SE Asia Holiday Part 10: the FINALE!

The rain continues!  Our plan for the day was to explore the ruins of Wat Phou.  This is an ancient Khmer temple, with some of the remaining structures believed to be from as far back as the 11th century.  It's not every day you get to see a World Heritage area, so we donned our rainjackets and started exploring!

 

On each side of this walkway up ahead was a palace-- the "north" and "south" or "mens" and "womens" palaces.   Complete with courtyards and a building, some parts still standing!

 

I forget if this was the mens or womens (my guess is the womens- as we're built tougher! ;))

Weird body part sculptures...

The walk continued uphill--- here's looking back down the hill at the palaces/courtyards

A carving of a crocodile.  Some believe this site may have been used for an annual human sacrifice.  Creepy!

At the top of the hill there was a sanctuary, where in the back a mountain spring empties into a basin.  It's thought that this water is holy.   I made sure to get my hands wet in *that* good stuff! 

So the rain continued.   Our tourguide gave us an "Oregon Trail" type offer-  if we all chipped in 10,000 kip (like 2 dollars or something), we can take a ferry across the Mekong River that'd shave 2 hours off our driving time for the day.  Or we could just drive around it.  The vote was unanimous! 

However we didn't know the ferry boarding would look this sketchy....

 

And this boarded deck was our ferry platform....

 

And this was the front of the boat....

 

And THIS was this gy-normous river we had to cross...

We may have thought otherwise! But somehow we made it across safely :)

 

Our last Laos destination was Don Det, also known as 4000 Islands.

 

 This place was SO relaxed it would probably make Jamaica look like Downtown Manhattan.   Dirt streets, shacks as restaurants... quite chill.  Many menu items at the restaurants were preceded by "happy"--- "Happy" Shake, "Happy" Burger--- (I think you know what I mean)... as if you needed anything to chill you out even more!

 

I boycotted the "Happy" Menu items... and chose these DEE-licious Summer Rolls instead.

The rain continued to fall- so a book and a BeerLao on a hammock overlooking the river was my afternoon agenda.  Perfect.

Absolutely fantastic sunset after the rain!  A memorable last day in Laos.

Last dinner together with the tourgroup--- gonna miss these guys!

The next morning involved a slow boat ride over the river, a 2.5 hr drive to Pakse (where we were in a flash airconditioned minivan where the driver was pumping Dance Beats, driving 100km/hr, and honking the horn at any dog/goat/bike/car on the road in his way).   Next in Pakse we crossed the border back to Thailand by walking through an underground tunnel.  Sounds sketch, but was quite easy and not scary.  Another gloriously air conditioned van took us to the town of Ubon Ratchathani, where we'd catch the overnight train to Bangkok.  We arrived to Ubon early, so our tourguide took us to the mall where we basked in the air con, people-watched Thai teenager fashion, and played pool and did some bowling. 

Next up was the overnight train to Bangkok.  

I think the ride was about 11 hours.  Luckily we were booked in the sleeper cabin so our seats turned into beds.  I pity the folks who had to stay seated for the whole ride. :(

The train boarded right around dinnertime, and our tourguide told us there'd be food on the train.  He didn't tell me this would be the only option!

I don't know what the @*(# was in this other than the fried egg and rice part.  All I know is that it was super spicy.

The food gods were definitely in my favor that night-  how I escaped gastrointestinal distress after eating a meal like THAT I do not know!! :)

 

In the morning I arrived back in Bangkok.  Spent the day on the same street I started my tour- Khao San Road, getting great deals on souvenirs (and making sure to avoid the scams!)

Although it was hot, and humid, and involved a LOT of sitting on a bus, I really did get to cover a lot of ground in Northern Thailand and all of Laos in quite a short time.  Travelling Southeast Asia was a wonderful distraction to pass the time while waiting for my Australian Work Visa to process!

Thanks for reading!



SE Asia Holiday Part 9: Food and Beverage Adventures

After Kong Lor, we headed to Laos' 2nd Biggest City, Savannakhet.  I wish I had good things to tell you about this city.  In my opinion, it was pretty shady.   Nothing worth stopping for tourist-wise, other than a night of sleep.  Luckily, a few of us heard about a little Italian restaurant in this town.  We were SO happy to find it and that it was open!   Pasta with tomato sauce never tasted so good after 10 days of eating nonstop fried noodles!   If life ever finds you in the shady town of Savannakhet, Laos, make SURE to have a meal at Lin's Cafe!!

 

Speaking of cuisine, our next stop was a place called "Chicken Village"--- pretty much known for its roast chicken and various other items on a stick.  This village was our lunch stop--- stand upon stand of meat on a stick.  

Pretty much a whole flattened chicken on a big skewer!

Ribbit Ribbit!

Although the chicken looked deivine (the frogs just looked gross), unfortunately my tummy wasn't feeling 100% at that moment.  I passed on the jumbo skewers and thought maybe this one below would be ok.

Looked like just pieces of chicken to me.  Took a bit if the bottom--- so chewy!   Tasted the top part--- spongy!  Overall textures were disgusting and not at all like chicken.   I purchased two and had no desire to eat the other, so I gave it to our Laotian tourguide.  He told me yes it was chicken---organs!  Intestine, liver, and lung.  GROSS GROSS GROSS!

 

Our next stop was our overnight stop in Tad Lo.   Had a visit with the local elephants just before bathtime....

Then a short walk to see the Tad Lo Waterfalls.

They were gushing!  It *was* the rainy season.

This track had some wonderful bridge architecture as well!

I'm pretty sure if you look up 'rickety' in the dictionary, this is what you'd see!

Tad Lo was an interesting small town.  There were more animals out in public than people.

Hello pig!

 

Goats.  Chilling on the porch.

Pigs. Pregnant pigs.  Checking out the construction site. 

(lovely bamboo scaffolding, eh?)

 

Kittycats.  On the motorbike.

 

 

Next morning we headed up in elevation to the Bolaven Plateau.  We were VERY excited for the few degrees temperature change and our activity for the day--- a tour of a coffee plantation!!

 

So back in the day, a Dutch backpacker (in his 20s I think), was travelling through Laos, decided to settle here and start a coffee plantation!  Now he's known here as Mister Coffee!

He taught us about arabica, robusta, the importance of shade trees, and just how fast/high coffee plants grow.  Here are some of the fresh beans still on the plants. 

It rained for our tour, and the ground was full of puddles and mud.   One tourmate spotted one of these on her foot.

Yep, a Leech!  They were all over, taking a bath in the puddles!   Kind of cool.

 

Next Mister Coffee showed us the roasting process, small scale.

Roasting in a very very hot pan....

See the colors of the beans changing?

PS- it smelled INCREDIBLE. :)

 

Beans into a woven basket, toss them to cool.

Ta- dah!   Roasted coffee!

Next, we all got a turn to hand-grind the freshly roasted beans.

And best of all was the last part--- DRINKING the freshly roasted, freshly ground coffee!  It was fantastic!

 

Our lunch stop was in Tad Lo, near this massive waterfall, which was going absolutely bonkers after the rain all day!

Most people just took a photo from the top viewing deck.  But two of my British tourmates and I strapped on our raincoats and took the steps to the bottom!

The spray from the fall was madness!  We couldn't even lift our heads!

 

Wild wet women :)

Spent the night in a city called Pakse.   Our tourmate Jess is a Les Mills instructor and after all our noodle-y meals and sitting on a bus we were again ready for a workout!  Using someone's ipod and speakers, she led us in an exercise class in the hallway of our (very run-down) motel!  It was stinkin hot- no a/c-- just fans, but so many laughs (and loads of SWEAT).  The hotel staff didn't mind-- just gave us funny looks.  Jess is now an internationally acclaimed exercise instructor :) 

Pakse had some nice dining and drinking accomodations--- including this amazing rooftop bar at the Pakse Hotel.   What a nice view!

One more post to come of my final adventures in Southern Laos!

SE Asia Holiday Part 8: Forest and Village Adventures!

Howdy blog readers!   I am not lost, just got distracted for a few (ergh 5) months.  Have no fear, I'm back, and want to tell you about my last few days in Laos back in July!

 

So, our Laos explorations took us further south and "off the beaten track" to Phou Khao Kouay NPA (stands for National Protected Area).  A long windy red dirt road took us to our campsite, which was located next to this beautiful waterfall!

 

Tad Leuk waterfall

 

Some folks jumped right in for a swim, but a few of us were up for some physical activity (sitting in a bus for hours and hours and eating fried noodles for at least 2 meals a day--- I was DYING for some exercise!)  So two of my tourmates, Jess and Sam, headed on to check out the Nature Trail Hike.

1-2 hours to walk 1.5 km?

 

Our tourguide warned us to be VERY careful as the trails weren't well marked.  We were quite concerned how/why a 1.5 km hike was going to take us 1-2 hours.  But we had a photo of the trail map (see above, quite detailed, eh?) and there were three of us (two future lawyers and a doctor!)- we could manage!

 

So it was quite a jungle/rainforest type hike.  The track wasn't well marked at all.  Even with all our brains, we got lost!  But only once :).

The best part of the hike was hands down the architectural complexity of the bridges.

Like this one (see Jess and Sam crossing cautiously)...

And this one...

At least this one had railings on both sides!

We felt like we were circus performers more than hikers!

It truly felt like an obstacle course.  Obviously the track isn't well kept.  Here's Sam attempting the bamboo web scramble!

 

We made it back safely (took us WAY shorter than 1-2 hours, even with our one mixup and the many obstacles).  A great refreshing swim at the waterfall (there were fish nipping our legs in the river!), a tasty bbq dinner cooked by our tourguides, and some BeerLao and Lao-Lao rice whisky made me ready for a pretty decent sleep.

 

The sheer remoteness of our campsite led us to some nice critters, such as this millipede (remember, I have Size 11 feet)

These butterflies look strangely like bumblebees, doncha think?

We packed up camp early the next morning and our next stop was the Kong Lor caves.   Under/in this mountain is a 7km (4.3 mile) long cave!  

 

 

We took a rowboat to get to the entrance, then had to clamber over some rocks to get to motorized canoes that slowly whizzed us slowly through the superlong cave.

The cave was MASSIVE, some of the crystal formations were 100 meters high in the air!   Hard to take photos on a 7km boatride thru the dark, though.

At the other end of the cave (where we got out, the boat drivers had a smoke, and we turned around and went back!)

The town of Kong Lor was very tiny.  We saw this man 'driving' his 'tractor'-   apparently the motor on the front is a lifeline for the Lao people--- it powers their tractors in the rice field, used for transport around "town", and then also powers the generators for their home!   As and added bonus, this man gave our tourgroup a lift on the back cart back to our accomodation!  It was a hoot.

A beautiful sunset in the town of Kong Lor.

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Stay tuned for a few more updates of the rest of Southern Laos!