Moterbike adventures in the South

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We've had some excellent moterbike adventures around the south of Laos in the last few days.

While in Savannakhet, along with a Danish couple, we decided to rent motorbikes and tour around an area recommended in the Lonely Planet. I wasn't a huge fan of the idea, as there are a lot of negative stories floating around about motorcycles and problems, but the Danish fellow, Jacob, was a bit of a motorcycle enthusiast and knew what he was doing. We lucked out and ended up getting two brand new 125cc bikes, which were far more comfortable than the usual 100cc scooter-like bikes around.

We learned a few valuable lessons that day- one: don't let the Danish navigate. After a 50km detour because we took the wrong road out of town, we did manage to find the starting point for the recommended tour. The tour took us over about 70km of dirt road through the southern Laos country side. We got to see the rice fields in every stage of production. The scenery was stunning. As well, the people we so friendly- far more friendly than in the north.

The highlight of this little trip was defiantly the Sacred Monkey Forest. Supposedly there are hundreds of monkeys in this forest, but we only saw five. They are quite used to humans and expect to be fed. We began walking through the forest looking for the monkeys, but none were to be seen. Jacob pulled out a banana to eat and suddenly we were rushed by five monkeys. They ate all of our bananas, leaving none for us, and followed us through the whole forest keeping away the other monkeys.

We also went to the Sacred Turtle Lake, but alas, I have no pictures because our camera temporally broke. At the lake, we also got to fed the turtles and some of them were huge. The biggest one in the last is over 1 meter long. The locals call them "cute little buffaloes."

After Savannakhet we headed down to the tourist hub (Savannakhet had almost no tourists- it was great!) of Pakse. Due to the success of out previous motorcycle trip, we decided to rent motorbikes again to explore the Bolvean Plateau, as it was supposed to be the best way to see the area. We did a three day, two night tour and had a great time. First we stopped in the laid back little town of Tad Lo falls and checked out the three water falls in the area. We then headed to town of Sekong. We learned there really isn't much to see there. We found one restaurant with an English menu and it had an information sheet on the region, which was really interesting. The menu also said "We don't blame you for not wanting to explore Sekong." But it was still really fun- we had a nice dinner with the few other people who had decided to venture out as far as Sekong- it turns out most people don't- and the locals were really friendly. We had a great breakfast at this old lady's Noodle Soup stand.

After Sekong we head to Paksong which was a dirt road through beautiful jungle. We also stopped at another waterfall- Kamatok?- which some Laos say is the biggest waterfall in the country. It was beautiful- and it was just a little dirt path off a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. After that we headed to Tat Fan which is probably the most popular waterfall in the area- defiantly the most touristy. It was beautiful as well, especially after we followed a windy narrow path down to a much better view point. We then continued on back to Pakse through tea and coffee plantations and pine forests/jungle (it was bizarre).

We are now back in Pakse and are taking a day off. Tomorrow we are going to head off to Champasak and then down to the 4000 islands.

I've been trying for the last hour to add some photos, but the internet is just too slow. I guess I'll just have to wait until we get into Cambodia.

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Photos

Vientiane
In one of the major temple complex in the capital

Konglor Cave
Exploring Konglor Cave outside of Tha Kheak

Konglor Cave
Exploring Konglor Cave

Kamatok Falls
A hidden waterfall in the middle of nowhere

Feeding an Elephant
Andy feeding an elephant sugar cane after we rode him up to the top of Phu Asa