Tuesday, August 2. Pakse to Don Det (4000 Islands), Laos, Via Champasak and Wat Phu Champasak.

We left Pakse at 7:30am. Stephen and I grabbed some sandwiches at a Indian-owned cafe across the street to eat for breakfast/lunch today. We were losing 3 gals from our group who were staying in Pakse to catch a flight to Cambodia, so there were just four of us continuing on the tour down to Don Det and the 4000 Islands.

We drove south to Champasak, where we spent a couple hours at the ancient temple Wat Phu Champasak, which dates back to the 12th and 13th Centuries.  We spent a little bit touring the museum that is part of the complex, but then it was a hike up the ancient steps to the temple on the top of the hillside. The giant steps and rocks had shifted over the past 700 years so we had to pay close attention to where we stepped so we didn't slip on the damp rocks. Though it was a hot, exhausting climb up, we definitely got a good insight into this ancient culture. We definitely felt privileged to experience this rare sight.

The plan was then to take a ferry across the river at a nearby town, but when we got to the ferry point they were not ready to go. So our driver parked the bus and went down to negotiate with the ferry captain. Meanwhile Stephen bought some sticky rice off of a local peddler and I bought a bag of corn-on-the-cob from a little old lady.

Our driver and guide called us back to the bus and said that the ferry wanted to charge us double the normal amount. So it was decided that we would drive back to Pakse to go back across the river at the bridge there rather than feed in to Falang (foreigner) overcharging.

So we drove for a couple hours down to the southern-most part of Laos and took large longboat across the swollen river delta to the island of Don Det.

The water level was so high that we were able to pull up right to Mr Mo's Guesthouse, where we would be staying that night, though it was a bit tricky getting all of us and our bags off the boat without a formal dock/pier to pull the boat up to.

Mr Mo's Guesthouse has clean, reasonably-sized rooms with bed nets provided, and he speaks reasonably good English with a reasonably-priced restaurant. We took our bags up to our room and then went for a wander to see what the island had to offer, find an internet site and grab a snack/cold drink.

There appeared to be an internet racket at work in Don Det where everyone was charging a minimum of 400 Kip per minute, or $0.50 for 10 minutes. That equates to $3/hour when in Pakse we payed just 1k Kip for 10 min ($0.13) or 5k Kip for an hour ($0.63).
We ended up at Adam's Bar because it had free wifi and we could cool off with a nice, cold drink while checking emails and looking at hotel options for the few days gap that we had when we returned to Bangkok, before going to book it at an internet cafe.

We ended up booking a hotel for Bangkok at a place an Irish gal at Adam's Bar recommended to us for a fairly low rate, and then went back to the room to clean up before meeting up with rest of gang for dinner. This would be our last night in Laos and we wanted to celebrate together.

After meeting for a beer at Mr Mo's Restaurant, we went to look for the deep-dish pizza place our guide recommended. Unfortunately it was closed (not sure if the closure was just for the rainy season or if it was for good). So we ended up at the Crocodile Bar because they had pizza on the menu, but then when we went to order they said they were out of pizza. I opted for a Pumpkin Burger, which I heard were a specialty of this area of the country, but was disappointed when it was just a bun with three small cubes of pumpkin.  But I like the concept and think I'll try out making a more substantive variety when we get home.

While we were waiting for our food a couple people from our group attempted to play pool on a very warped billiards table. We also learned from our Stray guide that over 400,000 backpackers a year visit Laos.

We finished the night with drinks at the 4000 Islands Bar, which also had free wifi. It had been a long, yet very rewarding day.
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Monday, August 1. Tat Lo Waterfall to Pakse, Laos, via Bolaven Plateau.

I was fairly tired this morning. I did not sleep as well as I could have due to the one-inch cockroach that I had found hanging out on the ledge by the mirror in our bathroom, which made me paranoid that others were lurking waiting to pounce on me in my sleep. I closed the bathroom door for protection, and while thankfully no bugs to my knowledge attacked me in my sleep, I still slept a bit restlessly.

It had already started to drizzle by the time we packed up to leave Tat Lo, but soon became a steady rain. We would be spending the morning exploring the Bolaven Plateau on our way to Pakse.

Much of the Plateau is used to grow coffee due to its elevation of 800-1300 meters and rich volcanic soil. The plateau was also a heavily bombed area during the Vietnam war as it lies along the Ho Chi Mihn trail.

Our first stop of the day was to visit Mr. Coffee's workshop. Coffee is not his real name. He is a Dutch immigrant to the area, and runs a workshop where he educates tourists on the different types of coffee grown on the plateau and the methods used.

By the time we arrived there, the rain was in a downpour and it was quite chilly out. We pulled out our umbrellas and rain jackets and ran in to warm up and have a cup of fresh roasted coffee before setting out on our tour. On the tour we learned about the different types of beans (mostly Arabica), how they are grown and cultivated, and Mr. Coffee demonstrated the roasting process and we got to drink coffee from these beans we had just roasted, along with some fresh, fire-roasted corn on the cob.

As the rain had let up, we headed next to Tat Fane Waterfall (pronounced Fahn), which was the tallest waterfall we had seen so far. On the way to view this waterfall we saw along the trail the remnants of an impact crater from one of the cluster bombs that had been dropped.

Next it was to Tat E Tu Waterfall. It was a tremendous downpour when we arrived, so I did not bring the camera with me. Our guide decided we would have lunch at a restaurant just before you descended down to the waterfall. I had some fried noodles with chicken and basil and a lemonade. I ended up having to gulp my drink as the ice in it had not been made from filtered water (you could tell by the pattern in the ice) and so I needed to drink it before the ice started to melt to preserve my stomach from any impurities in the tap water. Lunch was very satisfying and afterward, the rain having stopped, we headed down the steep stairs to the river bank where the best views of the waterfall were. It was very lush and green and shone beautifully with the sun out. I was kicking myself for not having the camera with us!

We arrived in Pakse mid afternoon, and checked into our hotel, LanKham Hotel, which was situated along the main road through town. Our rooms were on the top floor, so we had quite a hike up with our heavy bags. (An elevator you ask? We had yet to encounter one in Laos, nor did we expect to).

We had some post cards that we had picked up in Luang Prabang that needed posting, so we set off for the post office that seemed about a half mile away.

The walk was not very pleasant. It seems Pakse is merely a milepost on most people's journeys and there is little beauty about the city. It is fairly utilitarian and industrial and quite dirty. We found the post office around 4:40pm -- just after it had closed. We were hot and tired by that point from the piercing heat and humidity, and I was none too pleased when a vendor crowded me off the sidewalk only to step in a giant puddle of muddy crap!

We still needed to book a hotel room for a night or two for when we get back to Bangkok, so we stopped at an internet cafe near the guest house to look at options and kill time until we met a few others in our party to head for a massage.

DokChampa Massage was located a few blocks from our hotel and was recommended in our guidebook. The place had good prices around 35,000 kip ($4.50 USD) for an hour traditional massage. It was a great place, fairly basic but clean with good service and a large capacity to accommodate groups.

We then went for dinner at local restaurant on the corner. Food was reasonably priced, but nothing special.

Two other gals from our group and I decided we wanted to have our nails done, and we found a local salon that was open and happy to do the trick for 15,000 kip ($2 USD). I was hoping that by having a professional pedicure that I could overcome the issue I was having with getting my own nail polish to set (It had been sliding/melting off, which I think was largely due to the heat and humidity).

We returned to the LanKham Hotel for the night, only to discover as I was about to get into the shower that in fact it was also a Roach motel. I'm not sure that all the rooms were affected, as ours appeared to have the remnants of a projectile vomit episode stained on the wall. Perhaps the three little buggers we found in our room (actually about 2-inches long each so not really so little) were the result of the previous tenant's uncleanliness. We stayed on the 4th floor where rooms are not air conditioned and poorly ventilated, which also could be to blame. The Lonely Planet guidebook recommends getting an air con room at this hotel, so maybe that is where we went wrong.

In any case, I was just about to step barefoot into the shower when I saw one pop out from the corner of the night stand. As I jumped up on the bed screaming, Stephen frantically started trying to catch the damn thing under a garbage can. Trouble is when he pulled up the garbage can, another one of similar size popped out from behind. Stephen finally catches the first one just before it was about to climb into our bed, and picked up the other garbage can from the bathroom to go to work on the second only to discover a third cockroach that added himself to the chase. Finally Stephen had caught two under the garbage cans and had injured the legs of the third and he sent me down to the front desk for some roach spray to kill them. (Stephen said if you squash them to kill them, they only attract more cockroaches, and so we needed to spray them).

I had a bit of a hard time explaining to the front desk wheat was going on. At first they thought I was asking for air freshener, but eventually after a round or two of charades, the boy at the front desk followed me upstairs with the can of bug killer.

Bugs successfully killed and disposed of, we let our room vent for 20-min or so. I decided to forego the shower and snuggled up into my sleep sheet with it sealed over my head and prayed that no more giant bugs would plague us. It was a restless night's sleep, but at least the creepy crawleys stayed away.
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