-Not much else to do in Champasak, so made plans to leave the next day, heard that the bus was 20,000 which is cheap, but turned out not to be a bus at all but rather a sanganathaw, which is essentially a van, with the back chopped off to be a pick up truck fillled with bench seats and crammed with people, maybe 35 people crammed in the back, it was an uncomfortable ride, and chicken blood kept splashing out of the bucket under my seat onto my feet. luckly it was a short ride to Pakse, about an hour, where we caught a Tuk-Tuk, the driver was really good and took us directly to the bus to Tat Lo, which we didn't even know existed, we thought we had to book a bus somewhere else and jump off at Tat Lo.
-Andre's pictures of the bus-station:
-spent a while waiting at the bus station, there were women with little baskets giving pedicures and manicures in the bus station, i considered getting one while i waited, but decided not to...
-bus ride to Tat Lo was painless, relatively nice bus.
-once again, got dropped off on the main road, had a 1K walk to get to the actual town of Tat Lo, luckly though, a Falong with an open backed van came by and gave us a lift to Tat Lo.
-The waterfalls were beautiful, it was a really nice spot, and we found a bungalow right on the water for less then $4:
-waterfall pictures:
-the first shot of the falls is from where we ate lunch which had a beautiful view and old growth trees full of noisy cicadas.
-walked up to the falls, watched them bathe the elephants in the water, was gonna go swim, but one of the elephants took a massive shit in the water, didn't really feel like swimming in elephant shit.
-spent the rest of the day mellowing on the balcony, watching the scenery.
3/7/2011
-slept in, the bed was one of the most comfortable i've had, by which i mean to say the matress was not a piece of plywood, and the pillows were not bricks, after breakfast with Andre went for a swim in the waterfall, we had planned to hike to the big falls, but were both feeling lazy.
-hung out on the balcony and listened to music, were visited by some very pushy Lao girls who insisted on sitting on our laps and taking over everything we had sitting out, spent forever doing nothing on my computer and taking pictures with Andre's phone
-then went for a walk to the other side of town, through the monastary, they were preparing for a big wedding celebration, watched them slit the throat of a pig, and proceed to butcher it, Tat Lo is a pretty tiny town, it was about a five minute walk before we were out of the town and in burned fields.
-on the way back Andre snapped a picture of some cycling monks:
-went to the guest house where this American guy i had met in Champasak was staying to have beer and dinner. Met up with him and his wife, which was great, he's travelled pretty extensively and was good freinds with Alan Bishop and Marc, who run Sublime frequencies, he also ran a pretty excellent label out of San Fran. Was great to talk to him about recording and noise music in the states.
3/8/2011
-After Breakfast Andre and i Set off on a hike to the big waterfall.
-it was about an hour walk 10K on shadeless roads.
-Unfortunately when we arrived the waterfall was dry, apparently there's a big hydro-electric dam somewhere along the line, so no water in the dry season, which is unfortunate, because it was a massive rock face, that would be remarkable with water coming over it.
-there was however a nice village, spent a bit of time there with a tail of local kids, and sat at a local spot and had a beer before walking back.
-more balcony chilling.
-this really nice spanish girl, who was staying in the bungalow next to mine, and had been there for weeks (they had built a little firepit and were cooking their own dinners) brought me half of a delicious watermelon, which was a really nice treat.
-dinner and balcony beers.
3/9/2011
-hired a motorbike to take me to the main road to catch the local bus back to Pakse, where i was going to catch a sleeper bus to Vientiane
-Arrived in Pakse, and had a Tuk Tuk take me straight to the "VIP" bus station. got to the station around 3:30, bought a ticket for a sleeper bus leaving at 8:00.
-wasn't anywhere safe to leave my bags, so stuck close to the bus station, which was ok, because as usual there was a market, and around 5 tons of food vendors set up at the station.
-bought some peanuts and water, sat outside watching the chaotic activity, had a nice chat with a Lao man who worked in the Gov't in Vientiene.
-Delicious dinner of perfect fresh chicken drumsticks cooked on a stick over an open grill and sticky rice, one of the better meals i've had.
-Boarded the bus, which was quite nice, the sleeper busses in Lao are different then everywhere else, usually they cram in three or four rows of single person, very short chaise lounge style beds, but the lao buses are two rows of fairly large beds, supposed to be shared by two people, i wasn't looking forward to sharing with a stranger, but luckly for me no one wanted to share with the stinky Falong. so i had a bed to myself, and on top of that, i could almost stretch my legs out fully, an unheard of luxury on an Asian sleeper bus.
-needless to say, slept well.
Vientiane update soon
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