Laos, 23 Dec 2006 --

So I’m finding that getting behind in burning my pictures to DVD and uploading them is definitely not the way to go, as that just leaves me buried under four or five CF cards to burn and upload at once.

Fortunately, Cara and I found ourselves with several hours to kill in Pakse while waiting for our ‘VIP’ night bus to Vientiane to arrive, so I uploaded some pictures.  VIP treatment, by the way, nets you a blanket , a bottle of water, dinner in a styrofoam tray, and a ‘freshy towel’ on arrival…that and all the kareoke you care to listen to (or not) blared at top volume.  Fortunately, though, they turned off the music and the lights, and we managed some fitful sleep during the 9 hour ride.

At any rate, here are some miscelaneous pictures from Cambodia:

…pictures from my dirtbiking trip with Chai:

…and a few from Don Det (possibly the most relaxing place on the planet) in the 4000 Islands of southern Laos:

Pakse, by the way, was a surprisingly fun place to be.  Most people we’d met described it as pretty much a transit town, and Lonely Planet gives it all of half a page.  We decided to rent a motorbike and improvise a 3 day loop through the Bolaven Plateau, an agricultural area 1500 meters above the level of the Mekong similar to the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia.

Southern Laos is already far removed from the tourist boom in the north, and the Bolaven Plateau is one step further still.  We found a jungle waterfall lagoon 1.5 km off the main road completely unoccupied (though there were ample signs and a rickety bamboo ladder to guide us to the falls), where I went for a swim.  We drove 20 km down a dirt road to the Dao coffee plantation where the owner’s daughter (who’d gone to school in Napa Valley) englightened us on the finer points of coffee growing over a fresh brewed cup of their Arabica.

Possibly most entertaining, though, was our experience trying to communicate with pretty much the entire population of a Lao mountain village to ask about the condition of the road ahead.  We’d just walked the bike down about 10 km of dirt roads much too steep to drive, and we were trying to figure out how far it was to the paved road and whether we could handle it on the bike or not.

The breakthrough moment came when the headman of the village started drawing on the ground with a lump of charcoal (the kids seemed to really find this funny).  Based on point to where we came from and draw a bunch of hills and point to where we were going and draw a flat line we decided to press on, and were glad to find ourselves rolling down a broad paved road only 10 km later.

We rode another 30 km and arrived in the friendly town of Sekong with half an hour of daylight to spare, and were happy to find a guesthouse with a friendly owner.  He even tuned our TV to ‘The Fashion Network,’ the only English channel on his satellite.

If we don’t post again before Christmas:  Merry Christmas from Vientiane, Laos!  Laos is most definitely not Christian, but I saw a gaudy fake Christmas tree in Pakse and we’re trying to track down more information on a possible turkey dinner special at a local restaurant.  Yay!

Categories Laos