Pink Buffalos, Kamacaze butterflies and a 7 Km cave

We caught the bus from LPB to Vientiane - a whole 8 hours with a crazy bus driver. We had a few near misses on winding mountain road. Sensibly most people break the trip and stop off in Vang Vieng, but I had decided one visit was more than enough. Along the way we noticed a few guy walking around with semiautomatic machine guns. This was quite disturbing none more so than when one of the guys got o our bus. The stretch of road we were on was renown for hijackings a few years back when a large number of people - locals and tourist - were killed. Thankfully we survived.

We arrived in Vientiane (pronounced Vin-Chan for those that dont know) and after some trouble found a just-bearable accommodation. We then headed out for dinner at a lovely restaurant run by an Aussie couple with really good upmarket pub food.

The following day we checked out, stopped by an internet cafe - stayed a lot longer than expected- ate lunch, ran into James and Anki, hired a scooter and went to the Thai embassy to get me another 2 month visa in an attempt to be allowed back into Thailand, found the embassy was closed, realised we had to stay another night in Vientiane so spent another 2 hours searching for a hotel room - if anyone wants to run a guesthouse in South East Asia, Vientiane is in desperate need of a few more. The next day we got to the embassy bright and early dropped off my passport and headed out of town.

We drove through Paksan turning off Route 13 onto Route 8 to find a sign welcoming us and asked we have a good and safe journey. The people in this area were incredibly friendly, everywhere we stopped people said hello and had a chat and basically all the children along the way waved to us. Interestingly there was a lot of traffic on the road... cows, buffalo, goats, pigs, ducks, chooks and of course Children, Choco really enjoy the obstacle course. The trip itself was also through a very beautiful region, the landscape was both beautiful and spectacular. However after 8 hrs on the back of a scooter we were both ready to get off. We found a guesthouse and went to investigate. They didnt have any rooms, only two of the planned twenty were complete, but they rang up the next best place and made us a booking. We went back to the original GH for dinner as it was the only Western restaurant around. We had dinner and found out a little about the area from Ralph and his wife Mon. They had a very small monkey, named Tony Blair, caged near the front of the restaurant, they had bought him from the market. His mother had been shot for meat and he was being sold either as a pet or as a meal in the future. Apparently this happened frequently. He was soo cute!

Mountains near Ban Na Hin

Bright and early the next morning after depleting the guesthouse of its water - this is apparently what happens when you dont tell the owners the shower is leaking badly and subsequently find out the sole supply for the guesthouse comes from rainwater tanks.... We headed off in search of the local tourist attraction - a 7 km cave which is about to get some sort of UNESCO heritage listing. We headed out in the direction Ralph had indicated and after two wrong turns - he didnt say anything about which was to go at the two main intersections we headed down the new road. It was so new in fact it wasnt complete. A bridge was being constructed near a village so we had to go around. This alternate path lead though a little bit of mud - no problem Choco says.... the bike and both of us were covered in mud before we were half way through. We had to laugh... So we turned around and headed for Lak Sao instead. We had heard kayaking trips could be organised from there and we had said we would look into it as Anki and James were very keen to do one. They didnt - well not through the cave anyway. The ambiance of the town was not what we were after so we had lunch and turned around. We stopped by Ralphs to get more thorough directions but he wasnt around so we decided to have another go on our own. We set out at 9am and finally to got to a guesthouse by 5pm. It was only an hour from where we had stayed the night before. And we were covered in mud.....

It was a really nice "eco-resort" - although Im not sure what the ECO meant in this situation. Maybe it just allowed them to charge exorbitant prices... the most expensive of this Laos trip. We quickly found out at dinner time (when we were hungry and ready to eat) that you have to order your meals at least 1 hour in advance.... After dinner we ordered breakfast and lunch for the following day before going to bed. It was suggested we take fried rice or noodles for lunch but we opted for sandwiches, we realised this was a huge mistake when we were served stale bread for breakfast.

Kids playing on the river, they were using sticks for paddles...

Girls playing at school next to the ecoresort before class started.

We drove to the cave and wondered around the village for a while seeing if James and Anki would turn up - we were meant to meet them the night before but had not phone reception.... I wanted to take some photos of the kids in the village who were so friendly (we did wonder how long this would last once the cave became a well known tourist attraction), but when I tried to ask they had no idea what I was on about. Choco had the brilliant idea to take a photo of himself and show them. They were enthralled. Choco gave them my little indestructible camera to ply with while I took a few photos with my other one. Funnily enough I counted to three (in Laos) before taking the photo - but I hadnt explained the significance of "sarm" or three.... They were so amazed by the fact that they could see themselves on the screen. We finally conceded that we werent going to run into James and Anki and boarded our boat. The trip started at the village heading up towards the entrance to the cave. The scenery was simply stunning, photos can not communicate the beauty of the area. We were then told to get out and walk into the cave while our guides carried the boat over the rapids. The cave was really impressive - would have been even more so if we had proper torches but there was nowhere to rent or buy one from - as I said it still hasnt become a proper tourist attraction yet. We stopped along the way to see some stalagmite and stalactites. It is the dry season so the river isnt all that high which meant we had to get out and walk as the guys carried the boat over rapids a few times. If anyone want to start a kayaking tour through the cave get in now it will happen soon. Choco is thinking about doing it himself! On the other side we ate the filling out of our lunch and looked around a nearby village before heading back through the cave. The guys decided to ram a few of the rapids on the way back so we only needed to walk past 4 of them...

Locals in Ban Kong Lor - they were so excited to see themselves on the camera, as is clearly obvious ;-)

The following day we took a leisurely drive to Paksan (two hours from Vientiane (we could have headed back but we had booked accommodation for the following night and werent about to spend another 2 hours when we arrived finding somewhere to stay!) though lots of villages. The children were so friendly always waving and yelling out Sabidee (hello). As Choco was driving it was my responsibility to reply. This was lots of fun until we reached a town at lunchtime when all the students were on their way home for lunch. They only waved and said hello once, I on the other hand had to do it 150 times..... At Paksan we went looked for accommodation. The first guesthouse was fairly awful for about $6 so we decided we could do better. We past a nice looking hotel and decided to give it a go. It was $10 for a room or $15 for a suite. Choco decided we should splurge and take the suite. On our way to dinner we realised what limited funds we had..... we would have to watch what we spent on dinner..... We sat down at a riverside restaurant but quickly found out they only served noodles - not what we were after. Instead we ordered a beerlao, or so we though, in fact we ordered two as we had both said one beerlao. They went out and got then from a local store so we had to have both. This meant dinner had to be even cheaper. The restaurant we went to had only a lao menu... we contemplated randomly pointing at dishes but ordered dishes we knew how to said. The meal was pleasant enough for fried fish and stirfried vegetables however the anxiety of weather we could afford it took away from the food. We held our breath when the bill came. it was $1 under our budget. However when we paid the bill at the hotel the following day we had to use 2 $US1 notes and the hotel decided these were worth just about nothing and wanted another, our last dollar.... this left us with $US0.05 to get back to Vientiane. We had a full tank of petrol so were hopeful. The whole drive we both looked anxiously at the petrol gauge. It got dangerously low and we were trying to work out what we would do - get a taxi into a bank, then to a petrol station.... when finally we saw an ATM on the side of the road. I was unsure whether it would give me money as supposedly there was only one in Vientiane that allowed international cards, but thankfully I was able to get a million kip out!

The good news continued when we picked up my passport and found a 2 month visa inside. We spent two days in Vientiane getting a massage at a Wat, having a look around a few others, saw the Arch de Triumph similar to the one in Paris but never finished. Wine is much cheaper in Laos than Thailand so we got a bottle and had a picnic with lots of cheese and smoked salmon by the Mekong - it was amazing how cheap french cheese and Swedish salmon were... and how good!!!

While driving to the market one day we were summons to stop by the police. They said a few things in Lao before telling us we had to pay a $6 fine. This however had to be paid around the back of the booth out of sight! Corruption!

Temple, Vientiane

Arch De Triumph, Vientiane

We decided to head on after 2 days and this meant an express bus at 6am to Tha Kheak. We didnt have tickets so had to get there very early. The tuktuk picked us up at 5am.... when we arrived at the station we were told it was a normal bus at 6am, the express wasnt until 7:15am. We think the bus drivers get a commission as we were basically grabbed and thrown on a bus. When the bus finally left we drove outside the terminal and stopped. We stopped for 30 min while food vendors got on and tried to get all the passengers to buy bread and chicken and rice and water... again I think the bus driver gets a commission. By the time we finally left we were very irritated. This stop was obviously accounted for when the travel times were determined as we still arrived on time.

Tha Kheak was probably a very cute little town but it just didnt impress us, everything was difficult, expensive, none existent or just bad. We did get a tuktuk to drive us to some caves out of town - this was worth the money as some of the caves would have been impossible to find without the driver. For one we just stopped before a house on the road and walked through the backyard... On our earlier trip to Kong Lor we were going to do what is known as the Loop - Tha Theak to Lak Sao to Ban Na Hin (and Kong Lore) and back to Tha Kheak - in reverse but only got as far as Lak Sao. We were happy to hear (in a guesthouse log book) that the bit we saw was the best part as the rest was a construction site while the new road was being built so covered in dust. We stayed two night then headed further south to Pakse, another 6 hours south.

Cave Trip near Tha Kheak

Swimming pool near the Caves, Tha Kheak

I was going to upload some more photos but they will have to wait.....

Thanks to everyone who has emailed and posted comments, I am feeling so loved!