Loving Laos (south)

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October 27th 2008

Published: November 8th 2008

Laos

Transit
October 25th-26th

Well I'll go ahead and group these two days together as they both consisted of basically the same thing: me sitting on a bus. I was without internet for mostly all of this blog so it'll be a bit shorter and more of a recap of what I did. The 25th started out early as I was picked up and hustled to the bus station at 8am. At 9 my bus began to move and I was on my way back to Vientiane where I was planning on catching an overnight bus that would take me to southern Laos. Because today was a bit time sensitive I opted to pay the few extra bucks and take a nicer bus as this usually speeds things up a lot. Especially in Laos. Everything was going well too until out bus broke down about 3/4 of the way to Vientiane and we had to wait for a local bus going by to pick us up. We all crammed onto this bus that was filled with not only people but bags of vegetables, rice and even a few chickens. A neat experience but it cost us about 4 hours as this bus stops a lot. We arrived in Vientiane at 830 which is when my bus leaves from the other side of town so needless to say I didn't end up making my bus. I asked around though and found that there was another bus tomorrow at 8 o’clock so I found a hostel, grabbed some dinner, avoided the mass of lady boy prostitutes I luckily missed last time I was in Vientiane, and then hit they hay.

I arrived at the bus station for 8 o’clock only to find that the bus leaves at 9:30 and that it was a local bus not a VIP bus like I was hoping to take as this trip is pretty long. I decided to take the local bus anyway which seemed to surprise the ticket guys and the people on board. Especially surprised was the old lady who ended up sitting beside me. She was actually really cute. Whenever we stopped I never knew how long we were stopping so I never really had time to grab a decent lunch. She noticed this and at one point shared her lunch with me which was some type of jerky and sticky rice. She also kept giving me sticks of gum about every hour. Lastly at one point when I was catching a nap I woke up to her frantically hitting my leg. Not knowing what as going on she pointed out the window where to guys where riding elephants down the road. I guess she figured I would like to see it. Which I did. At the 8th hour (which ended up being the half way point of this supposedly 12 hour bus ride) I said goodbye and cup chai (thank you) to the old lady and we continued on our way. Although long and absolutely draining considering I did nothing it was a cool ride as I was the only non Lao person on the bus the entire day not to mention the only English speaker. It really let me soak in all that is Laos.

At about 1 o’clock we pulled into Paske bus station and upon seeing no tuk tuk drivers the bus driver said he would drive me into town which I thought was cool of him. I got into town shortly there after and about 3 minutes after the bus left I realized I had left my running shoes on the bus which sucked but at least there wasn't really much left in those shoes after all I had put them through. Now getting into a town at 1 and finding a place to sleep can be tricky enough let alone in Laos where everything shuts down at about 10 o’clock. I luckily found a hotel with someone sitting in the lobby watching TV and took a really nice room there that was a tad out of my price range but there wasn't much I could do. This was a super nice room and was something I was actually planning for tonight when I originally should have arrived in Pakse at 6am this morning as I was going to take today to do absolutely nothing except rest and relax in a nice room but I got about 7 hours out of the room anyway as I had to be up early tomorrow to get everything organized for the next few days since I couldn't do that today either.

Pakse and Don Kho
October 27th-28th

Pakse the city that did nothing but complicate everything. Not only was my rough plan thrown around getting here but also my plan for the next few days as for some reason the prices for trekking has tripled making it stupidly expensive for one person to do as there would be no one to share costs with. So after finding this out I decided to grab some breakfast and regroup a bit in order to figure out the next few days. After grabbing a really good breakfast I decided to head out to a small island near Pakse and do a home stay which si something I had planned on doing after my trek anyway. After about an hour or two I arrived in Don Kho via boat and was quickly introduced to Mek one of 2 English speakers on this small island. he quickly set me up with a family that had a 7 day old baby and began giving me a tour of the island. About 300 people live on this island and only mek and her uncle speak English. She introduced me to people along the way showing me some women weaving and families harvesting rice. We eventually stumbled into a wedding reception and I was quickly invited in and handed a few beer Laos. Before long I met Mek's uncle who introduced me over the make shift pa system they were using to play Karoake (which people danced to like music, which was kind of neat). He also invited everyone including me up to the dance which was really neat a they dance in a very traditional way. Her uncle also told me that her is trying to teach the children on the island English and asked if I could stop by his class tonight which I told him I would definitely do.

I headed back to my home stay to grab some dinner which wasn't too much but still really good. I had a few hours before the class an since it was dark I hung around with the family and before long their son who was 14 (and uncle of te tiny baby) came at sat beside me with some English books. He doesn't speak a word of English so I read him the words and he just repeated them. We did this for about an hour before he walked me to the local temple where the class was being held. Luckily he was going as I think I lost my flashlight somewhere in Vang Vieng. Anyway today’s lesson was numbers and after Uncle as he asked me to call him introduced the lesson and them me I took over by getting the children to repeat the numbers after me before I went around the makeshift classroom asking them basic questions in English. The kids where really cute and there where even a few very young monks in training sitting in the class which was really cool. I got uncles address and I hope to record some things to mail to him so he can have some free lesson materials which he said he'd love to have. The boy and I headed back to my home stay and went over everything in his book a few more times before I crashed for the night. Up with the sun I had my breakfast and went for a little walk with the boy before we found a nice spot to sit and practice everything again. This time we spiced it up a bit and he taught me a few phrases in English which blew some peoples minds when I said it to them later. Around 10am I headed back towards the mainland after giving the boy one of my Canada pins which we proudly wore the rest of the time I was there and back to Pakse where I eventually got on some transport that would take me about an hour south to Champasak.

Champasak
October 29th

After a short boat ride I eventually reached chamapsak and instead of taking a tuk tuk I decided to walk the 4km to where I was planning on staying which turned out to be a really cool place ran by some uber friendly people. My night there didn't consist of much as I am still fighting a head cold and didn't sleep a whole lot the night before so shortly after grabbing a big dinner at my guesthouse I was in bed and asleep by about 9.

Up nice and rested I headed to really the only thing there is in Champasak and that is the ancient temple that has come connections to Angkor Wat down in Cambodia. As a matter of fact there is believed to even be an ancient road connecting the two. I rented a bike and after about an hour I reached the temple which was built up on a hill. This temple was used for both Hindu and Buddhist so there is a lot of old and interesting artifacts to see. There is even an elephant carved into the side of a very large stone. The temple was just amazing and again it was really cool to see something that was so old. It was a really cool taste of what’s in store when I get to Cambodia and see Angkor Wat.

At about 12 I left champasak and began heading down to the 4 thousand island at the very southern end of Laos. On the walk form the pier to the main road I met 2 people one from England and another from a Holland (2 towns over from Veghel none the less). The English guy, Adam is was heading the same direction and not long after reaching the main road we waved down what we thought was a jumbo only discover that it was filled with different things like bottles of sauces, bags of cement, and big pieces of metal. We both climbed in anyway and talked the entire way down about what we had seen and where we were planning to go.

4 Thousand Islands
October 30th- October 31st

As soon as our boat left for Don Det the small island we were planning on staying at we knew we where headed somewhere awesome and upon arriving it all became true. It was quiet and laid back the moment we got there. We quickly found our river side bungalows, each equipped with a hammock. Our place even had a little deck that you can jump off of into the river. We spent the afternoon relaxing in our hammocks and talking some more before heading off for dinner and a few drinks where we met a lot of cool people including 2 girls from Toronto who have been on the island nearly a week. From talking with people it seems many people come here intending on staying a few days but soon find themselves still here a week later. It is really amazing here. Thee are 2 roads, which are more paths them roads. One down one side of the island and one down the other, each names after which event of the sun the catch (Sunrise or Sunset. IN the morning you see people walking and exploring the island before the run to their hammocks to escape the heat of the afternoon. The evenings everyone ends up in one of the bars and everyone usually ends up talking to everyone before the generators are turned off at about 10 o’clock. This was the next to days of my trip as I polished off a few books and finally got over my cold that had been hovering around for a little bit. Adam, the English guy, stayed one day less then me and after 2 and a half days I headed down into Cambodia at the same time as the 2 Canadian girls and a good handful of the other people I had met over the past few days. Don Det was an absolutely amazing place and a great way to relax in an amazing setting and recharge your batteries as they often get drained rather quickly after being away from home for so long. There were so many times I caught myself just smiling and looking out from my hammock over the water. It was utterly amazing.

Southern Laos was really different then the north as not many tourists seem to make it down here. I was glad I came down here as I felt I got a better sense of the real Laos and not the tourist up version you find in the north. Laos was truly amazing though both parts and as sad as it will be to leave I am very excited to see Cambodia and experience some of its sad history as well as its struggle to get back to where it should be. 2 more countries, just over a month to go. I've said it before and I'll say it again, let the adventure continue!

"Cup Chai Lie Lie" to Laos and "Say buddy" to Cambodia. (Thank you very much and hello in Lao)

Laos

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