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Published: March 24th 2015
A noticeable change of pace seemed to occur as soon as we crossed into Laos from Vietnam at the remote border crossing in the Southeast of the country. This is perhaps not surprising given that the population of Laos is only about seven million and their attitude towards life is far more laid back than that of their neighbouring countries.
So we arrived in the fairly remote little town of Attapeu and spent a few days just soaking up the tranquility and cycling around the town on a couple of bikes we had hired from the guest house. Well that was after the very cheerful lady owner had dragged them out of a corner, dusted them off and pumped up the tyres. We got the distinct impression that not many foreign travelers pass through this way and those that do only stay one night. So our three or four night stay was something of a rarity and resulted in the lady owner running up to us each day with a big smile and gifting us a fresh water melon or a papaya and even some baked sweet potatoes.
Moving west from Attapeu we decided to explore the Bolaven Plateau
which is famous for its cooler climate, coffee plantations and waterfalls. The public buses in Laos are ancient and chug along at a very sedate pace. This suites us perfectly as there is no white knuckle rides and we can enjoy watching the scenery roll by. We eventually hopped off the bus in the dusty and not immediately attractive one horse town of Paksong. Unfortunately, many small towns in south eastern Laos look similarly uninviting due to the fact that they were bombed to oblivion during the Vietnam (American) war as both sides fought for control of the Bolaven Plateau and the Ho Chi Minh trail, much of which passed through Laos. Given that times must have been incredibly hard for the local population following the conflict they just hastily rebuilt their towns as best they could.
However, the townsfolk were friendly enough, happily passing the time of day as we wandered off the main road towards the edge of town. We found a nice guesthouse next to a pond run by a young Laothian who had returned from living in Bordeaux, France to run the family business. We felt a little sorry for him as he explained with
dry humour that "there is nothing to do in Paksong, believe me I have been here six months now, nothing." We could see where he was coming from as he had probably not been intending to return from his life in France, but as the oldest son he was obliged to do so after his father had passed away. He was an amusing chap and despite his droll downer on the town we were pretty sure we could find enough to do for a day and we did. We sampled some of the famous local coffee which was very good and hired two bikes from the cafe which were not so good. We got just a little way down the road when one of Liz's pedals fell off. This was clearly nothing new as the girl in the cafe simply shrugged her shoulders and handed our money back. Never mind, it was a nice day for a walk. So after a tasty noodle soup lunch at the dusty market we headed out of town on a dirt road for an amble.
Being the hopeless couple of romantics that we are, we had only barely registered that the day was
St Valentine's day. However, when we popped out to the local eatery for dinner we were surprised to find the locals celebrating in style. Not the slushy, cozy, candlelit dinner style celebration, but the get the whole family out, have a big feed and get more than a little tipsy style. We approved of this Laothian Valentine's celebration and were very amused by the waitresses, who had clearly been getting in on the merriment and were struggling to walk from the tables to the kitchen in a straight line and without bumping into anything. Our waitress tried her very best to appear entirely sober when taking our order, but a fit of giggles that burst out after she bumped into a nearby table gave her away. It appeared the party wasn't just in the restaurant either, whilst walking back we were passed by two very merry men wobbling down the road on a motorbike, we passed one truck in a ditch (thankfully no one was hurt) and bought a bottle of water from the bleary eyed local shopkeeper.
With the sights of Paksong well and truly under our belt we set off the following morning via three different buses
to the tiny town of Tat Lo.
Tat Lo is a more touristy spot, in a sort of scruffy backpacker kind of a way rather than mass tourism, than the two towns we'd stayed in so far. The village has a resident herd of cows that just wander around causing mischief such as quietly sneaking into the open fronted shops/stalls to raid the banana shelf. We had no idea cows were so keen on bananas, but the only way one shop owner could get the persistent beasts to move was by waving a banana in front of their noses and leading them off across the road with it. He then fed them the banana which we thought was probably not helping the issue. A couple of days later we also watched a billy-goat hop up onto his hind legs and steal a doughnut from another open fronted shop. Theft by wandering farm animals is clearly an issue in rural Laos.
Tat Lo is famous in the region for having a lot of waterfalls nearby which are nice to visit and splosh around in. Our timing was a bit off unfortunately because the hydro-electricity dam further up river was
undergoing some sort of maintenance causing the water to run a nice chocolate milkshake colour. No sploshing around for us, although the elephants taking the odd group of tourists for a ride didn't seem to mind getting into it and squirting themselves and anyone in close proximity with a trunk full.
From Tat Lo we left the Bolaven Plateau behind and made our way to Pakse in the South West of the country and back alongside the Mekong river where it forms a border with Thailand. Pakse was a pleasant enough little town for a stopover before heading about an hour further south to the very small and very quiet town of Champasak.
There was not much to the town of Champasak, just a collection of French colonial era buildings and wooden houses lining the river bank. But the town had once been the seat of the royal family and therefore of great importance. We really liked the place as it was unspoiled by modern development, only gently visited by tourists and had a very relaxed feel. We stayed in a place next to the river, hired a couple of bikes (better built ones this time) and cycled
to the remains of Wat Phu, another ancient Khmer religious complex one day. The following day we loaded ourselves and bikes onto a river ferry which was basically two canoes joined together with a pallet and a motor hung on the back. The "ferry" spluttered across the river to the island of Don Daeng and, after a short wade carrying our bikes, deposited us on a deserted beach at the northern end of the island.
There is no road on the island, just a bumpy narrow track going all the way round which is about twelve miles long. The island feels like the land that time forgot. We bumped and wobbled our way around passing through small villages, farmland and woodland, everyone we saw shouted the standard Laos greeting "sabadee" (hello), the only traffic being the odd bike, small motorbike, a few mini tractors and lots of water buffalo. Eventually with aching backsides from all the bumps we made it back to the beach where our trusty ferry man arrived to pick us up bang on the agreed time.
Having had such a wonderful experience of this pretty island with its very intact traditional way of life and
virtually zero tourism development, we couldn't bring ourselves to head further south to the famous and intensely touristic four thousand island area. So we eventually prized ourselves away from Champasak and turned north following the river back through Pakse and on to the little town of Savannakhet.
Savannakhet has a wonderfully sleepy historic quarter where we enjoyed slurping fresh tropical fruit juice and watching the world amble by. Other than that there's not so much of interest in the town, but it is a good base for exploring the countryside around.
Southern Laos was now starting to get seriously hot with blazing sunshine, which meant walking or cycling any distance from the town were now not an option. So given that traffic in Laos is very light we decided to go for the rented scooter option. Even riding along on a scooter the air was like a blast from a hot oven. We scooted around the area for two days going miles on dusty bumpy roads and crossing rickety bridges, visiting various isolated small temple ruins (most requiring a fair amount of imagination), a protected area of forest and lots of peaceful little villages.
After a great
few days in Savannakhet we decided to go a little further north to the town of Tha Khaek in search of some of the limestone karst and river cave scenery that the area is famous for. Again the most sensible way of getting out into the wilds was with a scooter. We visited several impressive limestone caves in the area, one of which was only discovered in 2004 when a local fisherman climbed up the cliff face using a hanging vine. On entering the narrow cave opening he discovered a chamber containing 229 bronze Buddha images. This must have been a real Indiana Jones moment. Once again, a fairly sleepy, laid back Laos town, a cheap rented scooter, empty roads, blazing sunshine and bundles of great scenery had been a winning combination. But now it was time to head back eastwards towards Vietnam once more.
We traced our steps back to Savannakhet for one night before hopping on a slow old bus eastwards that was full of sacks of rice. We just had to clamber over them to find a seat. Luckily we'd brought our own food supplies as neither of us fancied the barbecued insects on a stick
that were offered to us through the bus windows by laughing local ladies. They knew we would not buy these delicacies but we think they really like to see foreigner's faces when they are offered insects on a stick.
We stopped off at the small town of Sepon which is about an hour from the Vietnamese border. The town is not pretty but we decided to make a stop here as it is a good place to see parts of the old Ho Chi Minh trail. We caught a sorngtaaou (local transport which is a truck with bench seats in the back down each side. They run set routes, are cheap, carry anything and leave when full enough) to the war museum in Ban Dong, a village close by where we learned a little more about this country's involvement in the war.
We shared our sorngtaaou ride back from Ban Dong with three or four real old country ladies who took great delight in chatting away to us even though we clearly had no idea what they were saying. There was also sack fulls of various vegetables being transported and a little surprisingly four big buckets full of
live fish in water. The fish were most likely on their way to the market in Sepon or even Savannakhet via the network of sorngtaaou. The buckets did have a polythene cover with air holes in to stop the fish sloshing out, but one lively little wriggler made a break for freedom and wriggled its way out through a hole. This was all the invitation the ladies needed as once the fish landed on the floor of the truck it was fair game. A hilarious few minutes followed with the ladies all trying to catch the fish and laughing hysterically as it kept slipping out of their grasp, it must have been a biter because they were not keen to get hold of the head end. Eventually with teamwork the fish was captured in one of the ladies' hats, wrapped up and stuffed into one of their bags at which point one of them grinned at us widely and made the universal signal of patting her stomach indicating the fish's not too distant fate.
A great way to end our little adventure into Southern Laos we thought as we headed, refreshed the following day towards the border to continue
our travels through Vietnam.
A few things we learned whilst in southern Laos:
- According to our friendly hostel owner in Savannakhet these are the golden rules to consider when hiring a scooter. Japanese scooter = you drive it. Chinese scooter = it drives you. Korean scooter = it drives nowhere.
- We were amazed by the variety of food that can be served on a stick, including entire chickens, baked eggs and of course insects yum yum!
- The local brew, Beer Lao, was tasty and according to the old chap we saw each morning in Attapeu on his way back from the shop to restock his fridge, its also a great breakfast drink! We stuck to the coffee.
- We were so seduced by the relaxed nature of Southern Laos and its very friendly people, not to mention all the good scenery, that we very nearly overstayed our visas without even realising it. We are thoroughly looking forward to returning to the country to explore the north as soon as we have finished our travels in Vietnam.
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taracloud
Tara Cloud
Off the Beaten Track!
Love your slow pace and exploration of these rural spots--how lovely to be on a bike or scooter in the countryside! Laos sounds wonderful.