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!
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