Laos wrap-up

This story was posted under the categories: Big Asia Trip, Cycling South-East Asia, Laos

First of all, let’s get one thing straight: Laos is not the land of a thousand elephants it used to be! It’s now the land of a million goats and probably as many buffalos, but we only saw 2 elephants and those were at the tourist elephant center of Kiatnong. We did however ride next to hundreds of goats and buffalos each day (did you know there are also a lot of white albino buffalos?). So with this misunderstanding out of the way, let me tell you about Laos.

The first thing we noticed when we entered Laos from Vietnam at the Lao Bao crossing is that they’ve built one hell of a big border gate. Very promising!

However, after the gate, things get smaller and uglier very fast. Except the road, which is the best road we’ve seen in whole of South-East Asia, we immediately felt that this country isn’t as rich as neighbouring Vietnam and Thailand.

The Belgians reading this will also be happy to know that our tax money is going to a good cause. Look at the nice road we sponsored somewhere in a deserted part of Laos!

The region on which we drove is pretty legendary and better known by the name of Ho Chi Minh Trail. This was the road that the Vietcong used to get supplies during the American war. Nothing much to show for it these days however, except for a large number of remaining bombs throughout the whole country.

With the wind in our back, we set a new daily record at 130 kilometers. Yep, we were in a hurry to get out of the mountains and into the city: Savannakhet. We relaxed, grabbed a couple of Lao Beer and ate sticky rice, a type of rice that you eat with your hands by rolling it into a ball. Yummy!

Appearantly we also missed a dinosaur footprint in the mountains. We saw the sign advertising it, but thought they were joking! Turns out they really found some holes they think were left there by the dinosaurs. After all the bombs… in a river bedding… prints over millions of years old… We think they drank to much Lao Lao (rice whisky)

Our trip continued down South over Pakse, a quiet town with a bad reputation in Lonely Planet but which we really liked a lot. Eating at the river front of the Mekong, drinking Beer Lao. Yes, we’ve developed quite a taste for beer the last couple of weeks.

On our way to the 4000 Islands in the South, we passed the wonderful Wat Phou temple during a big time festival. Wat Phou is like Laos’ Scherpenheuvel and they had a big festival when we were there.

We also ended up with our bikes and bags in a very very small canoe. And to make things worse, he couldn’t start the motor, so the driver peddled across in the strong current. This could have gone very wrong!

But we arrive at the Mekong islands sound and safe. Ready for some luxury, relaxing and new books. Turns out the islands have only very basic bungalows and there’s no book shop. Well, at least we could relax

Our last stop before heading to Thailand would be the Bolaven plateau. We had made our planning a couple of days ago an we were running short on days if we wanted to do everything which we had still in mind, so we decided to take the 1-day tourist tour around the plateau. We zipped from waterfall to waterfall in a sort of bus, took a Tahiti-style shower, visited a tea and coffee plantation and smoked a bamboo waterpipe. It’s good to be a tourist

Conclusion

So how did we like the South of Laos? Well, it was kind of disappointing. Not to say that there aren’t a lot of nice things to see, but if you’re on a bicycle, you need to endure endless stretches of boring scenery before you get to the nice places. So we would classify Laos as a good package destination, but unless you have too much time, don’t bother with the bicycle.

The people however are heavenly. This is the first country where we didn’t get overcharged for the busses (the bikes even got on the roof for free!) and where the people were polite and respectful (in Asian norms).

The biggest culinary discovery in Laos was the sticky rice. Which should say enough about the rest of their food. Some slightly memorable dishes were banana in sweet coconut sauce and fish steamed in banana leaf, but you would only find them in tourist areas. The rest of the country eats noodle soup, chicken feet, and barbequed rat, dog and buffalo.