Tripping in Southern Laos

Although illegal and prohibited smoking joints is widely accepted in Asia and weed itself is easily accessible. Usually it's enough to go to one of the bars and ask bartender for it. The same is with all happy pizzas, happy shakes, mushroom shakes, happy chocolates.
I still get dizzy and want to throw up after chocolate that I had. To be honest I've tried them before, but in Cambodia and even though you could taste weed in it, it did not have any major effect over me. On my last night at 4000 Islands I also had one. And that one was a killer. It must have been stuffed with opium or mushrooms maybe, cause I practically did not know what's going on. I barely made it home, where when I lay in bed I felt like Alice in Wonderland. Worlds has been joining and separating, stripes, lines, dots, checks. Interfering, separating, running through each other. Nightmare.
When I got up in the morning I've thought it's better, I had my breakfast, made it to Champasak. But there again, the only thing that I was able to do was go to bed at 4 p.m. and sleep till the next morning until I was woken up to go for sightseeing of Wat Phu. Khmer temple (Angkor Wat like) dating between 6th and 12th centuries. No idea how I've survived that, bearing in mind that I barely had any food the day before, small baguette for breakfast today, I was still weak and my stomach was still sick. But I've made it and even made it to Pakse, where I checked in to Sabaidy 2 GH, I had some food and went to bed again. I was as unsocial as unsocial anyone can be. If you know me, than you know that it's completely opposite my normal attitude, so I must have been feeling really bad. But good amount of sleep again made it and on the third day I was pretty much ok, except my stomach that is still sick and not very keen on digesting, I think, so it still hurts. So I did some walking in Pakse and spend most of the time on the internet and reading. Something that I did not do since ages. And you might think that during traveling you have time for reading ;-)
On the fourth day I was almost good, only during the day stomach was sometimes strange, but finally in the evening I got my appetite back. Probably after whole day sightseeing of Bolaven Plateau.
First we saw Tad Fane - waterfall, next tea plantation - where we were presented with how green and oolong tea are made (or other way round?), than coffee plantation (now I know how to recognise Arabica from Robusta. To be honest I was told that in Dalat already, but I forgot) and Yuang Waterfall and Alak village (where they practice Animism and Shamnism) and Katu village (where owner of the GH where I stay with some help from people who I met in Sapa and who recommended me this GH built a school. She is Polish and he's Belgian and they met Mr Vong - who runs this place and speaks some polish as he studied in Poland - 5 years ago and he ask them if they would like to get involved into building a school and library and they've helped to gather some founds).
In Katu I took insane amount of photos of kids. Is my photography talent revealing right now?

Wat Phu - can you spot the similarity between it and Angkor Wat?



Wat Phu - view from the top of the complex



Wat Phu - Elephant rock

Wat Phu

The most ugly temple I've seen so far. Pakse

Tea bush. To make tea, only leaves from the top of the tree are picked and depending on the process green or oolong (red) or black tea can be made.

Coffee trees. Arabica coffee has small trees with big beans. Robusta's trees are big and beans are small. They are also processed differently. Robusa is first dried and next pelled. Arabica is first pelled and next dried.

Tad Fane

Drying robusta coffee beans



Robusta coffee ghost



Waterfall number 2

Alak village. They believe in animal spirits, and prolly in the soap operas living (see satellite dishes, officially there is no power in those villages, but still everyone has TV set, satellite dish and power generator)

Rooster - coffee guard

Drying coffee

School kids in Katu - villae where school and library were build partially from the founds gathered by the couple that I met in Sapa

School building build with the money gathered in Poland, Belgium, France, Germany and Lao

School kids

Boy

Is she copying homework from her mate?

Gangsta

Chcesz fangę w nos?

My favourite pic. Femme fatale.

Ready, set, go

In Katu kids smoke water pipe together with their parents. They even hold it for them. I had a draw as well.

On one of the 4000 Islands

I took a bus from Vang Vieng to 4000 Islands. I was supposed to be in the ticket office at 1 p.m. for the tuk-tuk pickup. I was there on time, but it took the at least hour and half to pick me, so in the end I've forgotten my "real" white Ray Bans what made me upset, cause they were really good copy.
Whole journey took long, tuk-tuk to catch a bus, bus to Vientiane, tuk-tuk to bus station in Vientiane, sleeping bus to Pakse, another bus to Ban Nakasang pier and finally boat from the pier to Don Det. Laotian sleeping buses are different than those in Vietnam. There are only two rows of beds, but beds are doubles, so you never know with whom you are gonna end up sharing bed. I was rather lucky, as at first I had bed for myself only, until bust stopped somewhere in the middle of the night and more people get on. What's more they definitely did not have tickets, but bribed the driver. And that is why I've had Lao girl to share bed with. And those beds are not wide at all. Luckily not for long.
In Pakse at the bus station we were supposed to show our tickets for the next stop, but I've either did not get the ticket (other people on my bus going to 4000 Islands had those tickets, so how possible is that, that I did not get the ticket?) or lost it. I had only ticket to Pakse. Ticket to Don Det was gone. I would rather say I've lost it, but it was so convenient to jump on the back of people from other bus (other company) and claim with them that I've never received that ticket. For them that story was truth, for me not. Oh very convenient, that convenient that in the end tour operator did not win with six women and we got where we've wanted without paying extra money.
Island where I've stopped is Don Det, which together with Don Khon are travellers' mecca. They are connected by old arched railway bridge built by French force. Railway did not work since WWII and in fact you can see old, rusted train near the bridge.
That bridge and Tat Somphamit waterfalls (also know as Li Phi Falls, which means 'spirit trap', as locals believe bad spirits are trapped here as they wash down the stream) was my first trip destination on the island. With 2 Aussie girls who I've meet arguing about tickets and 2 Aussie guys who I've briefly met in Vang Vieng we've rented bikes and did some exercises. And after overnight bus journey that was pretty tough. Especially that bikes were not of the best quality, so was the road.
I was staying at Mr Mo's Sunrise Bungalows, where I had my own bungalow with bed and mosquito net for 30.000 Kip. To go to toiled I always had to go out and that always gave me head ache. Shall I still be paranoid and close it or leave it open and struggle with the padlock. During the night especially. I still was paranoid.
In general life here floats different. It floats together with Mekong river waters. That means slowly and lazy. There is also not much to do. Of course, from healthy activities you can do some kayaking, biking, tubing and walking, but after one day biking you've seen almost everything around, kayaking costs more than you want to spend for it and tubing is nice, bus slow as slow Mekong river is. Though it was fun too. We were eight people, just sitting in tubes, chatting and letting the river carry us.
One of the most popular activities here is lying in a hammock and reading, and this is something that occupies most of my time, unless I'm playing shit head with Johnny and Nathan, who become my really good lads here. And what I like about them so much is that they always ask if I want to come over and join them. And next they ask me why do I hang around with them all the time. But how could I refuse such invitation? I could ask the same. Why do they hang around with me all the time. In the end thought we've agreed that we are too lazy to meet any new people, so we stick to each other. And they've had sunset at their side, as they were staying at the sunset side of the islands. I was on the sun rise, but never made it for the sunrise.

Ready to go?

Old, French railroad bridge. Can you see railway tracks fence on the left hand side?

Old Locomotive that stopped operating in WWII



Don Det main street



Don Det pier and beach



School girls at Don Det

Water buffaloes having a swim

Baby water buffalo not having a swim, maybe it did not learn how to swim yet?

Shadow of a man on the edge

Too shallow

Old French railway bridge, view from Santiphab bungalows

Sunset at Don Det

Climbing in Vang Vieng

The last day that I've been in Vang Vieng we've gone climbing. There were five of us, three of us climbing. Todd and Phil had their gear with them, so we only took three motorbikes and I rented shoes. But that itself lasted forever, everything from the beginning went wrong, breakfast took ages, Todd's friend who borrowed us his harness and chalk bag was one hour late, renting motorbikes and taking petrol and renting my shoes was constantly going wrong, cause if the place was not closed for lunch brake, they did not have what we've wanted or we had to go to their second store and so one. Literally, everything from the beginning went wrong.
But in the end, we had motorbikes with petrol and we drove to the place where I wanted to rent shoes and we've lost Phil and Markus on the way and we did not find them until the end of that day. Though we've found one Aussie guy with gear who joined our climbing expedition.
The same story as with Markus and Phil was with rocks. I think that four of us who were still left we were driving about two hours around the place where rocks were supposed to be and we've never found them. That was very frustrating. So in the end we've given up and decided to go tubing. Not that we've rented tubes and went down the river. We've just driven there and went drinking. And this was exactly when we've met Markus and Phil again. It was a little bit tricky to drink and drive later on (at least for the drivers) but nothing has happened, except broken line, in Todd's motorbike, connecting tachometer with the wheel. He locked it and forgot about it. But still it's costed him only 60.000 kip in the rental place, which was nothing to get his passport back.
Next step after coming back was to have a dinner and go for goodbye party as Todd and me were leaving the next day. I was going to 4000 Islands and he to Chiang Mai. We've formed surprisingly big party crew. It's even difficult to tell who those people where and how we've started to talk to them, but that did not matter at all. It's mattered even less when someone has found five bags of weed in one of the cushions at our table. Everyone remained silent about it. It was a little bit like we were part of the conspiracy theory. Does not matter if we were or not, at the end cushions were empty.


Searching for rocks



Is it possible elsewhere than in Laos to have a nice sleep in a bar?

Yoooooooo

Here you don't need your own lighter. Lighters are glued to the walls, to make sure that you will not lose it

Goodbye bucket