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Published: September 6th 2008
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So we managed to heave ourselves out of the hammocks and get on the road again! First stop was Pakse, a travelhub, and what seemed to us to be really expensive with nothing nice to make it worthwhile! For this reason we trapsed around for a while trying to find the cheapest room possible and made the decision to leave early the next morning.
Hhhmmmm......our lesson is learned....cheapest isn't always good! The proprietors thought it nice to throw into the value of the cell-like room;
1) Peeling paint,
2) Shared bathroom - never been cleaned in the life of the building and mounds of green gunge growing from everywhere!
3) Mould patches everywhere....but hey we've dealt with India, so we thought all this would be ok....apart from....
4).......And the BONUS PRIZE............A chronic infestation of BEDBUGS!!....I'll say no more other than AAAAARRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH and see pics!
Needless to say we fled as early in the morning as possible, unawares of how badly we'd been attacked until later in the day when they began to get worse and worse and......you get the idea!
Dan - I was alright because I think I must smell really bad or something I only got
a few bites, But poor Nic had too many to count they all seemed to merge into one. I was so worried at one point I thought she may of gone into some kind of shock with all the poison, I've never seen anyone so uncomfortable before! Luckely Bedbugs dont carry disease just a b*rstard of an itchy bite.
So one of the highlights in southern Laos is the Bolaven Plateau a slightly elevated area covered with Jungle, coffee, bananas, and simple villages. We headed to a small village called Tat Lo named after one of the waterfalls here, very quiet and very beautiful......Anyone else planning to head here make sure you stay at Pap's a loverly lady who looked after us while we were here and does the BIGGEST Banana & Chocolate pancake you will ever see!!
Nic - Tad Lo really does seem to be out in the sticks - hooray just what we like, and even better knowing that there's no mobile phone signal too! The village has been built on the banks of a lovely river where the locals go to do their washing and bathe in the evenings, a really lovely community atmosphere.
Just upstream there are 3 waterfalls. We were really quite impressed with the first two and saved "The bigone" for a day in itself.
A 4km hike and we found ourselves at the edge of a tribal village where we were pounced on by a large group of children. They lead us through their village and out along a stream and through some wooded areas (where we found a poisonous watersnake!) and finally emerged at the bottom of this magnificent, huge, and imposing......cliff with a dribble of water falling to one side!
Dan - We were like "WHAT, where's the big waterfall?" hmmmmmmmm the kids didn't speak a word of English so we could only assume they had taken us to the wrong one, still it was good fun running through the jungle and hopping over rocks and boulders and avoiding snakes (these kids do it bare foot!!!)
We thanked them and decided to keep going the way we had been told to go to reach the top of the one we were looking for. so when we approached 10km later we were met with a bloody dam!!!!!!
Nic - They failed to tell us that
Some of the bedbug bites......
the rest were too indecent to publish!!!!!!!!...they got worse after this too! Hydro-electric companies had wangled their way into this beautiful part of the world and restricted nature by building a massive dam upstream, thus reducing the raging torrent of a waterfall to a dribbling mess! It wasn't an easy 10km either - all uphill in the searing heat, so we were everso slightly disappointed! It was quite interesting to see what a waterfall is like underneath though, the size of the boulders and rockpools that are created by it's force...ok enough of the geography lesson!
Dan - We managed to crawl back to our village for a cold Beer Lao and a sleep in the afternoon..........phew what a day! We were so tired the next day we settled for a swim in the river with the locals and had yet another hammock afternoon.
Nic - Pap, bless her, sorted us a big fish for dinner, cooked Laos style - "Piing Paa", a whole fish stuffed with lemongrass and marinated in salt and garlic among other things, and then grilled over an open fire served, of course, with sticky rice (the staple here) and stirfried veg....yummy!!! (and then there was the afore mentioned pancake which we had trouble finishing between
the two of us!)
Dan - Beep Beep ring ring was the sound of the alarm clock.....Yes the alarm clock (we do use one from time to time!!!!) we had to fight our way out of bed to catch the early morning bus from the main road 2km away.
Next stop Savannakhet so more later.
Us
xxxxx
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Mum Walton
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Bed Bugs!!
Oh no, not bed bugs!! Well I think you have now gone just a bit too cheap with the accommodation. What happened to your special bed bug covers, don't they work!! Ting Ting has given me her family's telephone nos for when you get to Kuala Lumpur. Not sure when you will be there, but just in case speak to me first. Love mum x