Day 57 - biking around S.E Laos

Apologies for the lack of images this time, but the connection is too slow to allow us to upload much, simply posting text was really painful – will populate with more later, and hopefully have a a lot more to show next time :)

So last I wrote we were just waiting for our flight to Pakse in the South-East arm of Laos, leaving the North behind. Upon disembarking the 3 hour flight the wall of warm air form the more humid environment hit us like a slap in the face, and seconds later we were blasted by a light but warm rain shower. Wondering why we moved to a place the weather was fine to somewhere it was raining, we set about finding some accommodation in town. Once that as sorted, and we'd had a look at the town in the process, we decided to get the hell out of there asap (really not much to see/do), and fulfil our wish to hire bikes and do a couple of days touring the area. It wasn't easy finding bikes, but we each found a half decent machine from different sources, and booked them for 5 days.

Packing the minimal that we thought we needed to for that time into a plastic bag we bungeed to the back (no luggage racks this time), and stuffing the rest in the handy wire basket in the front, we set sail for a 5+ days adventure in this unexplored corner of the country. We had no idea what to expect, but were hoping to find more of we'd experienced off the beat'n'track up North – the real Laos village life.

The first day didn't get off to a great start. Lukas split to do his serious photo thing that would bore poor Peter and I to tears, and we went ahead in search of waterfalls. We found one that seemed pretty nice, but one of the smaller in the area. Was no one there but us, so was nice to have the freedom to roam and time to take some snaps.

Peter taking 'a moment' beside the falls – was quite a walk down :)


Pressing forward in search of the next, larger waterfall we came across a spot of bad weather. Seems the climate is much more volatile down here – being landlocked and extremely hot this time of year ,the isolated and plentiful large bodies of water (lakes and river) evaporate and rise of the dramatically shifting geography to create pockets of intense dry heat, followed by 'tropical'-heavy rainstorms that are usually short-lived. We happened to pass through one of these rainstorms, and got pretty wet. We pressed onto the town we were intending to stay in for the night, and arrived just in time to avoid a seriously heavy storm which we sat our with a couple of Beer Laos. We'd done our fare share of rain dodging for the day, so another quick drive while we had some sun, and then meeting Lukas for dinner, and n early night.

The next morning we all stuck together from the outset, and stared to go exploring off-road, down small dirt roads that were clearly not good for our motors, but fun to drive down. The weather was better, and the skies really started to look fantastic. Finding small village one by one, and waving at everyone we passed, eventually we came across a small village were music was bellowing from an open door, and locals were beckoning us in. After some persuasion they dragged us inside and started plying us with booze. From what we could gather, there was some festival to celebrate the plentiful harvest and to bless the coming year. They thrust Beer Laos into our hands and started putting glasses of Lao Lao Whiskey in our hands. They also began tying these cotton wristbands to our arms as a good luck charm for us I guess, blessing a drink at the same time you had to down. It was pretty fun, and they certainly enjoyed the experience as much as we did.

Saying our good byes, we continued on, finding village after village, waving to everyone as we went. Finally finding some accommodation in our next stop Sekong. Again the town wasn't much to look at, and basic resources such as restaurants were hard to find, as was a bank to withdrawn or change money, which was starting to run precariously low... Next morning ,up and back on the road again. Following a similar pattern, we explored every village that came our way, snapping everything picture-worthy we could find. Didn't get invited to any parties this time, but we caused quite a stir when we entered a local bar for a drink, attempting to converse with the local drunk men (seems to be most men around here), and showing them pictures of themselves which seems to hold no-end of fascination and enjoyment for them. One guy was so impressed we think he was trying to get us to send him a giant print-out for his wall, guess it beats a mirror?

Again to more accommodation and a hair cur for Lukas and Peter. In the internet café now (first we've seen in days, and the slowest we've every experienced). Updating what we've been up to before we head off for another couple of days exploring the area, before returning the bikes and continuing the journey by more conventional means again.

We really are enjoying having bikes again – it's not the same as having our own, and in some ways these new s (real) Honda's bikes aren't as good as our Chinese copies, probably because we're not willing to fix these one's up... But it's loads of fun, and when it doesn't rain (been lucky the post two days) the weather really can be glorious.

Having a great time, and more tales of the final days of biking to come shortly. TTFN