Laos!

Savannakhet: May 16 – 19 | Pakse: May 20-22

Our time in Vietnam was up, and the next stop on our adventure was Laos. I was really looking forward to “The land of a million elephants”. I had heard so much about it’s natural beauty, and laid back charm. This land locked country, surrounded by Thailand to the west, China to the north, Vietnam to the east, and Cambodia to the south was said to be a unique place in Asia, where the land far outweighed the population. A place in Asia where for once, there are more temples than “7-11’s”, and more wildlife than scooters. I was excited to see if the tales could be true!

We boarded another bus from the coast in Vietnam, and headed inland. After a few hours, we were at the boarder, and I must say, our introduction to Laos was not a favourable one. For whatever reason, we ended up last in line at customs. First to “check out” of Vietnam, then to obtain our 30day “Visa on arrival” from Laos. We met a Ukrainian girl named Irena she got her Visa right before us, $25 USD. Then our turn…$45ea, even for the girls! For some unknown reason, Canadians pay the most of any country…even the US?!?!

So, I hit an ATM, and paid the equivalent of $180 USD in Laotian “KIP” (about 1.45Mil Kip). Okay…it is what it is I guess. By this time, Irena and all the others were back on the bus, which proceeded about 5km’s down the road to the nearest village without us, so they could stop for food. So we finally had our Visa’s, but had to run to catch up to the bus. Scooter “Taxi’s” stopped to offer us a ride for small fee, but we were steadfast on our rule of no scooters/motorbikes, so we just hightailed it as quickly as we could to catch up. By the time we made it, the others had eaten and were ready to continue… we would have to wait until later for lunch.

Eventually, We arrived in Savannakhet. A small town across the Mekong river from Thailand. This was a “boarder run” town, where expats from both Thailand and Vietnam would travel to in order to renew their visa’s from Thailand or Vietnam. It was a very quaint old town along the famous river with an awesome night market in the square in the centre of town. This was one of those towns where everybody knew everybody, and things pretty much stayed the way they were from generation to generation. We were shocked to learn that this was the 2nd largest city in Laos! In fact, that actually concerned me a little, because as much as I was excited to see the beautiful nature of the country, I always like going back to comfort of at least a semi-decent hotel/hostel/guesthouse. My imagination had us staying in concrete rooms with only the asian “squatting” toilets…I hoped to myself that that would not be our fate for the next month (yikes).

We exchanged contact info with Irena (from the bus), and after getting settled into a guesthouse (with aircon and a regular toilet), we contacted her to meet for dinner. We met at the night market where she had already made a friend, Bella, a native of Savannakhet who spoke perfect english and wanted to show us around while we were there….perfect. Tired from the long journey from Vietnam, and with time on our side, she was happily surprised that we intended to stay longer than the 24 hrs it takes to renew visa’a (the length of time that most people stay there). We stayed 3 nights, long enough for Bella to show us around, and for us to pick her brain about how to best explore Laos. She took us to a place for breakfast only known to locals, where they made the best noodles fresh every morning, and have been for 3 generations. We went to a “Dinosaur Museum”, lol. It was literally 2 rooms, and took the girls and I about a minute to see. I was taking them for the day to give Lisa a chance to catch up on work, and this was my big idea….so we stayed 1.5hrs there, and did a school lesson.

All in all, Savannakhet was a very pleasant place, the old French Colonial architecture was beautiful, the people were very nice…most of all Bella, who was the best. The food was awesome, and cheap. Noodles, rice, soup, and some of the best hot sauce which starts off sweet, before it leaves it’s mark!

From there, with Bella’s help, we decided to ride south to Pakse. Another town on the east side of the Mekong which splits Thailand and Laos. This seemed to me to be a larger town, although I guess technically it must not be. It at least had a main road, two lanes, with proper street lights from time to time. It was here, where the true experience of Laos really began for us.

We stayed in a traditional hotel, one room with two queen beds along the main road. We arrived mid day, and as we had become accustom, we started our exploration with a long walk. The road was on a hill, so we decided to walk down. In the distance we saw a mountain with a huge golden statue of Buddha. “Can we go, can we go?” shouted he girls….”Of course we’ll go” Lisa answered. Although it was way too far to walk on our first night, we were sure that was a mountain that we’d climb shortly. A little further down the road was an impressive hotel… “The Palace”. It turns out that the prince of Laos had it built to be his home, but upon completion, he decided he’d rather live elsewhere. So it sat for a while before a hotel company purchased it and made it the 5 star hotel to service the area. The next night, the girls put on their fancy dresses (custom made from Hoi An), and I put on a fresh pair of underwear and my best t-shirt, and we went to the 360 rooftop bar at the hotel to watch the sunset. Of course, we made sure to eat before going, so we only needed to order smoothies for the girls and a beer for Lisa and I. It was a magical evening with a beautiful sunset over Pakse. I’m not sure where the prince decided to live, but I think he made a mistake!

We rented bicycles, and decided that we would set our alarm the following morning for a majestic sunrise at the aforementioned golden Buddha. So we did. We woke at 5am, and left our hotel at about 5:25. Got on our bikes, started down the hill, and noticed that Lisa’s bike had a flat tire… shoot! Not much we could do at that hour, so we left the bikes at the hotel and decided to walk up the hill to see what we could see.

We saw the monks do their morning walk collecting offering from the locals of food for the day, on their way to the temples. The monks only eat one time per day, and they rely on the faith and kindness of others for this food. The women rest on their knees, and make offerings into these decorated “buckets” (for lack of the proper name), and the men may stand to make their donations. The monks, with their head bowed collect in single file, giving blessing in return. We decided to follow to check out some of the beautiful temples of the area before heading back for a mid-morning nap.

No longer trusting rental bikes, we thought it a good idea to try seeing the golden Buddha again the next morning. This time we planned on the expertise of the locals. We began walking at 5am, looking to hail a cab (tak-si) as they’re called in Laos. Questionable plan in hindsight, perhaps, but it worked, kind of… We caught a tak-si well in time to watch the sun rise on the seemingly nearby mountain, but about 10mins into the drive, we realized the driver had no idea where he was taking us! I wish Bella was still there with us, because language was the big problem. He stopped to converse with several other drivers, none of whom could help, the whole time I was jumping up and down while pointing at the stupid Buddha, which was in plain sight?!?!? The sun broke and eventually we were arguing in daylight… strike 3! We had him drop us at a magnificent morning market, where people from all over the region had set up shop before 6am to sell their wears… You wouldn’t believe what was sold there! All sorts of fruits and vegetables, none of them recognizable to westerners eyes. Fish of all sorts, which must have been from the Mekong, because Laos has no oceanfront at all, or any lakes to speak of. It was huge, and buzzing with action as the sun had just peaked over the countryside in the east.

That afternoon we booked a tour of the region with the lady who owned the restaurant we had become fond of. We mentioned to her we were having trouble finding an organized tour that both appealed to us and was affordable to us, so (for a small fee) she said she would take us for a day in her car. We were very glad to have made this arrangement, because it was to be a totally custom tour catering only to our likes/dislikes. But at the same time, this would probably mean that we would never get atop that mountain to rub the golden belly of the oversized Buddha, lol.

The following day was like a fairytale set in an alternate existence… otherworldly at the very least. Story and pictures in the next post.