At the crack of dawn (7.15) I was in the local bus station enquiring after the time of the next bus going south. There were two blackbords at the station, one gave the times of the buses, the other gave the times of the tuk-tuks. A bus was due to leave at eight. Great - unfortunately none of the food stalls (which normally open around 5am) had set up yet - obviously still hung over from
yesterday's celebrations, so there was no brekkie for me. I packed my bags and got back to the station for 8. A bus was loading up, "is this my bus?" I asked the locals. "No, this one is going back to Vientiane." Another bus pulled up and the locals continued shaking their heads at me. Then a tuk-tuk puled up. "This is for you," the chap told me. My face fell- he had to be joking, after all the blackboard definitely said bus. Turns out no proper buses go down the road I needed to venture down. By this time the locals were laughing at me and strapping my backpack to the roof. Looks like I was going to spend over 5 hours sat on a wooden bench on the back of small truck with no suspension whilst it bounces over pot-holed roads. In the back of this tuk-tuk was already a large crt television and 5 bags of cement as well as 8 people. This meant no leg room what so ever. My tuk-tuk was suppose to seat 14. By the end of the journey, as well as the three monks sat in the front, there was 19 adults, 5 children and a dog. 2 old men were sat hunched up on the cement bags in the "aisle" and three teenagers were stood, literally hanging off the end of the truck. To say I was squashed and uncomfortable would be an understatement. But eventually we pulled into the town of Tha Thaket and despite the fact I was now starving to death and couldn't stand because my back had gone into spasm, I knew that one
day many years in the future, I would be able to look back at this experience and laugh! Tha Thaket is a stopping off post, the first town where a proper bus / coach stops, a place to spend the night before starting the ten hour journey to the nearest large town. Some people go straight through to the next town (after catching a proper bus at Thaket station)but that seem absolutely ridiculous so I booked in at the tourist hostel / guesthouse, a place with a very familiar name - the travelodge. I splashed the cash and upgraded to a large room with private bathroom and hot-water. It was the most I spent for a room in the whole of Laos but after the horrors of the journey - it was worth it. Not only that, but they also had food on offer, some of which was even vegetarian. My vegetables filled pancakes in tomato sauce tasted divine. And as my room was next to the courtyard, I could also pick up the free wifi that was only available (supposedly) in the courtyard. I felt like I was living a life of luxury. I had spotted a massage place next to the bus station, so after lunch I sauntered along and unwound with an oil massage. By that evening and after another filling meal, I felt amazing.
I was back at the bus station by 8am the following day to catch the bus down to Paske. The bus was scheduled to take between 8 and 12 hours but it hardly ever takes any longer than that! I love Laos public transport! There were other foreigners on the bus and they were complaining about the run-down state of it. They have no idea what they were taking about - I was thankful simply to get a proper seat - one with a back! Thankfully the internal speakers stayed off for the entire journey and we arrived in Paske at 5pm. There is stunning scenery around the Paske area and I was looking forward to joining a tour and exploring the area. After a couple of days and asking every tourist agency in town, it was clear that I was the tourist in town. All the travel agencies said the same thing - it is too early in the season, there is simply no demand. I felt I was going to be scuppered again. I spent these couple of days, relaxing, pampering ( I had a pedicure and manicure, not to mention the best massage ever, complete with a complementary hair braiding by the masseuse) walking around the markets and eating. There were some excellent Indian restaurants in Paske and I encountered one of my best meals of the entire trip - egg masala with the biggest garlic naan
in history. It was also the spiciest meal I had had to date. the owner gave me a small dish of raita so I could cool my palate off and talk again. Walking back to my guest house one evening I spotted a tuk-tuk unloading a load of westerners and rather craftily I followed them into their hostel. I knew from lonely planet that this hostel did good tours if the group was large enough. Whilst they were all checking in I asked reception in a rather loud voice if there were organising any tours in the next couple of days. The receptionist said they would only run if at least 6 people signed up. There and then 5 of the people checking in said they would also sign up and hey presto I had made myself a tour group. We left the next day, by which time there was 10 of us. The Bolavian Plateau is an area of very fertile ground in Laos famed for its tea and coffee plantations. The Bolavians were a tribe of coffee producing people who settled there from Vietnam many many generations ago. The landscape is also stunning. We were taken first to a tea plantation where I learnt the difference between green and black teas and that Ulong tea simply means black tea and is not worth the vast overpricing that its name gives it at the moment in the UK. Visiting the small family run coffee plantation I learnt why arabica beans cost more money and how they are vastly superior in quality. Surprisingly coffee beans are completely odourless
- they do not pick up that distinctive coffee smell until they are roasted. After as much tea and coffee as we could drink we were off to visit the first of three striking waterfalls. A party of Thai tourists arrived at the waterfall at the same time as us, so we raced off quickly to beat them to the next waterfall. This make seam like extreme behaviour but their tour group consisted of three full double decker coaches full of tourists. As well as waterfalls we visited a couple of traditionally tribal villages. At the first village, the Alak people are animists which means they sacrifice animals and worship their spirits. The round building in the photo above, is the ancestral worship hall where the village elders and shaman will go, light a large fire and with the help of substances, commune with the ancestral spirits. The second village we visited was the Katoo people. This tribe are also known as the coffin tribe. They have a tradition of making elaborate coffins for each member of the tribe, long before they die and the coffins are stored in coffin houses or underneath their own houses (all the houses are on stilts). After death the body in the coffin is moved to a special plot of land - but never buried, just laid on the ground. In the past the coffins were wood, but large beasts such as tigers and other large mammals used to rip open the coffins and take the bodies. Now the coffins are made out of
cement and dragged into place with the help of a large tractor. You could not take photos of the Alak animist tribe as they believed it robbed their souls but the Katoo people did not mind the occasional photo being taken. The lady smoking a pipe (only tobacco) is from the Katoo tribe. As well as the villages we also visited a local school which the local community have helped to raise money to build. The owner of the hostel gives a certain percentage of his profits as do other businesses in the wider Paske area. We arrived at the end of lunch so we did not interrupt any lessons. One of the teachers was the brother of our guide and he introduced his sister-in-law and baby niece. There is a creche for the young babies so the wives can help out at the school. We dropped off a bag of supplies and got to talk to some of the children as they came in for lessons. The children come from all the different local tribes with the Alak children being very reserved whilst the Katoo children wanted to talk to us all. The Laos people we spoke to were very determined to educate the children and community built schools are becoming more frequent. If local businesses had not raised all the money needed to build the school than none of these tribal children would have ever attended school Not wishing to make the school or the children a tourist attraction we did not stay long, driving out to our final breath-taking waterfall of the day. By the end of the day we had clocked up over 200km in the minivan and everybody was incredibly weary by the time we returned to Paske. It was a great way to spend my final full day in Laos, I felt I finally got to learn alittle of the different cultures. My bus from Paske back into Thailand did not leave until 3pm the following afternoon, how did I spend my final morning - why getting one last massage of course!
