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Published: December 5th 2007
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Injured Buddha of Wat Sisaket
Buddha statues were rescued from all over Laos during different wars, and particularly during the Indochina war, and taken to Wat Sisaket in Vientiane. The Sanctuary itself miraculously escaped the bombs but this Buddha wasn't so lucky. We hired bikes and dodged tuktuks all over Vientiane. It was fantastic - the best way to see this extremely bike-friendly city.
We pedalled out to Tha Luang which was in the middle of the End of Year festivities, and crowded with markets, monks, tourists in rented Laos skirts to cover their modesty, and everywhere people carrying elaborate woven offerings of pandanus and flowers. After renting a modest Lao skirt we sat with old ladies in the shade watching them thread jasmin and chrysanthemum flowers onto skewers and poke them into the leaf-cones for offering.
Our bus ride to Sevannakhet was frought with waiting. We were up before six for our tuktuk delivery to the bus station, which didn't come until 8am. Assured that we would still make the bus, it seemed that our tourist coach had become a local bus, complete with bags of rice everywhere and even a bag of ducks on the roof. We eventually arrived in Sevannakhet some 10 hours later - an average speed of 40kmh and including a stop for breakfast only 20min after we had started.
Sevannakhet is a pretty sleepy little town. We visited the local temple and the Dinosaur museum
Patuxai
Laos' answer to the Arc de Triomphe before lunch, and were left wondering what else to do with our time. So we booked a bus to Pakse.
The bus to Pakse was much the same, plastic stools set up in the aisles to allow more passengers. Luckily we got on the bus early, and snagged a decent seat close to the front. This journey was fraught with baggage confusion - somewhere along the line there was a mixup, and the rest of the journey was fraught with a low-grade paranoia about my backpack, stashed somewhere underneath the bus.
Pakse turned out to be a little more lively. We ran into some familiar faces, including Caroline and Fabian, the honeymooning Belgians we'd met in Luang Prabang. Together with a young German girl called Fred (who fondly reminisced about her time in Vang Vieng with aforementioned 3 amigo bartenders) we took a daytrip out to a couple of waterfalls on the Bolaven Plateau. Tad Faen is a spectacular twin falls, plummetting about 150m from lush plateau into lush gorge. THe old women with betel-nut-stained teeth tried to sell us kilos of coffee but I got away after half of a ridiculously sweet hot coffee. Local coffee seems
Tha Luang
Laos' most famous stupa, in the middle of End of Year festivities to be served with about an inch of sweetened condensed milk in the bottom - it takes a bit of getting used to... Our next stop was Tad Niang, a much less spectacular falls but a lot more accessible. We adventured on the rocks around the base of the falls and down stream, then went back up the top to find a place to swim. There were no other tourists around, just happily grazing cows each accompanied by the sound of its own bell. A couple of locals were fishing in the river, and two young boys dove naked for something. We crossed back and forth until we were at a swiftly flowing spot that was deep enough for a quick dunk. I made it out unscathed but the Belgians caught a leech each.
So the next day we carried on south with a boat to Champasak. After an hour on the boat the boredom and sore bum were getting to me so we took out the instruments and had our first jam on the Mekong. We arrived in Champasak town a little while later and were soon on a tuktuk out to the ruins of Wat Phou Champasak
End of Year festival, Tha Luang
Old ladies making festival offerings at Tha Luang, out of pandanus leaves and chrysanthemums - an Angkhor-period temple that's slowly falling to pieces. The ruins are gorgeous, particularly the steep and treacherous steps leading up to the sanctuary, lined with ancient gnarled frangipani trees. Lots of locals resting in the shade, selling offerings to give to the Buddha, or mercifully cold drinks.
We explored for a while, said goodbye to Lane and Simone who were heading back to Pakse, and kept climbing. Eventually we were done, and headed down to work out how we were getting back to Champasak, as our tuktuk had departed with the others. We checked out the museum, full of ancient and elaborate carved stone - archways, cornerpieces and giant linga. We were on the verge of taking an expensive moto ride when suddenly a tuktuk materialised and we climbed in with a pair of Canadians - headed home for an afternoon of hammock-lounging.
Champasak is even sleepier than Sevannakhet, and it actually took ages before we found a restaurant that looked open. We ate with the 2 Canadians, Maddy and Tim, and a Swiss (Roland) who was riding a bike through Laos. After a few games of cards (shithead has got to be the most popular backpacker
card game I've seen) we headed off.
Our minibus ride to Si Phan Don, or the 4,000 islands, began with a ferry crossing of the Mekong. Wizened little ladies selling bamboo tubes stuffed with sticky rice and coconut, banana-leaf wrapped parcels and drinks. We made it to the other side where our driver Don sped down the back roads of southern Laos and got us to the boat crossing to Don Dhet before noon.
Si Phan Don are the countless islands of the Mekong, just north of the Cambodian border. Here the Mekong stretches to 14km wide and depending on the water level thousands of islands are revealed. The brown water gushes and ripples with small whirlpools and eddies possibly created by underwater obstacles. Our longboat loaded with gear went straight through the middle of all of that, delivering us to a small beach on the north-east of Don Dhet. Don Dhet is clearly heading towards being a major tourist site. Crowded with guesthouses and small restaurants, offering standard western fare and a few Laos dishes, with the ubiquitous "Happy" menu items, you can even order a small or large joint straight from the menu, which states "these
menus are very expensive for Don Dhet people to make, please do not steal them. If you would like one Mr Vhong will be happy to sell you one for $10". This is capitalism with Laos characteristics. It's quite pleasant. Tegan and I took our instruments for a walk and found a couple of locals singing happily with an awfully out-of-tune guitar, which turned out to be next-to-impossible to fix. We traded songs with them for a while.
We spent a lovely day cycling around the islands. Don DHet is linked to Don Khone by an old French railway bridge - the only railway the French ever built in Laos. All that remains is an incredibly rocky road, concrete bridge and rusting old locomotive engine in some sem-cleared jungle. We explored Khone Somphamit, the waterfalls at the northwest of Don Khone, and skimmed stones at a little beach just south of there.
In the afternoon we ran into Jonathon again (who we met in Kunming) and took a trip to see the largest waterfalls in south-east asia (by volume). We shared the minibus with 2 Chinese and one Canadian tourist, Chan was pleased by the similarity of his
Bodhi Tree
at Wat Sainyaphum, Sevannakhet name to mine in Chinese (Chuen) and complimented me on my knowledge of Chinese gambling and mild insult slang.
We decided to take the bus to Cambodia the next day, and got an early night.
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Hamish
non-member comment
memories
Hmm, I remember similar general vibes, though it was nearly 10 years ago. Beautiful laid back place :) The 4000 islands were very chilled and basic then. sigh, memories. Enjoy anyway