Clicked over 1000km. Which actually means we’re getting perilously close to hills 🤔
3rd August, Laos! Stung Treng to Khone Phapheng, 70km
Into Laos…An easy but time consuming border crossing. Almost no traffic from either direction, so no queues at immigration- yet it still took around half hour of waiting for us to get our Laos visas sorted. Neil has a (I really hope not dodgy🤞 ) plan to use his new UK passport once we get to the Vietnam border, because in theory he won’t need a visa, whereas I’ve paid my $35 for an EVisa with my Australian passport. So he thought it might be smart to get a stamp in his UK one, after using the AU one so far. BUT, despite the displayed $40US fee for all, apparently it’s officially only $35 for Aussies and the Laos officials can pocket a few $$ if we use Aust passports instead of UK passport. We believe the term is “coffee money”! So they didn’t like his cleanskin UK passport and insisted he use his AU passport (yes, I know, not all of us even have these choices in the first place…)
Ah well, let’s hope there are no issues at the next border crossing!!!!!
A short hop to our first Laos stopover at the tiny settlement of Khone Phapheng, and a cheap and cheerful guesthouse which did in fact have a toilet seat although no cistern cover.
A pleasant 2km walk away was a really impressive waterfall system. Nowhere up there with the highest or most spectacular falls ever seen, but the volume of water is unimaginable. It’s a vast series of braided falls over about 11km of the Mekong’s breadth.
Our first dinner in Laos was pretty impressive, albeit spicy, and also surprisingly expensive (somewhere around $35AU). Empty restaurants and not another foreigner in sight- we can see that in the high season these falls would assumedly be packed with tourists.
4th August, about 12km of riding plus a river crossing!
Time for a breather…We headed for the island of Don Det, by means of a short (fast!) ride on a long boat, complete with bicycles. A little bit daunting, watching the turbulent, swirling waters of the Mekong in flood from the apparent safety of a tiny narrow boat with little freeboard. Oh and naturally, no lifejackets. What are they???
Don Det. The island is clearly a Mecca for backpackers but remains delightfully underdeveloped- village life with wooden huts and thatched roofs. It’s very quiet by tourist standards but there are more foreigners here than we’ve seen for a long while- in fact the first westerners since Siem Reap. No shortage of places to stay or to eat and we chose a mid range place by the water for a couple of days of rest.
5th August, bit of a circuit 🙂
A day of exploring- Islands and waterfalls. Every guest house here offers cheap bike rental for the tourists to get around the islands of Don Det and Don Khon, joined by the historic French Railway bridge. So, bicycles everywhere- and ours were a little conspicuous, rather different to the standard tourist bicycles, which are all the same colour with the same handlebar basket.
The Southern end of Don Khon gave us a breathtaking outlook and just a little bit of an idea of the scope of the Mekong. It is huge.
Today was all about waterfalls really. And a sense of awe at the power of nature. We spent a lot of time just taking in the majesty of it all.
Heading back for some food, we found another little waterfall sign and thought we’d better have a quick look. We nearly didn’t bother to pay the $1 entry fee as it looked like a small version of what we’d already seen. But you just never know…and we stood for the next hour or so gazing in wonder at a couple of fisherman braving what we could only describe as ridiculously dangerous conditions.
We tried to attach a video- not quite tech savvy enough for this…but if you click on the photo below it should give you a link to the madness!
Photos don’t really do any of it justice.
Hunger kicked in so we aimed for a restaurant that Neil had his sights on with good reviews. Once again, nearly didn’t stop as it looked pretty dodgy from the outside, almost derelict in fact. But we succumbed and enjoyed probably the best meal in Laos so far, steamed catfish and some delicious noodles/veg to boot.
Some of our other meals on the island have been a bit less successful- menu fails, communication breakdowns…but pointing gets enough of the gist across that we don’t go hungry!
6th August, 53km, Don Det to Ban Veunken.
Two river crossings and a highway, if you can call it that! Shared with cows and goats all the way 🙂
We crossed back from Don Det to the village of Nakasang to head north. An easy ride for 50km or so, then we opted to cross the river again for accommodation as there’s not a lot on this stretch of the road. The map said it was a car ferry…and we did later spot this but he wasn’t in sight when we wanted to cross. But we easily found a willing guy to take us to the other side of the river in a smaller boat- at least we thought we did. Took him a while to get the engine going which was a little disconcerting in the fast flowing water, but he got there eventually. Headed upstream quite a way, we assumed he needed to do this for ease of docking but we became a little worried when he headed closer and closer to the island in the middle of the river. Zero English meant that we had to resort to frantic pointing to the other side of the river to try and convince him that we really didn’t want to land on the island! So quite the scenic route, but we got there amid a bit of laughter and gesturing!
This little village is quite laid back, first stop was a Pepsi in a refillable bottle, plus a fried banana, quite delicious as we’d been unsuccessful with lunch stops due to copious numbers of ant nests whenever we thought we had a resting place. Ergghhh.
And another basic little guesthouse that does the job perfectly for a restful afternoon before tackling the route to Champasak tomorrow.
Saw the actual car ferry a little later in the day while we were taking in the river views…not sure it would pass in Oz!
7th August, Ban Veunken to Champasak, 70km
A biggie…the first 10 km lulled us into thinking that we’d have a sealed road and a tailwind all the way to Champasak…but no!
https://youtu.be/K-lsarIm5Uw
Thankfully we hit some tarmac again around halfway through the day, otherwise I may have been even crankier than usual 🤣.
The strongest (Lao) coffee we’ve ever tasted combined with some freshly deep fried bananas and potatoey things kept us going for the 5ish hour ride to Champasak.
And then it’s a bit of luxury, lovely place with a room looking right over the river. Bliss!
8th August
A bit of backtracking on the bikes to explore Vat Phou- and worthwhile it was! A really varied and scenic site with lots of interesting notes.
And that’ll do for today!
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