More Scooter Adventures and Goodbye to Lovely Lovely Laos!

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After the fun n frolics we had on the last scooter adventure, I decided to do the Boloven Plateau in Southern Laos the same way. The main drop off point for Boloven is Pakse, so having recovered all my stuff from Paksong, I headed there.

I was in two minds whether to head straight off on the bike the day I arrived, but feeling pretty knackered after the overnight bus journey (which was actually much better than the daytime one!) I decided to stay one night in Pakse instead.

Having walked around the guesthouses in town, I decided to treat myself to a night at The China Wall. It was about 10 pounds for the night, but incredibly good value. Considering some really small, dirtyish places go for around 7 pounds here, paying the extra few got me a massive, sparkling clean room, crisp white sheets, satelite tv, goody bag.....soap, toothbrush n toothpaste packs (handy for long bus journeys!) etc etc. Oh how easily I'm bought!!! Anyhow, having settled into my luxury pad, I spent the day watching the HBO movie channel and a few more episodes of 24. I'm starting to have a real problem with 24.....I'm completely addicted! Turning up somewhere new and preferring to watch tv rather than going out exploring....whatever next?!

The next day I hired a bike from the Sabaidi cafe, just next door to China Wall. Not only does the cafe do really nice food, but the girl in there is really lovely and helpful and the bike I hired was pretty much brand new. It's also the same price as The Sabaidy 2 guest house which the lonely planet raves about. I'm not quite sure why they're so highly recommended. The room I looked at there seemed really overpriced and the bikes they showed me looked pretty old and knackered and weren't even hondas! The only downside was to the one I hired was it was only 100cc, not 125, so instead of 80 - 100 kmhr you could only really get 70. Still, that I could live with. Being that I was on my own this time, the reliability was what I wanted and you can't beat a honda for that!

The weather was perfect for a bike. It's definitely warmer here in the South.....hopefully they'll be no need to stop and buy more warm clothes this time!! Having said that, I'm told it's much cooler on top the plateau, so we'll see I guess.

Having had the most amazing noodle soup in Pakse I set off. I had to mention this noodle soup......its just next door to the china wall guest house where I stayed. The restaurant is always packed and having tried it, I now know why........you not only get a big bowl of soup, but a huge bowl of veggies and a second bowl of fresh herbs, spring onions and cabbage. A real fresh veggie overload......just what you need after a few wks of fried food!

First stop was Ban Utayan Bajiang Champasak resort. Initially, I thought this was just a waterfall. They charge you 8000kip to get in, but it was a nice stop. It's a whole resort which apparently is really popular with Thai tourists. Inside there are loads of 'Treehouses' which are basically just ornate wooden bungalows to stay in along with a museum tribal village. That's one of these places where a traditional village is set up for the purpose of tourists going to see it. Apparently the villagers actually live in this one but spend their days entertaining visitors with traditional dancing, weaving, music etc......all a bit too contrived for me. There's also a restaurant made from 1000 trees......or so it appears! Everything is made out of enourmous chunks of wood....oh and the obligatory waterfall!

Having had a look round and a cold shake it was straight to Tat Lo. Tat in Laos language is waterfall, so yep, you guessed it, Tat Lo is a village by a waterfall! And what a beautiful place! It had to be the nicest place I visited on the trip. The falls are lovely and village life is incredibly relaxed and peaceful. It seems in remote villages that are set next to a river, life is all centered around the river.....kids playing, people fishing, washing, doing laundry. Hence it's a wonderful place to head to just to sit and watch life going on around you. The water's not filthy or anything though.......not like the ganga in varanassi!! We're talking crystal clear water. I guess that's because it's moving so quickly from the falls so it's kept really fresh. If it wasn't for the fact the bike was costing six quid a day, I'd have spent an extra day or three just to chill out and relax there.

There were some fab guest houses right on top of the falls, but they also had a very nice price tag. Instead I stayed in Sipaseuth guest house, just downstream of the bridge. It had a nice view of the falls from the restaurant, but the guidebook was right about the food being hit n miss! I met acouple of girls there...... Vik and Becky, and we all had lemon chicken for dinner that night. It tasted fine, but we all had a very dodgy night / morning!.....not pleasant!! :O

Beks and Vikki were both really nice. They were about my age as well which was nice. There seem fewer of us 'older' travellers around over here. Not that I have anything against 20 somethings, but it's nice to meet people who don't make you feel like you're pushing geriatric status! Beks was heading down to Malaysia too, so who knows, maybe I'll see her there.

Unfortunately, the extra cost per day dictated a very unlazy trip, so as soon as my washing was dry it was onward towards Sekong! It was pretty late by the time I headed off.......gone twelve, having spent an hour or two walking up to the top of the waterfalls in the morning and then comparing toilet notes with the others!

Initially, I was heading to Sekong, but when I passed by, it didn't look that inviting. Instead I decided to head straight to Attepeu. I thought I may stay there an extra night instead as it sounded really nice in the guide book. There were a couple of waterfalls near Sekong which I wanted to see, but being it was late I headed straight to Attepeu. I figured with all the falls on top the plateau, it wouldn't be such a shame to miss the falls at Sekong and after the last scooter adventure I'd learned my lesson about being on the bike too late as it gets so much colder then! The cold hadn't been a problem so far, just in jeans and a top I was baking. I was in danger of getting back from this trip with a real tan, not just a dirt one!

All through the trip so far, I'd come across the nicest people. They were so welcoming. Having said that, you normally have to make the first move, but all it takes is a smile and a 'sa bai dii' as you ride past them, and the smiles and waves you get back are wonderful, both from adults and children. The children normally run out from the bamboo villages waving and shouting as you drive past, just hoping you'll wave back. It's so remote out here. Livestock is obviously a BIG part of their lives and it's everywhere......pigs, chickens, cows, ducks, buffalo, and lots of it. You have to stop for animals crossing far more regularly than you did in India! Some of the villages I drove through were incredibly remote.....just groups of bamboo houses in the middle of this incredibly dry, flat, barren landscape.

There turned out to be very little in Attepeu. Having ridden around for a good half hour I finally found a restaurant. I met a couple of guys........either Mark n Mark, or Dave n Dave....only 1 name between them and I've still managed to forget it! They'd just come from the Boloven Plateau and recommended a waterfall just South of Paksong, the main town on the plateau.

It was funny, but when you got to Attepeu, the people weren't half as nice or welcoming as those I'd passed by on the journey down there. The people in my guest house and in the one restaurant I managed to find were the exception. I'm not too sure why. I've heard many people talk about the people in Vietnam being particularly money driven and not friendly towards western tourists. It seemed like that influence was seeping over into the border provinces of Laos. Maybe I'm jumping to conclusions, but the people here definitely weren't as friendly as those in Sekong province.

I'd decided to head up to the Plateau the next day instead of spending an extra night here, but first I wanted to drive further towards the Vietnam border to visit Pa-am. It's only a tiny village but the Ho Chi Minh Trail actually runs right through it.....and you really feel like you've hit ho chi minh country! It's hard to describe really (there's a few piccy's on facebook for you to look at) but you can just imagine the viet cong hiding in the jungle out here! There's little of the war left to see other than one surface to air missile, which the government have managed to protect from the scrap metal industry. It was a nice drive out though and having seen the missile, I figures I was only here once so I decided to head further up into the hills towards the border. The road soon ran out and it was on to some very bumpy off road tracks. It was amazing......completely off the beaten track. Unfortunately, the further I got, the less friendly the people became, until they were positively scowling! No amount of smiles and Sa Bai Dii's were helping me out here! It was that which made me turn around a lot sooner than I'd have liked. Not that I thought they'd hurt me or anything. It was more that I was on my own and I thought it may be quite hard to get help if I had a puncture or something went wrong with the bike. It's a shame there weren't others with me as I reckon that road would have been a nice little adventure!

By the time I got back to Attepeu and had lunch at the same one restaurant I'd found the night before it was one o'clock. The guide book made a point of saying you should leave plenty of time to get from Attepeu to Paksong, the village on the top of the plateau. They recommended leaving before 10am. It was late and I didn't want to rush what was supposed to be an amazing journey, so instead I decided to head back to Sekong and check out the waterfalls I missed there the day before. Then the following day I could head straight up to the Boloven Plateau from there.

I checked out the waterfalls on the way to Sekong. There are a few wateralls around the town, but I only visited two of them..........Tat hua khon and Tat Faek. Both have interesting tales around them (not sure how true, but def interesting!) Tat Hua Khon means literally, waterfall of the heads. The name comes from WW2 where apparently the Japanese beheaded some Laos soldiers and threw their heads into the falls.....mmmm pleasant people the Japs! Tat Faek apparently is home to a puffer fish known as the Pa Pao, which is believed to lurk in the pool below the falls. The locals apparently report with gleeful dread how the evil Pa Pao can home in on and sink it's razor sharp teeth into the human penis with uncanny precision! Guess 'feck' would be what would come to mind should you be so unfortunate as to meet this fish!

Both the falls were amazingly quiet. I was the only person at each! At Tat Hua Khon, I was overrun with women from the village I drove through going to the falls, all running after me trying to sell me their woven goods. Having said 'no' most of them went away again, but one lady stayed behind. I felt really sorry for them actually. Jobs aren't advertised in the local papers out here and I guess this is how they try and feed their families. Hence, having got rid of the whole crowd of them (I couldn't afford to buy something from all of them!) I bought a scarf from her. I didn't really want it, but I wanted to help them, even if it was a small gesture.

Having visited both the falls, I headed to Sekong. The town is incredibly spread out and, without a map, reallly hard to find a guesthouse. I was glad I was on a bike and not walking or it would have taken ages! Just makes you realise how handy it is to have a map when you arrive somewhere. Eventually I found a guest house down by the river which was really nice, but very dusty. I found out why when I went for a walk along the river later.......the banks are just silt left from when the river levels drop after the rainy season. The silt is so fine, just walking along it makes huge clouds of dust. It’s incredibly good for growing things in though, hence the locals all have their equivalent of allotments lining the river in the dry season. I walked a little way along the river at sunset, but the locals didn’t seem too chuffed to have me down by their veggie plots.....maybe they thought I was on the look out for dinner! Talking of which, finding a restaurant was just as difficult as finding a guest house, but eventually I had some luck there too. The food was ok though. Also, in the back of the menu there was a whole load of information on the local tribes, their lifestyles and culture. It was really interesting. Gave me something to read over dinner as well!

The weather had been really good so far and incredibly hot. It was even warm on bike at 60km ph.......a bit different from when we did the loop! Maybe this time I was going to end up with a proper tan and not just a dirt one......or maybe both!

The next morning I headed off early to get up on the plateau. The road from Sekong to Attepeu leads you around the base of the plateau, and it's amazing driving around it. It literally looms above for miles. I had to head back down that road towards Attepeu again for 35kms before turning off on a dirt road which leads up onto the plateau. It was an incredibly beautiful ride. A lot of the countryside in the South of Laos is very dry and brown, but I guess where they have a bit more rain and cooler temperatures up on the plateau everything is a bit greener. It was a dirt road pretty much all the way up, but it was in pretty good condition most of the way. Dotted along the road were remote villages, where more smiley children would run out screaming and waving as you drove through. I have some wonderful memories!

One of the main attractions of the plateau is waterfalls. There are loads of them.....some easier to find than others!! The first waterfall was apparently one you could just see in the distance, but I found a track leading right down to it. As I arrived, a french couple were just leaving and pointed out the way over the river to get right to the edge of the falls. I made my way over there and sat on the top looking out over the amazing view. It was a huge drop down and pretty scary being so close to it, but the view was awesome. I made sure I wasn’t right on the edge though just in case!

After that I headed towards the next waterfall.......Nam Tok Katamtok. This one was the mother of all waterfalls...... 100m drop in the middle of dense jungle. The book said it was hard to find and they weren’t kidding! There was a tiny path of the road which I’d have missed if it wasn’t for the french couple’s bike parked right next to it. I walked for what seemed like ages further down into the jungle. I wasn’t too sure if it was the right path or not as it was getting smaller and smaller so in the end it didn’t really look like a path at all. It was really creepy being alone. After at least a half hour of walking I could just see the waterfall through the trees. It was amazing, just a shame it wasn’t a clear view. There was no sign of the french couple. I wondered whether I was on the right path or not as the view was distorted with the trees where I was. Maybe I’d missed the right path, or maybe you were supposed to carry on further down into the jungle. I wasn’t sure and was starting to remember all those warnings in the book about land mines and how you should never stray off the path. On top of that, I kept hearing noises like an animal close by. Eventually, having worked myself up into complete paranoia I decided to head back up to the road. When I got there the other bike was still there and when I bumped into the french couple again the next day, it turned out they had walked right down for a good hour or more and were eventually rewarded with t full view of the falls. Shame, but it wasn’t something I felt comfortable doing on my own!

From there the road got pretty bad. Eventually it turned into concrete, but even then it was full of potholes. Finally I came to Paksong around 4 in the afternoon. I was so glad I hadn’t headed up there late the night before now as I’d never had made it and there are literally no guest houses before you get to Paksong. I’d taken most of the day with the waterfall stops.

Paksong is a bit disappointing after the beautiful drive up there. It’s not a pretty town, but I managed to find a pretty good guest house and then drove around to see what was there......not a lot! I found a coffee house run by a dutch guy named ‘Çoffee” who introduced me to Laos' finest! Those who know me know I hate coffee, but even I could drink it! Not like your old nescafe back home! It was pretty good stuff. After that I had dinner in the restaurant opposite my guest house which turned into kareoke cental after sundown! Luckily I had a tv in my room to turn up!

The next day I went to find a couple of waterfalls the guys I’d met in Attepeu had recommended. I was going to have breakfast first but then I thought I’d do these two waterfalls first and then head to breakfast. I didn’t want to spend another kareoke night ontop the plateau so I wanted to get on and get back to Pakse before sunset. I drove down the road “Çoffee’ had told me to go down which eventually, after passing a load of coffee plantations, came to big blue arch which, from the sign was a national park entrance. There were two paths and no signs to the waterfall, so I picked the one on the right first. I drove the bike as far up as I could until the path was definitely not suitable for bikes any more and parked up. There was no sign of any others up there so I wondered whether this was the right place or not. From there I found a path into the jungle. The guys in Attepeu had described how you head off into the jungle on this path, so I decided to follow that. After half hour I’d had no joy and couldn’t even hear water so I decided to head back to the bike and try the path on the left instead. Unfortunately, I obviously didn’t take as much notice as I thought I had on where I was going because I got myself completely lost for a good couple of hours. This was beginning to become a bit of a habit! Eventually, after using the direction of the sun I found my way back to the big blue arch and from there back to the bike......which was still there luckily! I was in two minds whether to give up, but decided to try the other path quickly first. Down this path was a parking area which was signposted......this looked a lot more hopeful. From the parking area there was another path leading into the jungle! I thought I'd try again, but this time I was really careful not to turn off the main path so I could find my way back up easily! Eventually I came to a river, but there was no way to walk along the river itself and the path just led away from the river on the other side. Eventually I gave up, exhausted and starving hungry and starting to wonder what was so special about waterfalls anyway! Having had no brekky, my stomach was telling me it was time to head back to Paksong! It was so late, I had lunch instead and it was one of the nicest meals I’d had......... yummy fried pork with spicy cucumber salad! Not sure if it was just where I was so hungry and so relieved to be back in civilisation but it tasted amazing!

Well so much for the early start that day! It wasn’t too far from there back to Pakse though and there were only three more waterfalls to see on the way...... Tat Yuang, Tat Champee and Tat Fane. (In case you hadn’t already guessed, Tat means waterfall!) Luckily these were well signposted. Tat Yuang, even had a whole row of restaurants beside it and came complete with rainbow! Very pretty! I even got given a glass of beer by a group local teenagers looking like they were heading down for a session by the pool below! Tat Champee was also really well signposted and really pretty. It had a cave behind it which you could walk around to and look out through the water. I can’t say too much for the dodgy bridge and the even dodgier ladders leading you down to the bottom pool though! The ladder especially was really steep and halfway down you noticed it was held together with bits of string! Finally Tat Fane which was actually a bit disappointing. You could only see it from a distance and being dry season there wasn’t too much water in it. It’s situated in a really expensive resort which has bungalows overlooking the falls. Having decided the falls weren’t up to much I sat in the really expensive restaurant and had a pineapple juice....all I could afford on the menu!!

From there it was an eventless journey back to Pakse. I returned the bike with no problems. It was a fab bike and I can highly recommend hiring them from the Sabaide cafe. The girl in there is really nice too.

What I hadn’t expected was finding no rooms left in town! Eventually I stayed in a tiny room for 110,000...a bit of a disappointment after The China Wall room I’d had for 120!

From Pakse, I was heading down to Champasak to see an Angkor period monastary there. I caught a songthaew down there full of local women returning from a trip to the market. One of them had a bag with piggy ears sticking out of it. Seeing me looking she held it up for me to see a cross section of a pigs head, complete with ears in the bag! Bit different to the packs of bacon I’m used to at home!! The ladies turned out to be really nice though. There was me and a couple of young European girls in the songthaew. One of the local women could speak a bit of English too, so when we stopped to get the car ferry over the river she was explaining what all the hawkers were selling. Hawkers are girls that as soon as your songthaew stops, they’re there with just about everything you can imagine to eat......barbeque meat, rice, drinks, even mobile noodle soup sellers! The barby meat sounds good, but I have to say, it’s probably been carried back and forward from their roadside stalls to the various songthaews in clouds of dust from the road at least a dozen times before its sold. I even saw one of the locals taking a stick of chicken from the girls, manually examining the tenderness and then deciding against it and handing it back to the hawker! It’s not something I’d eat unless I was desperate!

The car ferry is one of these transportations which leave when it’s full and only then. In fact, it’s the very same car ferry that was on Charley Boorman’s ‘By any Means’. The three boats strapped together with big planks which the cars drive onto. (I got the series put on my ipod the other day......it was really wierd seeing a couple of the places I’d been on there!) Luckily we were kept entertained by these locals so the wait didn’t seem too bad. When we finally got to the other side I found a lovely guest house. The first night they only had a naff room available with no mosquito net, so I got bitten to death. The following day when someone checked out the guy said I could change to one of the little bungalows outside though which was fantastic. It was a lovely little room with a tiny bathroom attached, complete with mozzy net and for the same price as the room the day before. I was a happy lady!

Wat Champasak was nice. I hired a bicycle and cycled the 10ks up the road to see it. It was baking hot, but luckily the top level (the wat is on three different levels up a hill) was shaded by trees so I spent a good couple of hours wandering about in the cool before I had to cycle home again!

I liked my little bungalow and Champasak village so much I stayed there for another couple of days just relaxing before heading back to Don Det for my final couple of days in Laos. I was debating on whether or not to go to Don Det at all, but I was slightly dubious about the border crossing into Cambodia and wanted to go with other tourists. It was likely that they’d be more tourists going from Don Det than from Champasak where there had been very few tourists over the last few days. I’d also not seen the waterfall on Don Kong (an attached island to Don Det) the last time I’d been there as I’d intended to go back there for my last few days. Hence I said goodbye to my little home and got back on the songthaew headed for the other side of the river. The songthaews leave regularly every morning for Pakse so it wasn’t a long wait. Having finally crossed the river (the car ferry broke down and we had to get a tow over!) the songthaew dropped me off back on the main road where I was going to wait for another one heading the other direction (south) down to Don Det. This guy in a taxi van tried to get me to go with him instead. I said no as it was only a third the price in the songthaew. He was obviously desperate for a passenger though as he came right down to virtually the same price! I guess he was going that way anyway and any fare was better than no fare! Good timing on my part though ....I ended up with a very comfy ride down to the islands!

The islands were pretty uneventful, but a nice way to spend the last couple of days in Laos. I was glad I’d gone back as the waterfalls were pretty cool. They’re the ones at the bottom of the Mekong River in Laos just before the Cambodian border. According to Charley Boorman they;re the biggest falls in SE Asia. Not sure exactly if that’s true but I guess it depends on what you use to determine the size. They’re only a really small drop, but the water volume is huge. They’re pretty impressive anyhow. There’s also a beach a bit further round the island which I went and sunbathed on for a bit afterwards. Other than that it was just eating, drinking and watching the sunsets........not too much drinking though as it was an early start for the bus to the border the next day.

I was sad to leave Laos. It’s probably one of the nicest places I’ve been in South East Asia. The north is incredibly beautiful with rolling hills and lush green jungles. The central area around Vang Vieng has some amazing lime karst scenery which is stunning to see. Much of the South (apart from the Boloven Plateau and the loop I did on the bike) has a very flat landscape with hot, dry plains stretching as far as the eye can see this time of year. It’s the feel of the place which I liked the most though. The people are SO lovely. All you need to do is smile and the warmth comes right back at you (apart from the area near the Vietnam border where there was no warmth coming back at me whatsoever!!). I noticed it much more when I got off the beaten trail where there are fewer tourists. It’s certainly not like that in Lluang Prabang, but I think you get a pretty distorted view of what Laos is like if you only go there. It’s a very poor country, but there are very few beggars and you feel incredibly safe. I’ve got so many wonderful memories of children waving as you drive past, not wanting anything but for you to wave back. People have a hard life here.....those who live in the countryside especially. Even the children do their share of the house work. You regularly see kids no more than five carrying buckets of water and firewood back to their homes. You very rarely (in fact I never did) see a child throwing a tantrum....not like back home! They play like I imagine kids played years ago back home.......with a stick and an old tyre or anything else that’s lying around.....or with nothing. There’s no X boxes out here. I saw one kid having a whale of a time with an old broken tricycle with no wheels. I guess they’re not mollycoddled like kids back home. Don’t go expecting it to be cheap.....it’s certainly no cheaper than Thailand in the North. The only cheap places are down in the South like Champasak and Don Det. The only downside is the food......mind you I have developed quite a taste for noodle soup! My only regret is I didn’t see more of the North. Originally I was going to do Cambodia and then head North through Vietnam and then cut back across the north of Laos into Thailand to head down towards Malaysia. I therefore left certain places which I thought I’d do the next time round. I’ve since decided not to do Vietnam though which means I’ll miss out on those places. It just shows you though........do everything while you can as there may not be that second chance! A shame I had to learn that lesson in one of the most beautiful countries!

So it’s off to Cambodia next. I’m not sure what to expect. A couple of girls I met at Tat Lo said it was horrible.....filthy dirty with aggressive people. Not a good rec! Still, I guess I’ll go see for myself. Border crossings into Cambodia are renowned so I’m kind of prepared for a rough day getting there. The bus journey to Siem Reap is supposed to take two days. Well a day and a half according to the travel agents, but two days according to all my fellow travellers! Most people are going to Kratie or Pnomh Penh which is a shorter journey. Some people think I’m crazy going all the way to Siem Reap in one go! Although furthest north, there is no direct route from the border to SR so you have to go all the way South to Pnomh Penh and then back up North again. Apparently the roads are pretty bad too. All in all, it’s going to be an eventful couple of days....I can feel it!

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