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Published: September 1st 2008
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Can you see me?
See the stick bug in the photo? Friends,
We'll do our best to keep it brief.
After Don Det and 4,000 Islands we spent a few days in Pakse. I caught the flu and watched the olympics in bed, Katie teamed up with a Spanish woman to head over to the Bolavan Plateau, home to waterfalls shrouded in mist and tea and coffee plantations. A problem we encountered in Southern Laos was a pronounced lack of tourists. With few or no westerners in the area interested in heading on a day trip to the Plateau, we had to pay extra to get the organizer to take a few tourists instead. In Pakse we overdosed on cheap, delicious Indian food and ate the spiciest green papaya salad in existence. We caught a bus heading up to Savanakhet the day after Katie's tour.
To whomever it concerns, we were quite underwhelmed by Savanakhet. The most impressive thing to us about Savanakhet didn't even happen in Savanakhet. While our bus waited to leave the station for Savanakhet men began tossing on huge bags filled with tiny limes. Soon the entire aisle of the full sized bus was two bags deep with limes, making the trip the nicest smelling
Monkey and outhouse
This monkey was extremely used to people; it chased after some locals on their motorbike for a half mile or so. yet. Our guesthouse in Savanakhet seemed normal when we checked in at three pm, however once the sun set we realized that besides us every other guest at the hotel was a middle aged man. Turns out our "guesthouse" turns more of a profit as a brothel. The next morning we took a day tour around the area with a local guide. His english was incredible and he was well informed about all the sights around Savanakhet (there are a few.) He took us and Katie's Spanish friend Beatrice to a nearby protected jungle where we saw monkeys, ants and stick insects. Somewhere along the way he decided it was time to make his move with Beatrice, and the rest of the day she was subjected to his humorous advances. No dice. After walking around the jungle for a few hours he took us to a nearby stupa of some significance to the local Laotians. There we were encouraged to pray for either good luck with work, many children, or a wife or husband to have children with. Jury is still out.
After Savanakhet we caught a night bus to the capital of Laos, Vientiane. Evidence of the Mekong
Lunch
Nothing washes steamed freshwater snails down like a good old Beer Lao. overflowing its banks was limited to a large number of sandbag levees along the river and a somewhat rotten smell in certain areas. In Vientiane we enjoyed countless fruit shakes and salt and chili covered green mangoes. As far as the Southeast Asian capitals we have seen, Vientiane was by far the smallest and sleepiest. Wandering about the city for a few days we saw a number of temples as well as the Buddha Park, one man's attempt to fuse Buddhism and Hinduism through a heap of interesting concrete sculptures outside of Vientiane. To get there we boarded a minibus already exploding with people. Throughout the thirty minute ride the conductor kept stopping the bus to squeeze in more. On a bus designed for about twelve people we had at least twenty five. Other traveler's blogs show the Buddha Park partially submerged forcing visitors to view it from canoes. When we got there the ground was still soggy and slightly smelly, but the river was well within its banks. A frustration we encounter nearly everywhere we go in Southeast Asia is our lack of knowledge about Buddhism and Hinduism. The twenty or thirty statues in the Buddha Park must be
Katie at the Buddha Park
Spending some time at the recently flooded Buddha Park outside Vientianne laden with meaning, but to us looked more like apples with trees growing out of them or giant alligators. Homework to do when we get back to the states I guess.
Once we had soaked in enough of Vientiane we caught a local bus to Vang Vieng. There we tubed, as nearly every backpacker in Laos does (the Madison River in Montana is by far superior and cheaper tubing) and visited some extremely interesting caves in the limestone Kaarsts surrounding Vang Vieng. The tubing was nice, we split a Beer Lao and tried the local rice whiskey which was unsurprisingly similar to Vietnamese and Cambodian rice whiskey, and watched the brown river push us back into town. Other backpackers were a bit more loose with their kip, and got themselves stupidly drunk, losing their sandals, voice and/or dignity somewhere near the third riverside bar.
After Vang Vieng we caught another local bus for Phonesavan, a provincial capital in Eastern Laos, and home to the intriguing Plain of the Jars. The ride took forever, in part because a mudslide had washed away 100 feet of road in the mountains and buses trying to get through were not having a
...and this one
...I'm not even going to try and explain (because I have no idea.) ton of luck. The ride consisted of hundreds, maybe thousands of hairpin turns through verdant mountains at a steady clip of 20-30 mph. By far one of the most picturesque trips we have taken, though a little long. Scattered throughout the area surrounding Phonesavan are collections of enormous stone jars set among rolling green hills. We visited the three sites which have been cleared of Unexploded Ordinance (UXO.) The US dropped millions of tons of bombs on this part of Laos to try and disrupt the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and huge numbers of them failed to explode, littering every acre of many provinces with lethal booby traps in what would otherwise be prime farm land. The jars range in size from two feet across to ten, are laid out without any visible hierarchy, and may or may not have been victory monuments depending on who you ask. Little is known about the jars, and studying them was impossible until very recently when some areas were cleared of UXO. At the three sites we visited we saw an incredible array of large insects and spiders, leaving me feeling like we were inside the pages of a National Geographic.
These
Disneyland? Paris?
Wrong. Vientianne, capital of Laos Peoples Democratic Republic. days we find ourselves in Luang Prabang in Northern Laos. The city is great, and we will be sure to take some pictures of it for everyone. While trying to update the blog at an internet cafe Lonely Planet recommends (stupid Lonely Planet,) I picked up a virus on both of our memory cards, nearly destroying all the photos we've taken in August. Luckily the photos are still safe and sharable.
We have been asked to describe the beer over here. It is great. Typically it is all Lager beer; there are a few dark beers to be had, though I can't imagine wanting a dark beer when it's this warm out. Every country has their own beer, sometimes quite a few like in Vietnam where every province made their own. Certainly I am looking forward to making some more of my own, and sharing it with you all. The beer over here is often drunk with large chunks of ice in it to keep it from reaching room temperature in a matter of minutes. This is something I would have shunned before, but now makes perfect sense.
Clearly failed to keep it brief, apologies.
See some
Temple
Tiny niches filled with miniature Buddhas lining every wall of this temple in Vientianne of you in fourteen days,
Tucker and Katie
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