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Published: February 26th 2007
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Wat Phu
This Angkor-esque temple is pretty awesome, and has a lot less tourists! At last update we had arrived in Vang Vieng, did one day of tubing, and had a bus ticket booked south. Unfortunately, due to the sheer awesomeness of the tubing lifestyle, instead we were "forced" to cancel and postpone our bus ticket and hit the river for a couple more days. We were able to meet up with Chantel and Patrick, whom we'd seen down in Vientiane a week or so earlier. The few days on the river were a blast of course, we partook in the regular activities of floating aimlessly, flying off the trapeze rope swing, playing volleyball and enjoying Beer Laos, or "river juice" as we like to refer to it.
Somehow we managed to wake up and not go tubing, and actually get on a bus and leave one of the most fun towns I've visited. A minibus carried us south back to the capital, though it was a rough ride as I sat beside some weird hippy girl that stunk like baddddnessss. From Vientiane we were taxied to the bus station via a pick-up/tuk-tuk, but not just any tuk-tuk. This one arrived at our hotel with about 15 people already crammed in the back and
hanging off the sides. We were shocked but this kind of thing happens all the time, especially in a country like Laos. The next 15 minutes were a lot more crazy though as the driver proceeded to pick up another 12 people and, in a tetris-like fashion squeeze everyone into this tiny truck. Those of us with long limbs hung off the back, trying to wedge ourselves into the masses of people and baggage spewing out the tail end. With essentially the whole busload worth of people in this truck, we noticed that the rear tire was deflating ever so slowly, then quickly, then pop. Of course this didn't bother the driver as he was so happy to squeeze this huge load of people into his truck (we can only imagine the profit he made from picking up everyone in one load) he simply drove on... With the tire completely deflated, the rim now supported the rear of the truck and was grinding against the road for a few rough kilometres before the wheel basically fell off bringing it to a complete stop. This surprised the driver, somehow he expected the truck to perform normally under these conditions. We thought
Dwarfed
Our minibus hides in the shade under this impressive shrub. the ordeal was over but he simply called a friend with an identical truck and had us and all of our gear transferred to the new truck. This one got us to our luxurious bus (who would have thought) which brought us down south to Pakse.
Pakse is the hub city to southern Laos, and from here we planned to continue farther south to Don Det and the 4000 islands area of the Mekong. Since we were low on cash we decided to pay a visit to the banks (only one ATM in the entire country) and withdraw money manually. Unfortunately, due to Laos' instability, all off the visa and telecommunication were closed until further notice. Though annoyed we simply waited until the machines worked again... 3 days later. We had to stay in a $%!#--hole of a room, and after our last 8 dollars was spent on dinner the first night, we were out of money. Luckily the hotel manager allowed us to start a tab at the restaurant downstairs, which allowed us to eat during out wait. Worst of all.... it was an Indian restaurant, and for 3 days we basically ate Indian for breakfast, lunch and
Speed Racer
With my crazy motorbike skills, I was actually able to catch up with Trev to take this photo. dinner. eeeghghhhhhhhhhhhh. A highlight was playing volleyball against the local police outside the station, which we realized was very unorthodox as a few dozen people gathered around to watch the freakishly tall and skilled westerners battle the police et al.
Finally after a few days the Visa machines were back online and we withdrew more than enough money to last us through the rest of Laos. We hopped on a tuk-tuk and headed south to Champasak, which is only accessible after crossing the Mekong. The crossing was fun, cheap and offered some good sights; we floated on two canoes covered/connected by a few flimsy boards. We stayed in Champasak for only one night as we were short on time after our delay in Pakse. The three of us rented motorbikes and toured the town on our way to see the Wat Phu ruins. Built in the same century as Angkor Wat they are equally impressive though on a much smaller scale. We climbed the hill, explored the ruins, got some good photos and were back cruising on the motorbikes before sunset. It's very difficult to take photos while driving the motorbike with one hand, but I managed a few
Laotian Mountains
The last mountains on the trip - heading south from Vang Vieng. good action shots...
The following morning we hopped back on the ferry (this one a bit larger as it carried several cars and trucks) and after a few connections we were back on the main road. We squeezed into a local tuk-tuk (which means in addition to many passengers, we shared seat space with rice, fish, vegetables and anything else the locals picked up in town) and headed south to Don Det.
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britt
non-member comment
laos who knew?
so it's obv at this point that laos is like the shit of se asia, how jealous am i!? can't wait to take a serious peek at your pics from wat phu and see what i can figure out using my super-hardcore asian art history SKILLS! ps crazy drivers.. they're all crazy lol