laos trip report, part iii: the adventure out...

Well, I know what you're going to say: Ryan, we thought you died after your first two Laos entries. Well, don't worry. I made it back fine, only to be confronted with one of the busiest months ever. I'm here to make things right!

In my last post I mentioned that an adventure would soon befall me on the Bolaven plateau. This was no lie. I set out in the morning to head back to Paxse, seeing another waterfall on my way. The morning started out very nice with beautiful mountain streams and brooks, all babbling and clear.



I then made my way onto a dirt road that was to lead me back to a town I had already been through before going back to Paxse. I know what you're thinking... but a dirt road in Laos, isn't that a bad idea? But look at this thing--it looked great, so well-maintained:



Never mind the water buffalo and children--I'm used to that stuff. After a few kilometers it still looked great:



Okay, so maybe a slight red flag should have gone up when I didn't see anyone else, but this is the least populated area of Laos, right, maybe there just isn't anyone to use the road around. So I kept on.

I passed over this bridge held up by big stones--neat.



About 30 kms into it disaster struck. I got a flat. Well that sucks. I'm in the middle of nowhere Laos with a flat tire. But it gets better. Not only am I in the middle of nowhere, I'm in the archetypal nowhere. Also wonderfully, road conditions have VASTLY deteriorated with ruts so deep in the road I'm afraid to slip into one. It becomes painfully clear I will be seeing no four-wheeled vehicles on this trip. It occurs to me that even if I find someone, they probably won't be the kind of person who has a spare on hand, now, will they?

On this count I was indeed proved correct. After making my way slowly through a further evaporating road, I spot some huts by the side of the road:

Hi piggy (you can see the road in the background--a fully functional bridge!):



Now, believe it or not, how to approach indigenous peoples isn't covered in grade-school so I'm a little worried about my actions. I walk around the area where their campfire is--the ground is littered with the bones of the little animals that also scurry around the camp. Luckily I don't have to knock on the hut, a man is outside and sees me. I motion him to come with me cause I don't know how to say "Oh hey man, I've got a flat, could you help me out?" in Laos. He understands and comes with me and sees my motorbike. He nods and says some stuff--nice, he's seen one before. Here is where it gets weird. He motions me to look at this path leading into the woods. Here's the path:



Now you can imagine my skepticism. I am silently thinking to myself: how can you possibly think that the solution to my problems lays on a little dirt path leading INTO the dangerous jungle? I mean, what in God's green Earth could lay down that path that could possibly be good for me!?!? But this guy seems really nice, so I go down the path. Eventually the path gets too rocky to utilize my motorbike (yes I road my scooter down it... with a flat).


So now I need to leave my motorbike behind while I traverse the jungle on foot. No prob. So I start walking around in footpaths in the jungle, and the only people I came upon are two naked kids who were scared to death of me, and a topless woman straight out of National Geographic. I suddenly think about what I'm doing and decide "Yeah, there probably aren't any mechanics out here." So I head back to my waiting scooter. Lo' and behold but my friend is there, he goes into the jungle and motions for me to wait. Logically, I just assume he's getting the local shaman to breathe life into my wheel. Amazingly he comes back with an air pump. It doesn't fit, which is fine, because I'm 99% sure there is a giant puncture in my tube somewhere anyway. But man, one-thousand points to this guy for trying. I thank him as profusely as you can with nonverbal communication. I threw in "kap jai yai yai" which is Laos for "Thank you very very much," but to be honest, I'm not so sure he spoke Laos at all. I received my greatest shock on the way back through the footpath to the road. As I was getting on my scooter, two men walked into view down the path (that I had to leave through).

They were carrying guns.

Hahah, I pretty much just threw that in for dramatic effect; however, I must say that I was immediately pretty damn scared. I mean, a guy just led me down this path, and now I see two guys blocking my way out with guns. After a few seconds of panicking I took a closer look. What was with their guns? As they came closer I got a better look at the guns--a nervous task, mind you--and realize they were about four-foot long muzzleloading, single-shot rifles from what had to be a hell-of-a-long time ago.

Where the hell was I?

I realized they were just coming back from hunting. They were surprised at me (the feeling was mutual), but just walked past.

I decided to hoof-it to the road before Joe-Hunter realized I saw his wifes chest. Probably not much of a threat since she was topless anyway, but I'm not taking any chances--Lord knows how good of a shot he is with that revolutionary-war-era antique. So I made it back to the road and went on my way. Still with a flat, and now an amazed look on my face as I considered the shirt-less, electricity-less, reliable rifle-less society I had just left behind.

I continued on my way (still with my flat) and a weird thing started to happen. As I made my way on, I began to see more and more huts, still without any sort of technology. But, bit-by bit I began to see an evolution. Eventually, I saw steel mixed with bamboo to make huts, then some of the huts were nicer and almost house-like. There were more people, too. It hit me that it was exactly like I was watching human evolution, on a single road, and that the farther I progressed, the more advanced it was getting. I kept going and this proved to be true. When I reached the part of human evolution that began to have simple mechanical transportation (scooters!), I pulled over at a rudimentary store-like building and the guy changed out the tube on my motorbike! Woooo! I was afraid what the bill would be--I didn't have much money. He grabs a stick and writes the price in the dirt... I get the bad news:

10,000

10,000?!?!?! Oh, wait, that's ONE DOLLAR. How the heck do you even get a scooter tube for one-dollar? Much less the tube and the time you invested in repairing it? I gave him 20,000, he seemed really pleased.

Oh, by the way, there are so many ridiculous waterfalls in Laos. Here's just a random view from the road:


So I made a little better time now that I had a fully-functional motorbike. The road got terrible. And by terrible I mean, it was finally paved, which you would think would be a good thing. But instead, the paving was of the paper thin sort that was RIDDLED with pot-holes, some of which were over a foot deep. All the scooters (including me) had to constantly weave from the far side of the road to the opposite side. Funny to think I actually ended up making slower time on the paved road with a fully functional motorbike than I was with a flat tire on the dirt road!

Oh, and I got another flat.

No joke. Anyway, another dollar later, everything was right as rain.

I had enough daylight to check out Tad Fane. What an amazing waterfall... It is just stupid-big. Imagine if you were trying to float down one of those two little streams and then came out here... yipes. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves:





By the time I got to Pakse, I just relaxed on the banks of the Mekong for a while before getting a good nights sleep. I was treated to dinner by the family that owned the guest-house, which was good because I only had enough money for the bus ride home. I ate as much as I good and had a horrific bus ride the next morning, made worse by the hunger! But I made it home.

laos trip report, part ii: into the plateau…

The second day of my trip to Laos I began making my way to what is actually the least populated area of the country. I would later find out that in this area of Laos, less than 4% of locals were ethnic Laos, with over 97% belonging to various hill-tribes, who I would encounter often on my journey. I really recommend the fantastic Wikipedia article regarding this province (and focus of much of my Laos travels for this trip). It has very good information about the area, and gives great information on how the hill-tribes are perceived by other “more civilized” people.

Speaking of the area I visited, I forgot to include my customary map of where I went so you can gauge where I was in the world:

I went to the southern part of Laos. Other than Si Phan Don, this area is not very heavily trafficked, and I got a nice picture of remote life, away from tourism, in Southeast Asia. It is worth noting, however, that even though I was almost as far away from the beaten path as you can get, there was still one guesthouse in the larger towns I stopped at for the night. The area is most famous for the Bolaven plateau and its stunning waterfalls (which you will, of course, get to see through my photographs). In retrospect, I would absolutely love to spend a full thirty-days or so in Laos, going from the top of the country to the bottom. On my itinerary would be a big loop from top to bottom in Laos, hitting the Bokeo National Preserve Gibbon Experience, then Luang Prabang and the lovely waterfalls near it, then Vang Vien for tubing and caving and fun, then the Plain of Jars by Phonsovan, then farther south to spend a few days on the Bolaven Plateau, before chilling out on Si Phan Don. Sometime along the way I would hit at least 1 three-day trek with Green Discovery. I write this as much for myself as anyone else, but if you’re going to Laos, I suggest you take the time and make this full journey.

Anyway, I started my trip about the plateau by checking out one of the many waterfalls:

The natural beauty of the terrain here is really breathtaking. Mountain streams are everywhere, with clear, fresh water and large clean stones and boulders. Everything felt so brisk and clean in comparison to Bangkok, it was just very refreshing.

This is a picture of one of the many schools I saw and gives you an impression of the overall plateau view. I saw so many kids walking to school (I believe I already related my stories of their delight in seeing me!), I sometimes wondered how there could be so many happy kids running around.

I then stopped at another waterfall on a whim. It wasn’t even on my map, and turned out to be very nice. Here’s a view of the river feeding the falls. You’ll notice there is actually a lone monk wandering around in the photo. Strangely enough, I actually ran into him about an hour after I took this photo and found out he was Thai. I conversed with him with the little Thai I had and he was very pleased to speak Thai with me.

Here is the beautiful view looking down from the top of the falls. These grassy canyons and basins were just beautiful. Yes those are people!

Here’s the falls from down in the basin.

And the falls in their entirety:

Later on in the day as I wandered, I decided to take a chance and stopped at a school that was being let out. The kids were all lined up (in order of height—see photo), and going through military-like positions of attention and at-ease. I motioned to the teacher to see if I could take pictures and he smiled big and encouraged me. Here they are, in front of their flag of Laos on a bamboo pole. I should mention that oftentimes I would see the Laos flag flown hand in hand with the hammer and scythe—what a strange sight! You can see the schoolhouse in the background.

The kids sang the anthem as they lowered the flag. Adorable!

Here’s the bunch leaving school. You can see by their distance that the kids were afraid (though amused) of me at first. I motioned for them to come over so I could get a photo with them. None would get near me, until a lone boy (the bravest of the group), stood next to me for a picture. More and more kids gathered until I had a good group.

They warmed up to me:

The kids would often have me stand up straight and then mark their height next to me, amazed at my height. This was true of adults as well. In a small market I visited, I was made to stand for about 5 minutes while different townspeople compared their height with mine (I’m only 6’2”). They motioned to my skin often and pointed to my freckles and eyes. They were also incredibly kind and warm—an older lady motioned for me to come over and eat some rolls with her. I did, and they were delicious!

However, all this would pale in comparison the adventure that would soon befall me.