February 25th - March 1st - Paradise in Southern Laos

Modes of transportation: bus, bike, elephant!

Places visited: Pakse, Paksong, Tad Lo

Costs of things: Beer ($0.80-$1.00), Meals ($1 to $5), hotel ($7 to $13)

With limited amount of time left in Laos, we decided that the best course of action was to get on an overnight bus from Vientiane to Pakse. The bus was nice, but we got stuck in the back with three other people, instead of in one of the double-wide bunks bunks built for two. As bad as it was for us, we felt worse for the one local who had to share the back bunk with four Falangs.

Since the construction of a bridge over the Mekong (built with Japanese aid), allowing road traffic with Ubon Ratchathani in Thailand, Pakse has become the commercial centre of southern Laos. Most tourists tend to pass through en route to Si Phan Don (The Four Thousand Islands), a very relaxing area at the southern tip of Laos, bordering Cambodia, but we opted to take a trip onto the Bolaven plateau instead. Famous for it's coffee plantations and numerous waterfalls, not to mention it's elevation, we looked forward to once again getting into a more remote part of Laos.

The first day of our ride was spent climbing up onto the plateau. At the very least it was an extremely gradual climb, but it was about 55km of climbing, so by the end, we were glad to have finished. On the way up we stopped for lunch at an incredible waterfall called Tad Fan where we hoped to stay, as our guidebook had terrible things to say about the upcoming town and accommodations therein. Fortunately for us, the guesthouse at the falls was way overpriced, as were about to be pleasantly surprised.

When we arrived in Paksong, we discovered that the single, repugnant guesthouse described in our guidebook, was not only not the only one in town, but it had been given a number of upgrades and additions. We ended up staying at the newer one next door, but met a great guy staying at the older place who was actually from Ottawa! Adam was especially excited to hang out with him because they followed the same pro-sports. Aside from the sports talks, he also helped us a lot with speaking in Laos, as he had been to the area a number of times and had a handle on the language.

The next day we left for Tad Lo, another waterfall in the area. On the way, we stopped at a totally randomly placed "cafe," which was part of a coffee plantation. We had stopped briefly when a local stuck his head out the door and yelled "Come in! Good Laos coffee!" Michelle had her first taste of really good coffee since being in Vietnam and Adam actually drank and enjoyed a cup of coffee for the first time in his life. The ride brought us to the Tad Lo area and we rented a nice rustic bungalow up on a hill a stone's throw from the falls.

While there, we enjoyed bathing in the river water, relaxing in the jungle like environment and a great bonfire, as it did get a little chilly up there at night. One attraction in the area are the elephant rides. There are two elephants there, each with her own Mahout (traditional Burmese name for elephant handler) who seemed care a great deal for his companion. We enjoyed a nearly 1.5 hour long stroll through the jungle on the back of the elephant, then got to help feed them bananas. A real highlight was watching the Mahouts bathe the elephants later in the day in the very same waters in which we swam. Another nice animal experience came from a negative situation. Our guesthouse happened to have a few captive monkeys, but while observing them for a little while, a female macaque began "grooming" Adam's arm hair (no bugs to be found!).

After two nights in Tad Lo, we headed back to Pakse for one night, then hit the road the next morning for a rather long ride that would bring us back into Thailand. We absolutely loved our time in Laos and were very sad to leave. We're still undecided as to which country we enjoyed more, Laos or Cambodia. Beautiful mountains, rivers and jungles, some of the friendliest people in the world and an incredibly relaxed feel contributed to the amazing experience we had there. While they seemingly have more than the Khmer people of Cambodia, they are still very poor in general, but now that the government has started opening the doors more, perhaps there are better things to come for these endearing people. Sadly, with so many recent memories of wars still haunting them, it will take a good deal of outside aid to bring Laos out of it's current third world state.