATM was back. He was frustrated because the next ATM was apparently not walkable - it was 8km away, and the tuk tuk driver wanted to charge him $10 to go there and back. At this point in time, we decided that perhaps it would be best to go into town and aim for Champasak the following day after the boys had money, and after we'd had the opportunity to ask a hotel or two just how you get to Champasak.