Wow! (Have I said that a lot. Seriously, wow, awesome, amazing!) 3 more wonderful days spent on a motorbike exploring the beautiful countryside and people of Laos. 6 of us: Myself, Rich, Brett, Karina, Damesh, and Marie were involved in this great adventure. The lovely Karina was my driver (who I must say did an awesome job putting up with my stress and also returning me in one piece having no major issues!)
I may have cheated and ridden on the back... but that doesn't matter! I've got a fear of motorcycles and had no desire to drive one, let alone for three days. And I almost even backed at last minute knowing it'd hurt my back. Well, I sucked it up and put on my smile and held my on TIGHT with my shaky hands.
To make this trip even better we did during Laos New Year. Now, to understand the level this took our trip to, one must understand a bit about the Laos, Cambodian and Thai new year. Its a huge water festival for 3 days. Everyone is throwing water, partying, drinking, listening to music, dumping more water on people, putting talc (baby powder) on people, more water, putting red lipstick on faces, more water and partying and dancing. Its amazing.
Our trip involved a waterfall the first day which made me think of Memorial Day or the 4th with families, and groups of friends all partying at the beach. Some were drinking (even used the old 'put the beer in the river to keep it cold' trick), some were hanging out with families and then there were the annoying (sorry to sound horrible... but had to have been Japanese) tourists who didn't care. We swam with the locals, looked around and got back on the bikes. This is where the fun began. In all the villages we road through children were standing on the sides of the roads throwing buckets of water on you, spraying you with hoses, throwing bags full of water, and even ice cubes.... anything to get you soaked!!! During this great time we came across many families, villages and groups partying: under houses, in gas stations, random spots on the sides of the road, and at markets. We would stop, get soaked, drink a bit of BeerLao (ok, not me as I can no longer drink beer), get powdered, dance and then get back on the bikes. This continued multiple times for the first two days. We partied with a copy, who MADE everyone drink beer and then waved as everyone drove off. We found a big carnival celebrating the new year. It had games, rides (ok, well, a merry-go-round swing that was man powered!), food stalls, and everything else you can imagine, including children betting games! That was serious business and went on all night. The next morning we swam in a huge waterfall, and took part in some sort of cleansing ritual??
Our adventures had us stopping at gas stations/'cafes' to avoid major downpours. We played the game where you put a name on foreheads and can only ask yes/no questions to figure out who you are. Stopping in random villages at the only food place using lonely planet to order noodle soup. Yes, the do think I'm weird when I ONLY want the noodles... no meat, no broth... that happened at least 3 times!
Everyone was in an amazingly happy, and most likely drunk, mood and celebrating. We all figured out that America and Australia play the same rules in checkers while the UK and the Netherlands have a completely different game (supposedly the same...) and that Portugal is mixed somewhere in the middle of both!
By the last day we were sick of getting wet. It had felt great during the heat but the last day was a bit cool. After day 1 my back was hurting (it hurt just from tuk tuk rides around to temples...) and day 2 was worse.... bring on the worst day. Ugh! Day 3 involved 80 kms of a DIRTY BUMPY road. But to make it worth it the first 40 were through beautiful jungle, where we saw more waterfalls. At the end I could barely move. Literally was in tears the last 10 kms... and was sooo glad we had to sit out a storm during lunch as I was laying down at the lunch table resting my back! We were red... well, brown from head to toe from the dirt.... add the water we got splashed and it made it worse. One more waterfall stop on the way home and then it was back to Pakse where everything was shut down!
Oh, the Bolaven Plateau is known to make some of the best coffee in the world. We saw soo many fields of coffee plants. I actually saw what they look like during the growing process... and tasted one... ick! We were pretty bummed because we couldn't stop at the coffee plantations as they were all closed for the New Year. But we did enjoy a few cups of great coffee along the way!
The shower at the end was probably the longest and most wonderful shower we'd all taken in ages! Oh, and that night we waited 2 hours for our dinner.... in typical laotian style... which deserves an entire blog on its own!
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