South Laos

20.06.2011 - 30.06.2011

So we headed from the north into the flat lands and paddy fields of the south. First stop was the remote village of Kong Lo. Made the journey via VIP bus – yeah right! It was a rickety thing from the eighties, no air con which meant a hot & sweaty 8 hours, stopping to offload sacks of things and all the veggies on the roof. Kong Lo, a tiny barely developed village set on in flat valley full of bright green paddy fields surrounded by lime stone cliffs and mountains, is home to a massive 7.5km natural tunnel/cave through the head of this horse shoe valley. The trip through was made on a chunky wooden motorboat with two local guides with head torches. From the way they where motoring through this tunnel in the pitch dark they obviously knew it like the back of their hands. The tunnel in sections was 100m wide and in others 100m high and in one dry section you had some classic stalagmites/tights with some lighting so you could walk through. Once you made it to the other side, there was time to have a bearlao and then head back through with the current, not stopping and just sliding over the gravel beads.

view from guest house

After arriving back

Onwards we went in an attempt to get to Paske, about 450km from Kong Lo. Firstly we had to catch the only bus that left the village at 7am which dropped us off at the junction on the main north-south route. We waited a while for a bus to come along ad flagged down what appeared to be a fairly modern coach. We climbed onboard to an absolutely packed bus and the only space were a couple of plastic stools in the aisle between six of us! Didn't fancy 2 hours stuck on there so we got off and haggled with a santhew driver to take all of us to the next large town, Tha khaek. The speedy santhew driver got us there before the bus and we had about 30mins to wait until the connecting bus left for Pakse, job done so we thought! Turns out the connection was the bus we had turned down earlier and when we tried to get on again the ticket guy shook his head and wouldn't let us on because we had snubbed them earlier! With about 340km left to go we had to go to another bus station by tuk tuk to try to get a mini van to the next town along Savannakhet! There was a recurring theme a bus meant to seat 12 actually squished 21 people on board! We tried to argue that we would only pay half price as some of us only had half a seat but he knew the we didn't have much choice and insisted on the full 30,000 kip. So packed in like sardines and two hours later we arrived in Savannakhet. The only bus for Pakse would get us there about 11pm so after a less than smooth day of travel we decided to spend an impromptu night in Savannakhet. The town itself was again on the banks of the Mekong and was full of old French colonial buildings and even had a typically French square at the centre, so we ended the day meandering round the town and had bite to eat and again a Bearlao on the banks of the river and watched the sunset over Thailand.
Next day we succeeded in arriving in Pakse about mid-afternoon, found a nice guesthouse with cluster bomb casing plant pots lining the stairs and had a good Indian restaurant over the road (So Sian was happy).

After arriving back

Pakse is right on the foot of the Bolaven Plateau, a massive fertile area with big virgin jungle forests and area's developed to grow fruit/veg and coffee. So to explore we set off with Chris and Anna on a couple of manual scooters with our picnic of baguettes and paté , the gear took a while to get used to but we needed them for the hills up beyond the town. Unfortunately as we went up the rain started coming down, and not just a shower, it was like being at home, drizzle with some heavy stuff chucked in. Lucky enough the main road was surfaced but the others where just mud so we only got as far as waterfall and a coffee shop then turned back soaked to the bone.

muddy road

Waterfall Bolaven Plateau

Next day we started the tree top adventure, 2 day trip which was back in the Bolaven plateau and involved trekking, zip wiring, waterfalls, rock climbing and staying in a tree house. This made up for the fact that we couldn't do the gibbon experience in northern Laos. There were 5 of us doing the trip and basically we had a guide each as they were doing training and we had to score their presentations. The zip-lining was amazing and meant that we got to traverse down a canyon past huge waterfalls and through the forest. Equipped with a wooden branch as a break it was difficult to judge the breaking to begin with, either going too fast & crashing into the guides on the platform or coming to a halt too short of the platform and dangling a hundred meters up in the jungle! The second day meant we could cross the longest of the zip wires, 450m long over a valley which lasted about a minute, a couple of times as we didn't have a full group. But what goes down must go up!!! So we trekked and scrambled back up through the jungle alongside and between waterfalls and got to a cliff edge which we had to clip ourselves to climb up as there was no other way up, don't look down! After zig zaging up the cliff between these waterfalls, we crossed through the water literally at the top of the waterfall, without a rope just grabbing some of the guides. We trekked back to the starting village and had couple of celebratory shots of Lao Lao whiskey with the guides before heading back to Pakse cream crackered.

Sian flying Backwards

The group at the camp

On the way south we stopped quickly at Champasak & arrived by an “interesting” black, puffing, open ferry (or maybe three boats strapped together) crossing the Mekong, yet again. This one street town wasn’t the attraction but the first Angkorian capital of Wat Phu nestled in the hills out of town. These ruins the best outside of Cambodia, where we had a taste of things to come, with temples and towers working their way up the steps of the hill complex, climaxing in a sacred spring dripping from the rocks above the final temple. The view at the top made the steps worth while, stretching down to the Mekong looking over the symmetric ancient tiers of ruins and reservoirs which had been standing/falling down for well over 1000years.

Stairs up to Wat Phu

view from wat phu

Our final stop in Laos was to be Si Phan Don (4000 thousand islands) and the island of Dot Det and sister island Don Khon connected by a old French colonial rail bridge. Although we can't confirm if there were actually 4 thousand but there were a lot of small island dotted around. This is the location where the entire mighty Mekong flows over a series of waterfalls, an impassable section by boat thus why the Frenchies decided to build this massive bridge (the location of Human planets program on the fisherman on ropes). The one day we ventured away from our riverside bamboo cabin (including the must have hammocks), we cycled down with Chris, Anna and Kevin from the tree top adventure to the southern tip of Don Khon and hired a boat out in search of the endangered fresh water Irrawadi dolphins. As it happened we actually crossed over to Cambodia to the viewing sanctuary, where we could see some distant splashes, but on the way back the fisherman driver took us to the centre of the river, where we eventually saw this small pod of dolphins occasionally jumping out of the water not more that 10 meters away. They are only small, about 1.5m long with a round blunt head but we were lucky as there were a few around, and hopefully they'll be around for a lot longer now the tourists are piling in.

view from hut