New Year

The Buddhist New Year is approaching. It's called 'Songkran' in Thai, I forgot the term in Lao. I opt for being as far away from any bigger city as possible. In Laos it's probably fairly calm, but...
It's celebrated by - among other things - throwing water at anything that moves, either in plastic bags, with buckets, or - kid's favourite - by shooting with water pistols. This goes on for three days in a row, in major cities and especially in Thailand it can last for up to one week. The official holidays in Laos are the 14., 15. and 16 of April.
Of course it's something more than just trying to get the rest of the world as wet as possible... families unite, spend some days together, there are parties everywhere, it's three days of fun, the water is just one aspect of many... yet sort of annoying if this goes on for several days and one can't walk 50 meters away from the guest house without being soaked immediately...
That's why I chose a very remote place to stay at during the following days. I'll spend the time on the so-called 4000 Islands. The name derives from the landscape formed by the Mekong south of Pakse. The river broadens, fans out and creates something like a network of channels with a lot of small islands in between, which is even more apparent in the dry season. It's quite touristy there, of course, but one doesn't have to stay on the few well-known and busy islands. There are other options... I think that I'm heading to Don Khong, which is the biggest of these islands, but apparently one which still offers some solitude and is not that crowded... supposedly we're in the low season, but it doesn't really look like it...

Global football

When I travelled by bus from Savannakhet to Pakse, a nice girl was sitting next to my. She spoke quite good english although she never had been out of Laos. She was about 19 or 20 and was going to visit her cousin in Salavanh for the upcoming Buddhist New Year. It was the first time that she travelled to southern Laos and she was enchanted when she saw the forested hills rising from the plains (the area around Savannakhet and north to Vientiane is almost completely flat). She asked me where I was from and nodded her head when I said that I was Geman. As I mentioned that I lived in Spain she hesitated, not knowing first where this country exactly could be. When I told her the city I'm living in, she smiled, because she had heard about the FC Barcelona...
That was not the first time actually... quite a lot of people know Europe through the different football clubs. When I was looking around in the bus, I discovered a bag with the logo of the FC Barcelona... and in the guest house in Savannakhet I saw one morning that the owner watched an english football match on the TV...

Laos map

I found it almost difficult to discover a decent map of Laos on the internet. Here's my best bet:
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/middle_east_and_asia/laos_rel_2003.jpg (relief map) and
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/middle_east_and_asia/laos_pol_2003.jpg (political map).
Both are supposedly CIA-maps...

My trip so far: some days in Vientiane. Then down south to the Bolaven Plateau (Savannakhet, Pakse, then it's close to Salavan). From there I went back to Savannaketh, where I spend two days. Right now I'm in Pakse, tomorrow I'll head south to the 4000 Islands (Muang Khong on the map). This will mean that for some days I'll be cut off from internet, but I think I have been quite busy so far, or what do you think? Be honest...!

Savannakhet

Ever been to a place which smelled somehow like "outpost", "frontier"? Savannakhet is one of these towns... it's only lacking the tough-looking men in heavy boots, who you know from the movies, but otherwise you definitely don't feel like being in Laos' second largest city.
Savannakhet has a long history, it was an important trading town during the french colonial period, but that was long ago. There are still plenty of old buildings in the colonial style, but many of them decayed, fallen down, with an almost ghostly atmosphere hovering around them. Many streets are not paved, dust is blown through the air, trees and bushes are abundant, during the monsoon season the lush green must be ressembling a jungle in the city.
The mainstreet has a lively traffic, is full of stores with the newest mobile phones, there are food kitchens and small restaurants everywhere. Off the two or three larger streets it's like being in the countryside, at the "frontier"...
Along the Mekong also plenty of food stalls, it's a great place to sit in the afternoon and watch the sunset. I found a terrific guesthouse, spacey, very relaxing atmosphere, where you meet people and exchange the latest news about the places others have been to.

I'm not even two weeks on the road, but already think of skipping some towns and regions in Vietnam and Cambodia, to spend another two weeks in Laos before I have to fly back. This country is too unique, too singular... there's maybe not that much to "see" and to "do" what most people expect when they are travelling, but this is exactly what makes Laos different from the rest of Indochina... don't do things, just be here and "feel" the country...
It's hard to describe... you should give it a try yourselves...

Elephant ride

I couldn't resist... in Tad Lo they're offering a trip through the surroundings on one of the elephants they have there. Not a big deal, one and a half hours, 5 dollars. We went through the forest, crossed the river twice, came through villages... it was some fun, definitely. Interesting how the animal managed to make its way along steep narrow paths or across the river with its stoney ground.
But all in all I just can say that I rode on an elephant. It was ok, but I wouldn't do it again... I'll keep on hiking to "explore" new paths... faster (yes!) and more demanding. I'll tell tou about later about the next hike which is already planned...

Coffee

If the word "coffee" is mentioned, hardly anyone thinks of Laos. Yet this country grows its own coffee, although you can't compare it with countries like Brazil or Colombia. Most plantations are on the Bolaven Plateau, which offers due to the altitude the most favourable conditions. The coffee is quite good, in Vientiane one can find a decent number of coffee shops or cafes which serve it either the italian way or filtered... I liked both ways of preparation...

Unfortunately Laos has a lot in common with most coffee-producing countries. The best quality is exported or almost exclusively being served in the expensive hotels and restaurants, while the rest of the population has to be content with instant coffee. So asking for a coffee in food stalls or cheaper restaurants, even more when you're not in Vientiane, you're likely to face an experience that is not really overwhelming... to be polite...

A person like me who can stand many hours without eating, but suffers real hardship if he don't get a coffee in the morning, has a hard time in a good part of the country...

The Bolaven Plateau

I spent some days in an almost unreal tranquility. Well, maybe not unreal, but the silence was extraordinary. The Bolaven Plateau is an elevated plain in southern Laos, a little bit out of the way for most travellers. From Pakse it's a two and a half hour bus ride to get to Tad Lo, a tiny village in a beautiful setting, even in the dry season. Three waterfalls within 20 minutes walking distance, countryside (though dry at this time of the year) and some more smaller villages. A couple of lodges and guest houses, centered close to one waterfall. A nice terrain for walking, bathing in the ponds (dry season!), reading or just watching time go by...

That maybe doesn't sound overwhelming, but what attracts people to come here is the silence. The number of cars passing through the village is practically irrelevant (Tad Lo is about 2 kms from the main road), scooters (small motorcycles) are a common means of transport, but as most roads are not paved, they simply have to go slow...

It's dark at 7 pm, and then anything that would mean some kind of noise, ceases. With the exception of the cicadas, which for a while maintain their extraordinary chirping ( they are very small for the noise they produce). So in the evenings I sat either at the tables of the guest house, talking with fellow travellers, or on the "veranda" of the cabin I had rented (30000 Kip\ 3 US-dollars) to read and relax...

It would have been perfect if there weren't dogs... during the day they laze in the shadow (the Bolaven plateau is at night a bit colder due to it's altitude, but it is still hot during the day), they try to get something to eat and besides that nothing else... which means that they're awake at night. They are actually very friendly and not very big - every well-nourished European cat would wage a fight with them - but at night only one of them needs to hear some strange noise, a chicken coughing, a cicada turning around in it's well-earned sleep, and then the hell is being raised... one starts barking, the others join almost immediately, it extends from one hut to the next, from one village to the next, at least so it seemed... after a while they seem to notice that there's nothing going on, the barking dies down slowly...

Yet in spite of the dogs the Bolaven Plateau is well worth a visit. Quite a few people hire a scooter in Pakse (between 7 and 10 dollars per day) and cruise around for several days... a nice option, because you are simply more independent, and distances are not that vast...