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Published: March 13th 2009
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We finished off southern Laos in a week or so. We had a great time and enjoyed the beautiful untouched country. In Pakse we were mesmerized by the 40m and 120m twin waterfall which took FOREVER on a tuk tuk but was a nice way to see the countryside and to wave and say hello to the locals as we passed by. The kids are always excited to say hello! We set off on a bit of a challenge to get to a remote town on our own (instead of by tour) to go on an elephant trek through the jungle. It wasn't a problem getting there, however, getting out was definitely a challenge! It was so funny, our songthew (small truck with 2 rows of bench seats under a roof) was full when we left, but not full enough for Laos...we stopped around the market filling it up so there was almost no space to move on our 3hr journey. Rice, metal poles, concrete mix, ceramic posts, pots, pans and vegetables. We had fun with our phrase book making small talk with the locals. We find that as we travel from country to country, the locals appreciate and have fun
Our Canadian friends
We actually ended up travelling together for 3 weeks through Laos and Cambodia. with you attempting to speak their language. The essentials are "HELLO" and "THANK YOU"...we sometimes get mixed up from when we enter a new country and find ourselves speaking the wrong language which always ends in a little chuckle.
We made it to a small village called Kiet Ngong and unfortunately we did not get to do our day trek with the elephants in the jungle, but we did get to do a 2hr ride to a beautiful lookout over the marshland. We actually felt quite sorry for the elephant (who was moving very slow) and only stayed on half the way walking the other half alongside as its Mahout. We find it amazing that a 5ft, 110lb man can command and control such a massive animal. It worked out for the best because we now realize we wouldn’t have wanted to do a whole day trek on the elephant. We had another great home stay which was arranged on our own where there was NO English speaking, so once again, out came the good ol' phrasebook. Our next stop was the 4000 islands and our journey there included hitchhiking, waiting for hours on the side of a road,
and riding on the roof of a songthew with piles of lettuce (not sure that would fly in Canada). The good thing is we, and the heads of lettuce, made it to our destination safe and sound.
The 4000 islands were so peaceful and absolutely stunning! We were able to just chill out in our bungalow hammock and take in the most amazing sunset over the Mekong River in Don Det. What a perfect place to unwind and finish up our time in Laos!
OK...so, we booked a bus ticket from Laos to Cambodia which the price somehow doubled in the last week. We were told we would have 1 shuttle bus to the border and then a different one on Cambodia side. No problem. First, we were told to not tell or show anyone at the border about the ticket we purchased in Laos. Then we were given another ticket to show to the taxi driver when changing from the shuttle bus to a taxi (in Laos) but also could not be showed to the officials at the border. If we were asked how much we paid for the taxi we were to say $5 for the
whole taxi. We got our Cambodia visa no problem, then off to immigration who then told us to get on the bus on the other side. Our taxi drivers first told us we had to walk across the border, walk 100m where they would pick us up again. Then they told us that if we got out of the taxi our "non existent ticket" would not be valid to transfer to the next bus to take us to our final destination in Cambodia. There is more to the story, but as you can probably see, it was super shady and quite frustrating. We found out after that it is illegal to purchase a ticket beyond the Cambodian border in Laos, but there is some sort of underground network for which it is arranged. The problem was solved with some bribery and we were on our way. It was quite a relief when we finally made it to our final destination.
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