Vientiane

-Forgot one note from Tat Lo, when i was walking back to the room one evening, there was a cluster of kids the oldest probably 15 giving themselves remarkable tattoos with a home made needle. I spent almost an hour watching this, some of the work was incredible, geometric designs, and the oldest kid was giving himself a chest piece, with two beautiful dragons, they offered to give me one, i was tempted but they were sharing the needle and dipping it in the river water.
3/10/11
-Arrived in Vientiane at 6:30 AM, took a shared Tuk-tuk to the center, most of the guest houses were either full or absurdly expensive, wound up finding a sort of dumpy room with my own bathroom for 60,000 not bad.
-left my shit and went to have a tea.
-took a walk around town, weird scene, lots of pricey western restaurants and cafes, and tons of Vang Vieng tubing shirts on euro clubber looking folks.
-went to the American embassy to deal with replacing my passport, very odd place, massive walls around the whole complex and a major road running in between, that was essentially closed to the the Lao people. the complex was right off and overlooking the black Stupa a beautiful and ancient crumbling stupa. couldn't go in because they only dealt with citizen affairs from 1-4, so wandered around until it was time to go back.
-Interspersed with the gov't buildings and western style cafes in Vientiane were beautiful monastaries.
-Back to the embassy, got the forms for the passport replacement, oddly, it costs $110 to get a whole new passport, but to get pages added to an existing passport, its $85 per page, explain that one to me...
-ate some wonderful Duck Lap (Lao meat salad, finely sliced duck served on a bed of spices and lightly cooked, traditionally the meat is served raw, but they cook it for falongs) for dinner, and hung out on the balcony.
3/11/11
-After breakfast wandered some more, walked through some beautiful monastaries, apparently the proliferation of monastaries here serves the population in the sense that rather then compulsory military service most kids spend 2-3 years in monastical service when they reach a certain age, which probably contributes to the wonderful chill energy of most people here.
-some pictures from various Wats:

 Huge beehive on the building, there were women selling fresh honey from the hive.

-spent a while at a different Wat then the one pictured watching stone carvers working on beautiful Filigree window covers.
-dinner, then balcony chilling, was interupted by an middle aged austrialian man with a deaf girl who couldn't have been more then 15 years old. He complained about all the sex tourism, then proceeded to take the deaf girl to bed. hard thing to deal with.


More soon, in Luang Probang now, want to go explore the city.

a few more pics from Tat Lo

Dunno if this is true or not, but signs never lie, especially in Socialist countries

mmm

Quite proud of this home made ashtray, notice the cig rest, high luxury.

Tat Lo

3/6/2011
-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:

-the bus station doubled as a market, as they often do, so i bought some of these lovely chinese sunflower seeds i ate a lot in china, bread and beverages for the journey.
-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:

-a panorama of sorts from the balcony:

-note in the right hand corner of the last picture the beautiful little monastary right next to the guest house overlooking the falls.
-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

more photos from Vat Phou Champasak (in no particular order)

more Lao

3/3/2011
-Parted ways with Patricia, and rented bikes again after breakfast, rode to Dome Det, the Fins wanted to see the town and the beach, they were looking to get a suntan, and i was looking forward to more swimming.
-swam for a while, and watched the Euro partiers do their silly thing, including a dude who was too drunk to say on his tube, got caught by the current and wound up stuck in a tree on the other side of the Mekong. funny to watch.
-the swimming instigated ear problems which i'm still dealing with, i can't hear fully out of my right ear, and can't find hydrogen peroxide anywhere.
-spent the day lounging on the beach, pretty nice.
-then rode back to Dome Khone, booked bus tickets to Champasak the next day.
-early same same dinner, beers on the balcony and early to bed.
3/4/2011
-boat to the mainland, then bus to champasak, which was actually the bus to Pakse, but dropped me and this German guy Andre off at a corner, of the main road and a dirt track that led to the boat landing to go to Champasak, nothing there but a lady selling dead squirrels and partially dead rats stuffed in a cage. Had to hire motorbikes to take us, then two long boats joined together by deckwork to cross the river. Champasak sprawls along a single road, and the only attraction is Vat Phou Champasak, an ancient Khemer hindu temple adapted to be buddhist.
-picked up from the boat landing by a jovial lao guy who ran a nice guest house who took us there by Tuk Tuk.
-wandered around champasak, but really nothing to see, some buddhist temples and guys drinking and playing petanque.
-had dinner at a sprawling empty restaurant on the river by myself, the owner was very talkative, he was renting the place from the gov't
-hung out at the guest house with Andre.
3/5/2011
-Rented bicycles to go to Vat Phou, long ride, but the road side was dotted with massive sculptures of buddha wrapped in tree roots:

-it was a long ride to Vat Phou, then lots of stair climbing, i have a shitload of pictures but the internet is real slow so i'll only put up a few so you get the idea.

-just a taste, there's so much there, incredible old stone carvings and whatnot.


more to come, waterfall photos, and much more.

lovely lao

2/25/2011
-late the same night, i was sitting on the balcony watching the nightlife from afar, when the power went down in the whole town, and a middle age austrian man and his vietnamese girlfriend came out in their undies cause the room was too hot. that was strange...
2/26/2011
-slept in, enjoyed the aircon and hot water shower, luxuries i haven't had since...
-had breakfast with the dutch girl, Patricia, all the days are blending together, i took too long to update...
-walked to the market, didn't succeed in finding it, until we had walked for a couple hours in the sun and sat down for lunch at a lao place, where no one spoke english but they were really nice and showed us the way to the market.
-pretty typical market set up, beautiful hand rolled beeswax candles, weird clothes and lots of friuts and dead animals.
-went back to the hotel with some dark beer lao, which is an excellent black lager, played cards and talked music with the Finns and made plans to catch the bus to Pakse the next day
2/27/2011
-woke up early headed to the bus station with the fins, lucky to catch the bus right as it was about to leave. made it to Pakse around 1 took forever to find a hotel that wasn't booked solid, Pakse is a big throughfare for travellers headed all over southern lao.
-wound up in a nice guest house down a dirt road, went for a walk around town, beautiful monastary right on the river, sat for a while and watched fishermen on the river and monks doing monk stuff.
-patricia went to check her email, and i went with the fins to a river barge to have a beer, sat on a boat on the river, really nice.
-ate tasty dinner at one of the myriad restaurants in Pakse, then chilled on the upper deck of the guest house and played cards and drank more beer lao, mellow day.
2/28/2011
-had breakfast at a cafe with free wifi, i had lao sweet blood sausage and sticky rice, which was suprisingly good, despite appearances to the contrary:

 

-i wanted to wander and see Pakse, Patricia went back to the guest house, so i went solo down to the river, found the bowling alley/ movie theater, sat on the river for a while and watched the happenings.

-walked along the river to these weird french colonial buildings looming in the distance, turned out to be a very odd new hotel under construction. 

-went to the nearby market, typical fare, but one huge section of wonderful fresh rolling tobacco, didn't buy any but one of the ladies rolled me a most excellent cig of a dark tobacco

-Had delicious indian food for dinner. and another mellow night on the balcony. 

-Joined briefly by an awkward middle aged Finnish guy the fins had picked up at the Indian place, but he didn't stay for long.

3/1/2011

-Caught a 9 o'clock van to go down to the four thousand islands, stopped in Sai Phan Dong, caught a boat from there, we avoided the big island,  Dome Kong, and the party island, Dome Diet, in favor of the smallest and most mellow Dome Khone, after walking up and down the road (i use the singular intentionally, there was only one dirt track), and being shocked at the prices of the floating bungalows where i wanted to stay ($50 US, i've been spending less in a week), we found a nice place overhanging the river, with bathrooms in room for a more realistic price. 

-there are two waterfalls on Don Khone, we decided it would be nice to go to the big one and have a swim, as we're walking along, we get stopped at a random spot in the road, apparently falongs need a ticket to venture out of the tiny town of Dome Khone, we grudgingly paid the 20,000 kip ($2.75), and proceded on our merry way. 

-it was a long and sweaty walk to the waterfall, fallow fields and no shade to be had anywhere. 

-when we finally made it the waterfall was remarkable, didn't have my camera so no pictures unfortunately. but fenced off and over run with Lao and Thai tourists, we asked where to go swim and were pointed to a path by a nice Lao guy.

-walked down the path, ended at a huge sand bank with no apparent place to swim, so we walked back and asked again, and had an illustration drawn in the dirt, turns out it was exactly where we were, we just didn't go far enough. 

-so we walked back, and went for a swim at the "beach", more of a big sinkhole where the fast current was slightly muted, we all tried but couldn't reach the bottom.
-swam for a while, until a bloated and sun-bleached dead snake floated up and wrapped itself around this german dreadie who was also swimming. 

-i decided to take a break from swimming until the snake went on its way, the german girl however had other plans, and fished the snake out with a stick. 

-swam a bit longer, then walked back to find dinner.

-every restaurant on Dome Khone had literally identical menus, so it was not a difficult choice, more of a coin toss, that one or that one, who cares... as they say here frequently, "same same"

-sat on the balcony and watched the river and played cards for the rest of the night.

3/2/2011

-rented bikes with the Finnish guys after a hearty breakfast, i believe of chicken sandwiches

decided to explore the opposite side of the island, which was much better then the side you needed a ticket for anyways, in my opinion. 

-found a nice indiana jones bridge, and a frog over and in the first waterfall respectively:

 

-from there to the other waterfall where the fins swam:

-Right by this waterfall was an abandoned guest house, left late in construction, it looked like it was shaping up to be real nice, guess somebody ran out of money:

-had lunch by the bridge at a really nice spot, not great food, but primo views.
-some hammock time
-took the bikes out again to go check out the other island (the party island) Dome Det
-for future travellers, once you buy the ticket on Dome Khone all you have to do is flash the pink piece of paper after and they don't bother you, so its a onetime fee.
-due to shitty bicycles, (a consistently de-attaching chain) the fins were forced to turn back, so i ventured on alone, actually not alone, with some crazy russian guy, who had a safari hat and john lennon glasses, a solid look.
-back to Dome Khone for dinner, and another night of balcony card games.
low battery, more soon, catching up!

Hue-> Lao

2/24/2011
-early bus from Hue to Savannakhet, left around 8 AM, arrived at the border around 2:30 PM, supposed to be in savannakhet around 4, yeah right...
-bus ride was uneventful, cool to watch the landscape change at the border, and finally saw the sun.
-bordercrossing was a clusterfuck, no lines, just lots of shoving, cost $45, i thought it was only going to be thirty, but as with most places its pricier with an american passport. got a thirty day lao visa...
-showed up in savannakhet around 6:40 pm, took a Tuk-tuk from the bust station to the supposed center of town, took forever to find a guest house that wasn't full but wound up with a nice room with AC for 70,000 kip ($1=8,000 kp)
-had a nice dinner with a dutch girl i met on the bus, and met a crazy french guy who has a thai wife and kids, but has to visit savannakhet every two months so that he can renew his visa, had a warm beer lao with ice on the river with him, then to bed.
2/25/2011
-walked around town, sat on the river a while and saw some remarkable buddhist temples.

-sat on the river a while, then back to the guesthouse with some dark beer lao, which is an excellent black lager...
-wound up talking to these Finnish guys who were staying across from me, and sharing music with them for a while, i had Finnish music they had never heard, funny.
-tasty dinner, then to the hotel balcony for drinks, had a really nice view of the street...
-wound up meeting some Swedish guys who were up to no good with the local ladies in Savannakhet, the Lao people are so culturally innocent, it was really foul to hear the way they talked about the local people and their scummy sexual exploits, my first and i'm sure not last encounter with a truly fucked western attitude.
-the Finnish guys went out to the club with the Swedes but i refused to participate in their foul game. stayed on the balcony and chilled until late.



more to come soon, more pictures and more on how much i'm loving Lao, but i have a low battery and i'm paying too much for wifi right now, plus there are ants all over my feet. so update soon, including the crazy ass blood sausage i had for breakfast the next day, which was suprisingly tasty. i know i'm falling behind on the log...
also look for really cool recordings of frogs from the 4,000 islands as soon as i have a fast enough connection to put them up on earsphere