Thats right, I just alliterated in the title. So what. But seriously though, we did manage to get a little lost these past couple of days. We were in Laos for only about a week and a half, which is not nearly enough time to see this country.

Sorry, had to leave Laos there - caught the bus from Pakse in Laos at 3:30 pm to Ubon in Thailand, which took us across the border with no problems. The bus from Ubon then dropped us off in Bangkok at 5:15 am, but that's to come in the Thai page. Lets recap Laos now.

We flew from Siem Reap to Pakse, Laos, which was probably the easiest thing to do, but not the cheapest. Flights cost 100 USD a person, and then add the 25 dollar international departure tax from the Siem Reap airport, and it becomes an expensive day. We were issued visas on arrival at the Pakse airport for 35$ each, and took a taxi (read pickup truck) the 2k into town. If I were to do this again, I would definitely try and go overland from Siem Reap to Laos - I think this route is much easier now than it used to be, and it would spit you out in Laos in Si Phan Don, which is where we were headed anyways.

Pakse was a quiet little town, but we liked it a lot. There isn't a lot to see and do in town, and only one main street for foreigners that has 4 or 5 restaurants, a couple of guesthouses and an internet place or two. When we first arrived all the rooms we could find were booked - just shows how popular a place Pakse has become over the last couple of years. After an hour or so of looking, we found a room at a guesthouse that was down a dirt road behind the schoolhouse. After that night, we moved directly to the Sala Champa guesthouse, which was in the center of town around the corner from the Pakse Hotel. This was a step in the right direction - they had hot water. We did get up to the town of Saphay (Xi Phai) to browse the silk that they produce there, and we only had minor difficulties in getting there (see pictures). Speaking of names of towns, you may notice that Saphay and Xi Phai are two different spellings for the same town, much like Pakse is also spelled Pakxe, and Attapeu is also Attapeau or Attapu - There are no standard translations for Lao words to roman characters, so you have to learn to adjust.

We took the VIP bus (read really old beat up nursing home van) down to the 4,000 islands area with all of the other backpackers from Pakse. I had heard great things about this area from our friend Andy, and I wasn't disappointed at all. We landed on Don Det island, and walked a mile or two down the road past the large group of guesthouses near the beach landing to a nice quiet little one overlooking the water and stayed three nights here. Most of this time was spent sitting in the hammocks on our porch reading and drinking Bia Lao. We did get overly ambitious the 2nd day there, and took a long bike trip down to the end of Don Khone island. Lets just say we needed mountain bikes for some parts of this trip, especially the 700m over the old French railroad tracks, and instead we had milkmaid bikes. Every muscle was pretty shaken up the next day. However, we did manage to see the endangered freshwater Irrawaddy dolphins and one side of Khone falls (Li Phi falls). The dolphins come up the Mekong river to breed in February and March and are unable to get past the falls - much like the French navigators.

Speaking of February, its a great time to visit Laos. The Maha Puja festival, which is a celebration of a spontaneous sermon by the Buddha, is held at Wat Phu, a temple just south of Pakse (we missed this by a day). The town of Saphay was holding boat races for many surrounding towns the first Sunday we were there (we missed those too, but did see them practicing). On Don Det, the locals celebrated the first full moon of the Buddhist new year by throwing two all night festivals in a row - we did see these. Picture Apocalypse Now, as they are pulling up to the rogue Colonel's village, minus the heads, and put that in the middle of a dry rice paddy, and add a lot of motos. Yea, that was pretty much it. We didn't get much sleep on Don Det because the very loud speakers, which were probably over a kilometer away, were directly pointing at our bungalow.

We tore ourselves away from the tranquility of Don Det to head back to Pakse. Here we went to the Xplore Asia office to try and work out a tour to some more remote parts of Laos. So, after a little confusion over the price of what we were talking about, we paid the lady 3 million kip (about 330 USD) for the two of us for 3 days of trekking near Attapeau - we left with the understanding that we would be going to this national park on the Vietnamese border to see a lot of hilltribes, etc - very remote stuff. So, we go back the next morning to figure out the itinerary with the guy who will be our guide, Alex. So, he says, well, we can't get out to that park, its much too difficult. So, for the next hour or so, we tried to decide a route we could take. All we really had to go on was an old map from 1982 in French of the Attapeu and Champassak providences. It came down to two options - #1, we could go out to Attapeu, catch a ride to the Vietnamese border, try and hitch up to the park, try and get a guide from the army base there to lead us through the park, then try to catch a ride back, or #2, go to Attapeu, do this 1 day tour that they had done before, then possibly walk about 20k across Champassak to stay at another town on the 2nd day, and then do this other 1 day tour that they had done before. So we went with option 2, since it only really had the variable of the 2nd day that was unknown, while option 1 really had no definite things at all. Wrong.

The first day with Alex and Hom (Hom being our other guide - she was Lao, Alex was British but had lived in Lao for about 4 years) we took a brand new bus down to Attapeu. We were literally 4 out of the 5 people on the bus, since this route had only existed for about 2 or 3 weeks. That night we drove around town in the back of a pickup truck gathering supplies for our trip. The next morning we took a tuk-tuk to some town along the Tonle Kong river - and I apologize for this, but I'm not going to remember the names of the rest of the towns/villages/small groupings of huts for the rest of this trip. Here we waited around for a bit while we arranged a boat and a guide to take us up river for a trek to this waterfall, which was really quite nice. Our fun began here, and set the tone for the rest of the trip when our local guide got lost 3 or 4 times getting there. Approximate distance walked - 10 to 12 km. Total number of guides so far = 3 (Alex, Hom, 1 local guide).

We slept in a guesthouse in that little village that night and found out we were much farther away from our next destination than we thought. Villagers weighed in with their estimates, which ranged from 30km to 80km. We arranged 4 motos to take us 50 or 60 km of the way the next day, and we started out around 8am. After two and a half hours, many river crossings, a whole lot of dust and one or two wrong turns, we were dropped off where we were told it would be a 20 km walk to our destination. Total number of guides so far = 7 (3 before + 4 local drivers).

So, we started walking, and a number of village kids followed us for 4km to the next small village - we were in a part of Laos that doesn't often see foreigners, and it was a weird experience. Instead of smiling and waving, most people stared with blank expressions, and some younger kids ran away scared. Mostly though it was just looks of perplexion. So we asked directions from whomever we came across on the way, and eventually picked up two more local guides to take us the "quick way" to our destination. Guide total up to 9.

Sure enough, they got us there - we walked through some beautiful bamboo forests, parched rice paddies, swamps and lakes and saw the results of a ton of slash and burn agriculture, as well as some fires still burning. We arrived at a large town where we left our last two guides behind and picked up two "official" guides at what I thought was only 2 km away from our destination of a homestay in a village in this national park in Champassak. (Guide count = now 11). However, they couldn't really tell us how much longer it was, or where it was, or how to get there. Both Ashley and I had terrible blisters by this point, but a few band-aids later, we were ready to head on. We quickly found out that we were the first customers these two girls had ever had, as the local tourism authority for the national park had just been set up - bad sign. We arrived at our homestay pretty tired and upset, since the walk there had doubled our total distance for the day - just under 20km.

The homestay was quite nice, even though it wasn't really a homestay, instead it was a building just outside the village limits. We shared it with just one other tourist, an older British man who was traveling around. We had to pump water from the well in order to shower - but atleast it we knew it was fresh. The next morning we ran through the jungle of the national park trying to follow a local guide who was supposed to take us to see gibbons, but just got us lost a bunch (guide count = 12). We came back, bandaged ourselves up some more, and followed a local guide (13), whose credentials had expired a month previously, to a village where we were supposed to take a boat back to the town where we had gotten the two girl guides from (following all of this? try following it when all of the conversations are in Lao). So, we follow him through some more beautiful forest, and he eventually leads us up a rock cliff, where we had fantastic views of the whole forest, even though getting up there was a bit scary. I'm not sure how long that walk was, but I'd say somewhere in the range of 5-8 km. But we eventually arrived into a small village that had a few paddle boats that we paddled down river (both boats had a guide, total = 15). I finally saw a very cool snake that wasn't in a cage or in captivity in some way (the one on Don Khone was tied to a stick by a string). To sum up, we arrived back, took a tuk-tuk back to Pakse, and showered thoroughly. Total distance walked in three days - approximately 35 - 40 km. Total number of guides that it took to get the two of us around - 15.

So, if you're ever in Pakse, go and see Alex at Xplore Asia. All of that above may have sounded like a terrible trip to you out there, but it was just what we were looking for - getting a little lost. Alex and Hom really did a great job, and I don't think they really made any money on us at all - it was quite expensive to get around when there really are no options. For example, three foreigners on motos broke down in the town we were in the first night. Since the guesthouse we were staying in was the only one in town, their response when the foreigners tried to bargain down the price was "No problem, you're always welcome to stay in Attapeu" - Attapeu was 60 km away, and they had one broken bike and it was 8:30 pm. As Doug would say, 'Campo, but not stupid'. So, thank you to Alex and Hom.

Wow, so that was really a lot of writing for just a few weeks in Laos. Then again, we had a really good time. Laos is the only country around here that hasn't had mass tourism hit yet, although its certainly coming. Go there while there are still relatively few people there. Get lost.