09 Feb Savannakhet, Pakse, and the Southern Loop
It was hard to get into the swing of things after leaving the Green Climber’s Home. I kept thinking, ‘I could just stay. Why not? There are so many things I still want to do!’ But life moves forward and the rest of me was ready to go. GCH is just another one of those magical places you never want to leave. My new friend Marleen was feeling the same, even though she was going to be heading back after our week-long haitus.
Hitchhike Fail
The south of Laos is known to be more open to picking up travelers, so we decided to try our luck hitching to our first stop, Savannakhet. I had easily obtained several rides to and from Thakhek previously, so our hopes were high as we set out mid-day to town, but we also kept our expectations low and decided that if we got tired that we were willing to catch whatever the next bus was and pay our way. It’s not that we didn’t have the money, hitching just sounded like more fun.
Unfortunately, it was not our lucky day. We walked down the road a ways and a tuk tuk driver was the only one who stopped. He had to return to Thakhek anyways, so he gave us a decent deal, dropping the normal 100,000K to 40,000K split. At the bus stop we started walking south, but again had no luck. It was hot, and we walked a long ways, but it was nice to talk and laugh at our situation. A large bus finally pulled over and we ended up paying the fare of 30,000K. Oh well!
Savannakhet
Savannakhet seems to be a sleepy town. It’s more quiet, with less traffic and tourists. The sidewalks have grass growing between the bricks and there are many unfinished buildings that look like they may remain unfinished for a while. We walked towards the center of town and grabbed a room at Savan Phatthana Guesthouse. Marleen was sold on the promise of free bananas in the morning, but it also ended up being a really nice room for 70,000K with two soft beds, a small balcony, private bathroom, and tv. The bed felt like heaven after a month in the tent.
We explored the town, looking for a couple tourist information and bike rental shops we had read about online. It seemed they had disappeared. Marleen did a new search and found a place called The Bored Room that rents bicycles and plays movies in the evenings. Dave runs the place and he told us about a short bicycle loop that goes by a lake and some villages, a temple, and a park I was interested in called Dong Natad. He also mentioned that most of the tourist groups in town had left their businesses in the hands of locals, and the tourist infrastructure had quickly deteriorated. No wonder we couldn’t find anything. We asked for some recommendations on food and promised to be back for bicycles in the morning.
We ate at a couple of good places while in town. Xokxay Restaurant in the town square was delicious and inexpensive. Dave says they are one of the few consistently good places to eat here. We also picked up some sandwiches from a vendor one block north of our hotel. They were super cheap and really delicious – two sliced meats with shredded vegetables and several sauces on a baguette for one dollar. We grabbed these the morning of our bike tour to have for lunch along with several snacks from the market. We also had some awesome noodle soup at a place on the corner of Latsavongseuk Road and Chaimeuang Road. It has a red sign in Laotian, and there was a roti vendor across the street who was also amazing.
Savannakhet Bicycle Loop
We felt ready for a day of adventure with our snacks and sandwiches, so we stopped by to see Dave and grab some bicycles. We used road bikes for 28,000K per day, but looking back on our experience the mountain bikes may have been worth it. We immediately got lost in town, but once we got on the right road we were cruising on some bumpy dirt roads. I love how all of the children and most of the adults like to wave at you and cry out ‘Sabaidee!!’ as you pass. It wasn’t far to the lake, Nong Bungva, where we stopped to share a cold drink and eat our sandwiches. There were two women dressed in thick coats wading in waist deep water with a fishing net, and several restaurants with bungalows built over the water.
We moved on, watching villagers pass with their odd-looking tractors, water buffalo grazing, and enormous pigs and many cows regularly crossing the road. Our next stop was a temple called That Ing Hang. Entry is donation based, so we dropped 2,000K in since it seemed that’s what others were doing. To enter, Marleen and I had to wear a traditional lao skirt, which the lady at the entrance wrapped around us. There were several local pilgrims visiting and taking family photos in front of the beautiful old temple.
Very close to That Ing Hang is the easy to miss entrance to Dong Natad. We turned onto the dirt road and past all of the homes there is a large open lot full of trash and a gate into the park. Instead of stopping and parking her bike to hike through the woods Marleen just kept on riding. Why not? I followed without comment. It was a crazy ride, especially on the road bikes! The dirt and sand path narrowed in the jungle and we were dodging vines and tree roots, hemmed in by thick forest. Several times we had to stop and walk the bikes through deep sand or to move under a low hanging vine. We were most definitely lost, but luckily MapsMe had our location and even though we strayed well from the trail, we were still able to find the (rather disappointing) lake. But we had a lot of fun and managed to stay on the correct trail on the way out of the park.
Travel to Pakse
We stayed in Savannakhet one more night, then left super early in the morning to catch a bus to Pakse. The only buses are at 7am and 5pm for 40,000K, and since they tend to arrive anywhere from 5 to 7 hours later, we didn’t want to risk arriving in the middle of the night. The bus stopped regularly for locals to hawk their foodwares, pick up passengers, and even once on the side of the road for a bunch of people to go to the bathroom. The food was mostly skewered meat and green, unripe mango. The meat had a funny smell, and I wonder how long they’ve been trying to sell the same skewers. Needless to say, by the time we arrived at the Northern Bus Station at 1:30 I was starving.
We were immediately hustled onto a songtiew with a horde of other travelers to ride the rest of the way into town. Word of warning: check or agree on the price ahead of time. When the songthiew dropped us off they charged us each a whopping 20,000K, which is outrageous for the distance and amount of people they had on the truck. I was already hangry, and that really pissed me off, but so it goes.
Our goal destination was Miss Noy’s Motorbike Rental, which has an informational meeting on the southern motorbike loop each evening at 6pm. We put our names on the list to informally reserve a bike, grabbed a room at Alisa Guesthouse for 60,000K and did some grocery shopping for the trip. At six we sat with a group of travelers as Mr Yves explained the loop and all its possibilities in a thick Belgian/French accent.
Southern Motorbike Loop
This happened to be Marleen’s first motorbike trip. She had gone with our friend Shoham to Thakhek to learn how to ride before she even decided to come along on this journey with me. She got an automatic Scoopy bike, and we started out slow so she could get comfortable. We planned to go clockwise around the loop per Mr. Yves’s recommendation, and the road was rough until our turnoff.
Our first stop was Tad Pasuam, which was a small, but lovely waterfall you reach by crossing a frighteningly flimsy feeling bamboo bridge. The parking area outside is thronged with food stalls selling roasted honeycomb and a variety of almond. The nuts are amazing, but avoid the honeycomb – The local’s don’t understand how to raise bees or properly harvest honey, but love eating the comb, so they often destroy the entire nest. Most of what they’re roasting is the brood, or bee eggs/larva. It was 12,000K for entrance to the falls plus parking.
Next we stopped for a cup of coffee at Mr Vieng’s Coffee Farm. Mr. Vieng happened to be out for the day, but I chatted with Miss Noi (no relation to the motorbike shop), and though she didn’t feel comfortable giving a tour she did answer many of my questions. I ended up buying some of the coffee flowers and coffee berry husks, which can both be used as tea. The flowers can also be smoked, and she said Mr. Vieng likes to roll his cigarettes with them. After completing the loop and in retrospect, this was the cheapest place to buy beans that we visited. I was bummed we couldn’t do the tour where he shows you how to roast the beans in a wok.
We made it to Tad Lo by mid afternoon and checked in at Mamapap’s, where we shared a bed for only 25,000K. The family lives downstairs and are very friendly. Mama bragged loudly about her huge pancakes, which I tried later. They were truly impressive. We wandered around, looking at the waterfall and sitting by the river. We were waiting until 4:30 when the Tad Lo lodge’s two elephants bathe in the river. While walking we saw them, standing in an open area with one foot chained. One looked sad and angry, the other was constantly swaying left and right with a vacant look in her eyes. I imagine she is very old, but I could be wrong. I love elephants and have always been drawn to them. This is the closest I’ve ever been to one, that I can remember. I felt so terrible for them, because you can see how unhappy they are. I felt even worse giving a woman 5,000K for bananas to feed them, because I know it just promotes the manipulation of elephants for tourism…I just wanted so badly to be close to them! The angry looking one I was not allowed to get too close to, though of course she was the one I was drawn to.
Shortly after, the mahouts unchained them and hopped on the elephant’s backs, leading them to the river. There was an immediate change in their behavior, and the angry elephant suddenly seemed lighter. She practically pranced towards the water, or swiftly plodded along, anyways. She played in the water according to her mahout’s training for the tourists (which did not look forced, they just got nice baths and lifted their trunks towards people). After that the mahout hopped off and the elephant went into her own little corner and started tearing up grasses and happily accepting sugarcane from people. The next morning Mama sent all the tourists off with prayer bracelets.
We traveled a short distance out of town to Mr Hook’s Coffee Farm. This stop does require a ‘village fee’ of 5,000K at the entrance. The coffee tour itself was 15,000K, but was well worth the cost. Mr (or Captain) Hook is extremely knowledgeable about the history and types of coffee. He is also aware of different medicinal plants in the area and talks about the life of the villagers. His own story is quite interesting as well, though he seems a bit bitter and/or uncomfortable talking too much about it.
On arrival you see many family members hanging around. They will likely offer you a taste of the local tobacco, which they smoke out of a large bamboo bong. According to Mr. Hook they start smoking at the age of three. It was originally to keep mosquitoes away, but now is just tradition. TThere are many traditions still alive here, including arranged marriages at the age of 8, polygamy, spirits, curses, and bad luck. They also believe that photos can take their life away, so I have only a couple of pictures from the tour.
If you ask for a cup of coffee, they prepare it fresh by grinding the beans in a mortar and pouring it into thin bamboo cups with holes punched in the bottom. This sets above another bamboo cup and is filled with hot water. Once that cup is full or you are ready to drink, you transfer the filter to another cup to continue straining, switching regularly until the brew weakens.
Not far from Mr. Hook is a silk and tea farm that as also very interesting to visit. The tour was another 15,000K and led by a French volunteer. The silk worm season is only in the rainy months, but he talked us through the process, and the farm is much more than silk. They have a large mulberry plantation used to feed the worms and also to make tea. For some odd reason they don’t harvest or eat the berries, so I practically gorged myself on my favorite fruit. They also grow green tea, peppercorn, and sacha inchi nuts. At the processing center you can taste the tea and the nuts and we sat for a long time chatting about the farm and the organization, which also tries to set local farmers up with their own mulberry plants in order to grow silk worms themselves.
We arrived at PS Garden shortly before sundown and rented a two-person tent for 60,000. There were several people besides us on the loop, but the accomodation still had a very abandoned feel to it. It was a lovely area, but the restaurant was totally shut down and they kept us at the cafe for serving food. The food was also not well prepared and overpriced. I chatted with the large French group that we kept running into that evening, checked out Tad Se Noy waterfall in the morning, and moved on.
Tad Tayicsua was the next stop, and I was looking forward to it because there is hiking involved! We went down a rough red dirt road and reached the guesthouse and restaurant. 10,000K for waterfall and parking fee. We decided to have lunch before hiking, and unfortunately were disappointed by the food again. It wasn’t terrible, just not good, and again a bit overpriced. It also took like 2 hours for us to get our food and eat. Marleen had long since finished her lunch before mine even came out.
Nevertheless, we were fueled for our adventure! We headed down the path and checked out waterfall number 2 (number one is seen from a viewpoint behind the guesthouse). It was pretty with what looked like natural swimming pools in the rocks.We trekked back up the steep hill and headed to the next fall. This one was WELL worth the effort. It isn’t too far into the hike and is absolutely stunning. One of the most beautiful waterfalls I have ever seen. It is enormous! You hike through banana and wild coffee trees to an open field of lush greenery covered in pink flowers. Everything is constantly misted by the falls, which are ringed by the unusual looking, but beautiful columnar rock.
The hike became a very steep downhill slope after that and led to a river with several small falls. We sat and rested, then headed back. It wasn’t nearly as long of a hike as I expected, and we could have made it longer and seen more falls by walking along the river, but waterfall number 3 was what made this stop worth it. It was a long way uphill to our bikes, and though we were tired and it was late afternoon we decided to try and find different accommodations. The poor food quality and expensive rooms (50,000K each) made us eager to move on.
We stopped in Paksong and found Savanna Guesthouse. It wasn’t much cheaper than the previous stop at 80,000K, but it felt nicer, and we were looking forward to a good meal in town. The woman working recommended a place on the main road called Khittavanh. It turned out to be primarily a hot pot restaurant, so we split one. Marleen hadn’t tried these yet, and I only had it once on New Years Eve in Thailand (on my last motorbike loop!). It was delicious. I love being able to add my own flavors and ingredients.
On our walk back we were joined by a Laotian woman who was heading the same direction. She handed us a beer and some bananas and tried to speak to us in Lao. The fact that we didn’t understand a word she said did not seem to bother her in the least. She was heading to the karaoke bar across the street from our hostel and invited us to join her. I looked at Marleen and shrugged. Why not? When else will we have a chance to go with a local to a Lao karaoke bar??
It was awesome. We were the only tourists in this slightly seedy little bar. Lao music was playing and some unknown person with the microphone was really belting it out. All of the television screens had a music video with Lao lyrics underneath, as well as the phonetic writing, so even we could kind of follow along. My favorite part was when the whole bar would join in on their favorite choruses. People wwre curious about us foreigners, but they were also very drunk. It was hilarious trying to use google translate to talk about the most basic things..and still not understanding each other. The beer flowed freely, even when we said we had had enough. But who can resist free beer? To a point, of course. We finally broke away, to the dismay of our new friends, and headed to sleep.
In the morning we stopped by Jhai Coffee House and had a long, lazy morning talking to Wok, Lottie, and two volunteers, Elliott and Jared. We tried all the different coffees they had available, ate a delicious lunch made by Lottie, and discussed the Jhai Coffee programs. They are educating farmers on good coffee growing and processing practices, and educating children in the Bolaven Plateau region about hygeine and providing filtration systems for clean drinking water. They are also piloting a new project providing stoves that run on gas from rice husks. It was an incredible morning with incredible people. We bought some coffee for our friends at the Green Climber’s Home, and Marleen got some to take home. It is pricier here, but delicious and supporting a good cause.
The road from Paksong was absolutely horrible. Full of potholes, thick rock gravel, and dirt…The farther we got from town the worse it got. We had intended on seeing one more waterfall, but as we were driving on the steep gravel hill Marleen’s bike dumped her (damned automatics!), and she got a pretty good gash on her knee and some bruises. We saw plenty of waterfalls on this trek, so we decided to just head back to Pakse. It was very slow going, and absolutely miserable. Sure, driving on gravel sucks, but it wasn’t that…It was the cars and trucks flying by at a million miles per hour, flinging rocks at your bike and flinging massive amounts of dust into your eyes. Every time someone passed I had to squint my eyes so much I could hardly see, even with my sunglasses on.
But we made it! We came safely back to Pakse, cleaned up Marleen’s knee again, and returned the bikes. We stayed at a new place called Yummy Hostel, which is clean with friendly Indian hosts, but a bit loud sometimes. 60,000K for a private room. Marleen packed and got a ticket to Thakhek for early in the morning. I was sad to see her go. I stayed another day to write and organize some things, and I am now heading to Cambodia! The bus ticket was expensive at 240,000K, but I don’t want the hassle of trying to find a cheaper way. I am heading for Siem Reap to help at a school for the next two weeks. See you later, Laos!
Cost of Laos
Transportation: 350,000K + 268,000K (bike rentals) + 40,000K (gas) ($79.28)
Lodging: 172,500K ($20.78)
Food: 450,000K ($54.22)
Alcohol: 73,000K ($8.80)
Activities: 59,000K ($7.11)
Misc (sunglasses, batteries, charger): 35,000K ($4.22)
= 1,447,000K or $174.34
Full Month (28 Days):
Transportation: 702,000K + 75B + 35$ ($121.94)
Lodging: 647,500K ($78.01)
Food: 1,604,000K ($193.25)
Alcohol: 299,000K ($36.02)
Activities: 79,000K ($9.52)
SIM: 255,000K ($30.63)
Water/Electrolytes: 27,000K ($3.24)
Misc: 43,000K ($5.18)
= 3,005B + 2,960,500K + $35 or $486.14
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