Chapter 11: At a Laos end

Following the Mekhong river down through central and southern Laos before crossing the border into Cambodia before my visa expires on 03/03. Basically very boring countryside as it is all flat river plain of dusty brown paddy fields and cattle with the craggy limestone hills marking the edge of the plain in the distance eastwards. Everyone is waiting for the next rains to start, usually in April then building into the real rainy season from June to October.

Stopped at Ta Kaek in central Laos for a 2-day trek into the hills here, which are huge limestone hills rising like cliffs from the plain with rivers cutting gorges and caves into, and under, them. Some rivers actually have cut right through and created tunnels of up tp 7 kilometres in length which emerge the far side of the range - that must have been something when the river first burst through!

Then came the overnight stay at a remote village and a lao lao party, well two actually. Lao lao is the local moonshine made from rice spirit but is surprisingly smooth rather like drinking neat good quality vodka (bars actually hide it in vodka bottles as it is illegal). Our guide said we should go to the village next door for a look see, we got to the first house where the lao lao was already flowing and got invited up onto the living platform (all stilted houses here) to join the headman, local teacher and soldier. All the kids crowded around too of course, staring at the farang (foreigners). Lao lao is served by the host and a communal glass is used, which is passed back and forth to everyone in the circle - to refuse is to offend. However after about half a dozen rounds some of our group passed the glass on to those of us still drinking, and then it was our turn too - it's a hard life.

Anyway the music started on a battered stereo driven by a generator and the dancing started as did the photo taking (the kids loved seeing themselves in the displays, some of the adults were not so keen!). The kids would mimic whatever dance steps the adults were doing, this started a sort of surreal Simon Says sort of deal (sorry very sixties / seventies ref there).

So the time came after about 4 hours of this to stagger back to our village, where we were met by that headman and more lao lao (and beer!) and a ceremony called "Baci". This offers welcome, health and safe travels to the guests, during which you touch the centrepiece with your hand full of food and drink and the headman says prayers and ties a piece of white string to your wrist as a good luck charm. Then back to the drink and more kids (large and small by this time) dancing until time was called and everyone collapsed onto a sleeping platform unconscious.

Six o'clock next morning the roosters told everyone to get up, a quick breakfast of cold fish and sticky rice, mmmm yummy, and off on a 14 kilometre hike into the hills ( am I glad I don't get hangovers, some guys were really suffering)! This was followed by an easier afternoon visiting more lagoons and rapids mainly by tractor rides, much to everyone's relief.

And so to southern Laos, to the Bolavan Plateau amd Si Pan Don ("4,000 islands").

The Bolavan rises out of the Mekhong plain, a volcanic plateau remaining from a long extinct volcanic region, and has its own micro-climate allowing tea and coffee plantations, with huge waterfalls falling of its edges. Predictably we come back to the 2nd Indo-Chinese War as it is called here, but the extension to the Vietnam War to us, the place commands views westward over the Mekhong plains and eastwards over the valleys through which the Ho Chi Minh trail ran. Bomb craters, landmine clearance and injuries still going on. Did a one day trek through the forest to the top of some of the falls, which was good.

Then to Si Pan Don, where the Mekhong river splits into hundreds of small branches making it 14km wide. In dry season thousands of islets, sand bars and rocks emerge, hence the name. Some of the islands though are permanent and have a lazy south-sea island feel to them of coconut palms, very little vehicle traffic (everything by longtail boat) and riverside beaches. The backpackers have found a couple of these and turned them into drinking / smoking havens, others have small guesthouses and river trips to see the islands, rare freshwater dolphins and massive rapids at the southern end where the river comes back into one. The French even built a railway over a couple of the islands to get around the rapids to try to make the Mekhong a trade route all the way from SW China to the sea in Vietnam, remains still there.

I managed to see the dolphins but they were too far away to photo, so you'll just have to trust me!

OK, now in Cambodia going to Angkor, city of temples, should be good!

Photolink is http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/laurentmik/Laos_2008_Chapter_11

Cheers!

Mike