Chillaxin in Southern Laos

11/12

Took a bus from Kratie to the Cambodia/Laos border. The border was pretty hilarious. It was just two random delapidated stilted wooden buildings. One to leave cambodia where there was a 1 dollar "fee", then a 100 meter walk to the one to enter Laos where the guy there decided to charge a 2 dollar "fee". Which I guess makes sense b/c we had to wake the poor guy up. There was no video security or anything like that, but one guy was there with a digital camera taking photos of all the white people crossing the border. Maybe for his own fun, but maybe for something official. The healthcare checkpoint was only guarded by a rooster, so we breezed through that, wary of catching bird flu from the inspector.

We then hopped on some big old passenger truck and took a short ride on an extremely pot-holed rode to the riverside of the mekong. It was now completely dark, but we hopped into a little longtail boat and headed off to Don Dhet, one of the islands in Si Phan Don (the 4000 islands). We checked into a place and then had fruitshakes and our first drink of the infamous beer lao. There is no electricity there from 10pm to 4pm, so it was definitely a sweaty night in our bungalows without a fan.

The next morning we got up early to take advantage of the slightly "cooler" morning air to ride bicycles to Don Khon Island. To get between the islands you cross a bridge that housed the only rail line ever built by the french in laos. From there we continued to bike until we came to the otherside and there is a powerful waterful as part of the mekong tumbles through some cataracts. The waterfall wasn't very tall or anything, but still very impressive with the huge amount of water of the mekong tumbling down and creating all that force. The ride there and back was scenic, through some rice fields and quiet villages. The 4000 islands are known as being the most relaxed place in Laos, a country that is known as one of the most relaxed places in the world. And we found that to be true. Almost everyone was just sitting in their hammocks or sleeping under a tree or in their store. And just very quiet and peaceful. So slow moving.

After our bike ride, we broke laos tradition and instead of spending the rest of the day in hammocks along the river sleeping and reading, we took the Happy Boat Tour which was a party barge type thing. We were on it with 2 germans (burndt and Anya), an Irishwoman (danielle, who was a covert bbc reporter paid to just chill in asia until some sort of story came up, but most recently she had been doing undercover reporting in Burma where the bbc is prohibited), and 2 aussie gals. The tour involved motoring to some island, swimming in the mekong all day to stay cool with beer lao bottles and buckets of lao whiskey and coke. At some point we had a fish bbq and then moved back to the river for more buckets and swimming. Then a mud fight of course! Eventually we got out tubes, tied them to the boat and took off back towards don dhet, all drunk and having a good time.

11/14 Took the boat then bus to Pakse and then another bus to Paksong, high up on the Bolaven Plateau where the air was magically and refreshingly cool. We celebrated the cool air with a thai bbq. The Bolaven plateau is noted for its cool air, waterfalls, and coffee plantations.

11/15 Rented motor bikes and drove 55km to Namtok Katamatok, the supposed largest waterfall in SE Asia. It's 120m tall (400ft) and truly impressive. You can't get down to the base of it, but even from a distance it's incredible as it tumbles off of the jungly plateau. The sound alone is crazy loud and then just watching the water crash onto the rocks and make all that mist. A most awesome waterfall indeed. The 55k there was an adventure as well. The first 10 km was on the "good" road according to the guy we rented from, but it was a paved road pockmarked with giant motorcycle swallowing potholes. So we had to get our swerve on and basically play mario kart with our real life scooters dodging potholes, oncoming traffic, chickens, water buffalo, cows, dogs, pigs, little kids, etc. After the paved pothole madness it was just a bumpy dirt road. On the way back we stopped at two other impressive waterfalls and swam at the top of one. It also poured and poured rain on the back. Brought me back a little to my sumatra motor biked days being on a cold and high plateau in pouring rain. I luckily had my rain coat with me, so I didn't get too wet and cold. But conrad and whitney just had their shorts and t-shirts, so they were icicles (whitney a shaking icicle) when we got back to our guesthouse. We were very thankful (for the first time) to have piping hot noodle soup to eat.

That night we went out to some carnival thing. There was this came with coffee beans where you put money on how many beans you thought were under the cup. It was fairly easy to see how many beans were under the cup, yet the two laotians playing were guessing wrong half the time. All of our eyes lit up with the thought of how much kip (laos money) we could make off this came, b/c it just seemed so simple. But after a short time we had all lost about 2 bucks and were done betting (2 bucks = two large beer lao's). But we were determined to figure out how we were losing, b/c it was so easy to see how many beans were under the cup. So we stayed some more and watched and realized that the guy with the beans had two co horts that were also betting and winning and losing money (which of course didn't matter b/c they were all together). These guys were used to draw you into betting b/c they would lay down stupid bets and lose. Say you saw that there were 2 beans under the cup, they'd bet 3 or 1 and lose, and we'd think how easy it was since it was obviously 2. But as soon as we bet, when it was obviously 2, it would become 3. So we figured out that the bean man would add or subtract beans magician style at the last moment after you had bet, so that you couldn't win and the to players in with him were just used to build up your confidence. There was also some weird cheat thing that would go on to draw you in as well. But we became quite intrigued with the game and went around to lots of different dealers where we could immediately spot the two helpers, and we were entertained watching them suck other people in. We of course could get really into it and talk english to each other, b/c no one else could understand. We were frustrated at our stupidness for being scammed and losing 2 bucks on the game, but of course it was 2 bucks for a whole night of good entertainment.

11/16 We walked to three other waterfalls on the plateau. First we went to Tad Champee which was an incredibly scenic and secluded falls that we enjoyed a nice dip in the very refreshing water. Next we went to Tad Fan, which is a twin falls dropping 100 meters off of the plateau. It was breathtaking, but only a bit more breathtaking than the ledge you had to stand out on to get a view of the falls. The last falls was, of course, another beautiful one called Tad Yuang. After we got done hiking to the falls, we hitch hiked a ride back to Pakse, where we got some good indian food (and some roti canais!) and then caught a night bus headed for vientiene, the capital city. The bus was super sweet as it was a sleeper bus, which meant we each had beds. We were only going as far as Tha Kaek though, so we got off at 1 am there. We hitched a ride towards town. We got picked up by an employee of one of the guest houses, so we were dropped there. The available rooms there smelled terrible, so we turned it down and walked the 1km to the next recommended guesthouse. It, and the ones nearby were all full, so we walked the next km to downtown where we finally found a guesthouse and went to bed a bit after 3am. A crazy night for sure.

11/17 Today our main job was to do laundry, buy toothpaste, and book a tour to the national park we wanted to go to. Only the toothpaste proved easy. The tour company we wanted to go through has no office here yet, even though that's what we had thought originally. But the branch in pakse said it would be easy to find other companies here. Well, there were definitely no other companies here and the tourist info office was closed for some reason (perhaps public holiday). We finally were able to get a hold of a guy to let us into the tourist office and get some info, but there wasn't anything good. So we called the company we wanted to go with originally and who is based in vientienne. They said they had nothing and couldn't, so we were kind of bumming and not knowing what to do. But as is my asian moto of nothing is impossible, don't believe anything from anyone, and be persistant, we tried another number from the same company and were able to book a tour, and only 1 day later then we hoped. With the Laundry conrad and whitney gave someone our clothes who asked for 2 dollars and they assumed would wash it. This is yet to be determined. But we are psyched for our tour in Phin Hun Bun national park.

Tonight we have a date to sip beer lao along the cool breezes of the mekong as the sun sets across the river over thailand.
Tomorrow we plan to just hang out in Tha Kaek, do some reading, perhaps a massage, and anything else there is to do here before our trip that takes off on the 19th and goes until the 22nd.

11/18 Didn't do much except head to the tha kaek market where Conrad made sure to buy the highly endangered pengalin to bbq up that night. j/k. But yes, it was one of the more crazy markets I have been to in asia yet with plenty of frogs, snails, snakes, rats, squirrels, and giant flying squirrels to be had. As well as some even more sketchy animals like the pangolins and beavers