Motorcycle Diaries

15 - 19 January 2010
We arrived in Pakse in the afternoon and set off to find a place stay. We managed to score a VIP room in the ‘Sabadi’ guest house; it resembled a show room and was situated in the lobby of the hotel separated from the outside world only by a glass wall. The three of us dumped our bags and split the price three ways, me and Lindsey shared one bed, Holly grabbed the other. Then we grabbed a bite to eat and headed off for a traditional Laos massage and a sauna that Saf had read into.

MASSAGE AND SAUNA
The massage was a little painful, but the sauna was a really great experience. We were given thin material robes to wear and asked to take a plunge into freezing water to wash before entering the sauna. Then we rubbed tamarind all over our bodies and sat down in the herbal steam hut with all the local ladies. The tamarind really stung and removed pretty much all of our tans but we were reassured it was very good for us. We took regular breaks from the steam and sipped herbal tea outside the hut to cool down. We left a few hours later feeling very refreshed and clean for the first time in a long, long time!

MOTORCYCLE DIARIES
I’d read in the lonely planet that the Bolaven Plateau in southern Laos was laced with beautiful coffee plantations, spectacular waterfalls and quaint little minority villages, so I was very keen to explore this area; but the thought of doing an organised tour took away all sense of adventure. In my opinion being shuffled on and off a great big bus with a load of tourists all bombarding a little minority village at once turning it into a human zoo, sounded like my idea of hell, both for me and the villagers! So it didn't take Lyndsey long to convince me and Holly to rent bikes and come motor biking for a few days.

Me and Lyndsey rented two shiny new manual Hondas and Holly bagged an automatic; we left our backpacks in storage taking only our toothbrushes and P.J’s and set off heading for the first big waterfall. We arrived in the heat of the midday sun and stumbled across a lovely little minority village. We wondered around chatting (or trying to chat) with the locals wearing their traditional garb; their ear lobes weighted down heavily with their cultural lobe plugs.

After driving 120km’s through breathtaking countryside we arrived at a lovely village near Tad Lo waterfall. We found a beautiful little wooden hut only meters away from the waterfall to sleep for the night, dumped our day bags and headed out to explore the village. The children were as beautiful as ever, Lyndsey gave four of the little ones a litre bottle of water and you’d think we’d given them a thousand pounds when you saw how they jumped for joy, it broke my heart.

After a slow stroll through a very smiley village we heard a few locals shout over to us from the river; they were drinking beer Laos and were inviting us to join them. Beer was passed in turn around the circle while we all tried to learn about each other. The sun set and we were still drinking with our new friends so we lit a fire and they cooked us some beef skin to nibble on while we drank. They sang us songs and Lyndsey shared her i-pod around treating them to some M.J which they loved!!!! We reluctantly left our friends in search of an evening meal and an early night as we had to cover a lot more km’s the next day.

The next day we woke up at 7am and had breakfast by the waterfall before donning our bikes and hitting the road once again! The next town we came to was Ban Beng and that was where we said goodbye to proper roads with tarmac on! We hit the dirt roads and headed south to Tha Teng. After 5 minutes on the dirt road my entire body was orange and I was struggling to see, the bike was slipping and sliding its way down the road but I’m elated to say I was able to control it relatively safely, even when the big trucks flew past knocking up 60ft waves of opaque dirt clouds! We dodged buffalo, cows, little lost goats and other crazy animals, it was the most exhilarating drive I’ve ever done.

We stopped at a little shed where a nice lady funnelled a couple of litres of gas into our bikes and a few hours from there we’d arrived at Tad Fan, the most impressive waterfall on the Bolaven Plateau and I was suitably enchanted by it! We drove on a bit further before stopping for some noodle soup with the locals and heading off in the direction of Pak Song, where we would eventually pick up with highway 13- a proper road!!!!!

FIRST DISASTER OF THE DAY
Heading in the opposite direction to our convoy were two motorbikes, one of which was laden with kids, a male driver and a woman on the back holding crates of market produce balanced precariously in the side saddle position, the driver had decided to overtake another bike in front of them at speed and had started to lose control of the bike as he passed us; I watched through my wing mirrors in horror as the lady was tossed off the bike and up into the air before somersaulting into the middle of the road where she lay motionless.

We slammed our breaks on and ran back to the accident. Lyndsey is a nurse back home, she got there first. The male driver (maybe her son) was in shock but had got to her first and had her scooped up in his arms shaking her violently trying to get her to wake up when we tried to stop him shaking her so we could try and see how badly she was hurt, he just screamed at us, it was hopeless, but she was conscious by then at least.

Me and the girls eventually, through raised voices and assertive body language managed to get the guy to stop shaking her and carefully lift her to the side of the road. By getting out our first aid boxes they calmed down a little and allowed us to help. Thank goodness she didn’t have a back or neck injury! We soon discovered she’d dislocated her shoulder and had lots of cuts and bruises but was relatively OK considering. Locals appeared from everywhere, one lady brought a bowl full of salt water, great I thought now we can wash her wounds....nope! She was forced to drink the stuff instead, I don’t know how she did it I would’ve spat it at them if they had have made me drink it!!!

We managed to flag down a truck and convince him to drive her to Pakse hospital, so we scooped her up and sent her on her way. One good deed for the day! We set back off on the road but extra ,extra carefully as we’d all had the heebeegeebees put into us.

SECOND MISHAP OF THE DAY
After all the commotion and having taken a few breaks, we were in kind of a rush to get to Nkiet Ngong National Park before sunset, another hour or so drive away. After asking some more directions and finally finding the right roundabout we were on the right road, Rte 13. I was riding up front, and as i looked in my rearview mirror I saw the girls had disappears from view. I turned back to find Lyndsy having crased her bike on the gravel, we still don't really know what happened.

The next minute locals were lifting her bike off and helping Lyndsey up. She had a hole in her arm which needed stitches and some very impressive instant bruises! Laos people from every direction shuffled her over to a small wooden hut where a guy equipped with many bottles was ready to attend to the injuries.

It was like a scene out of ‘Fight Club’ they poured what looked like acid into the cuts, her skin bubbled up and I’m sure at one point started smoking, but 30 seconds later the wounds were sterile and almost sealed! The gash on her arm needed stitches but the hospital was way back in Pakse and Lyndsey really wanted to make the jungle before dark, so after much protest from me and Holly, we soaked it in iodine and stuck it together with plasters. We hopped back on our bikes and we attempted to beat sunset to the jungle.

ARRIVING IN THE JUNGLE VILLAGE
We arrived at Se Pian jungle just in time, the light was beginning to fade and we were about to swop tarmac for dust again. The first village in the jungle you come to was called Kiet Ngong, so we decided it would be here that we would stay the night. After about half an hour of very bumpy, dusty, dirt tracks we pulled into the village that we then discovered was celebrating its annual elephant festival. The locals had obviously been celebrating all day and were very; very merry off beer Laos by the time we arrived.

We pulled up in front of the little drunkeds...3 westerners, one covered in blood and bruises and all of us orange from all the dust and said: ‘home stay?’....the look on their faces was priceless! This village doesn’t see a lot of westerners!

One man quickly jumped up and asked us to follow him to his house. We had a place to stay  we met his family and were shown to a room with a comfortable mattress on the floor , it was then that we noticed a strict village regulation printed in block capitals on the wall ‘IF A MAN IS FOUND TO BE SLEEPING UNDER THE SAME MOSQITO NET AS A WOMAN THEY WILL BE PROSECUTED AND MUST DONATE ONE COW TO THE VILLAGE’ good job we were all girls!

While his wife cooked some dinner for us we went to meet the local villagers who were having a type of barn dance in a local hut, there was music, beer Laos, lots of smiling faces and dancing happening and it didn’t take long before we were joining in and being taught their moves. It was all very surreal, what a welcome to a little village in the middle of the jungle!

After a dance and some beer we headed back to our home stay for an evening meal, we all sat in a circle on the floor and chatted with our host father over dinner as he demonstrated how to eat ‘baby eggs’ (eggs with a partially developed foetus inside!). Then his friends joined us, bringing with them Laos Laos (rice wine) which was passed around the circle, refusing wasn’t an option! Dinner was very fun that night.

After food we were lead by our host to a field right next to his house where all the villagers had set up a little night market the atmosphere was similar to a festival, there was a stage and a local band playing a mix of Laos music and some western music, like "The Final Countdown" (but only the instrumental version). It was amazing but we had a curfew and had to be in bed by 10pm, the music however carried on until 4am!

RIDING ELEPHANTS
The next morning we awoke to a village full of elephants! It turns out our owner had a pet elephant! So as Holly set off to go trekking with one local, Lyndsey and I hopped up on an elephant to ride into the jungle and up to an ancient temple on top of a hill, which unfortunately we learnt very little about due to communication difficulties!

After the elephants it was back to Pakse for us, another adventure to remember!