travel

I feel like I’m on the cusp of something, a transition point between what was and what will be. But it’s frustratingly hard to define beyond that… perhaps it’s best not to force it. I should just do what I do and see what comes of it. And Pakse is as good a place as any for such contemplations…

For a couple of weeks now I’ve felt vaguely unfulfilled with where my travels are at. Not that I’m over Laos – far from it – it’s just that after five or six weeks here I feel like I have the measure of the place, that I understand it well enough to find staying here easy. Since Paksan(probably before then actually) I have not been fazed by the practicalities of getting around, getting a room, being fed and watered; whether in English or Lao I can manage my way here perfectly well now. Which means the wonder of the country has faded somewhat. Most places here are much like the others: relaxed, lazy even, with a gentle approach to life that feels both natural and pleasantly indulgent. Maybe too my desire to shut down and relaaax has finally run it’s course and I’m simply eager for more action? The truth is there are few attractions worthy of the name between Kong Lo cave and Pakse, so perhaps I’ve just been bored!

Pakse, in the far south of the country, is a fine place to be suffering this dilemma. It offers the best combination of Laos lifestyle and western tourist infrastructure I’ve yet come across. There are enough western-style hotels and guesthouses, restaurants and tour options to keep any traveller interested, yet it is understated and still undeniably Lao in atmosphere. And it’s not a busy place: though westerners and locals appear in equal numbers on the streets it is a sedate town where the streets are mostly empty and nothing hurries. There are loads of attractions in this province: nearby is the elevated coolness of the Bolaven Plateau with some spectacular waterfalls, there are several national parks with loads of trekking and kayaking options, the ancient ruins of Wat Phu Champasak which predate Ankor Wat in Cambodia are only an hour away, and the near-comatose serenity of the islands of Si Phan Don is just a couple of hours south.

Pakse is the last large town in Laos I can stay in before heading to Cambodia, and I’m reluctant to leave this country yet. I guess I don’t want the spell to end so I’ve spent almost a week in the area already, and will spend another week or so more before finally moving on. I haven’t been completely idle though: a one-day tour trekking to several waterfalls on the nearby Bolaven Plateau also took us to a tea plantation, the markets of Paksong and a model village where several minority groups are on display and sensitively explained; and I’ve just finished a two-day kayak trip to the Cambodian border which was awesome (and about which I’ll post separately shortly). Learning how to ride an elephant next week will also be a great experience, or perhaps just a unique and very memorable distraction?

I guess what I’m really feeling is the change in tone of this trip brought about by the sheer passage of time. Until now it has felt gloriously open-ended, and I genuinely haven’t given a thought to how much time is left or the fact that I will, eventually, have to return home. But even though I’m not quite at the halfway point I can already feel the downward slide, the inevitable increase in pressure caused by the knowledge that as every day passes I get one step closer to calling time on this idyllic journey. It’s a real catch-22: I’ve greatly enjoyed my time in Laos and I don’t want this part of the journey to stop, but I know that if I stay too long I’ll sully the memory of it. Yet while I know it’s time to move on soon I’m still hesitating at the point where I have to say goodbye… but I won’t whine any further. I know I’m very fortunate to be in this spot: it’s the kind of dilemma most people would kill to have to deal with 😉

Soon after boarding the bus from Tha Kaek to Savannahket I mused that of all the bus journeys I’d taken so far in Laos, nothing had gone wrong. Sure there was the landfall that blocked the road for a few hours on the way to Dien Bien Phu, and yes some trips were hellish, but none of the buses had actually broken down. I should have known better than to tempt fate…

Suddenly I was ripped from my doze by the sound of a loud bang! directly underneath me and swift deceleration as the driver hit the brakes. A tyre had blown out. Fortunately there were two tyres on that corner so we didn’t lose control, and luckier still we pulled to a stop right outside a roadside shop so cool drinks could be had while the tyre was changed.

Savannakhet proved to be a little disappointing. Not for the town itself – it’s one of the more prosperous and populous parts of Laos, and earns a tidy living from the sea of trade that flows through here between Thailand and Vietnam. But I’d deliberately aimed to be in this larger town because I wanted to be somewhere busy with a good concentration of other westerners for New Year’s Eve. I’ve been rather remote of late, and was craving familiar company for a while…

But my new year experience was not what I expected. After wandering the streets and several restaurant/bars I saw almost no other travellers. Even the guesthouse I was staying at, which had promised a celebration for its few guests, was a dud with noone else showing up! But the town was certainly busy, and NYE was a much bigger affair locally than I thought it’d be. Many shops closed early, there were lots of private barbeques and parties going on in peoples’ front yards/terraces, and kids gleefully let off crackers everywhere. I ended up accepting a random invite from a small group of locals who beckoned me over to the table out the front of their shop. My Lao language skills were horribly exposed, but we managed to communicate enough to see in the midnight hour. Lots of beerlao was consumed, with endless toasts and a fair bit of food too. Definitely a different NYE!

Tha Kaek is another sleepy provincial capital draped languidly along the eastern shore of the Mekong, where there is little to do except stroll the waterfront and relax. Are you seeing a pattern here? The Lao national emblem should be a hammock.

When I arrived late yesterday I was underwhelmed – it’s nice, but hardly special – and I intended to head off immediately today to the larger town Savannakhet a few hours further south. But on waking I decided I wasn’t in such a hurry, and that I could easily spend another day soaking up the atmosphere here. While it may not be special, it is a pleasant place to hang the boots. Having a nice hotel helps a lot too, of course: from a paucity of quality options the Inthira Hotel is perfectly located near the waterfront, has wifi internet (*usually) and a luscious king-size bed with the best pillows I’ve laid my head on since The Royal Mail Hotel in Dunkeld. Well worth it for just A$22 a night.

The latest guidebook says Tha Kaek feels like Vientiane did ten years ago. If that’s true, Vientiane has changed very rapidly… while a handful of travellers do make it here Tha Kaek is very much a place for locals, and the local economy seems to bustle happily. There are numerous shops offering everything needed for the modern Lao life: mobile phones, scooters and places to service and wash them (these are always busy), clothes, homewares and hardware, kids’ toys, televisions. The tuk-tuk drivers don’t heckle you for rides because they are still a popular local form of transport, and in almost two hours wandering the main streets today I saw exactly three other foreigners amidst hundreds of Lao.

Not much else to report really, but I think you can understand now why I was so obsessed with gathering books while in Hanoi and Vientiane. It’s taken just one morning to see this town, and I don’t fancy doing laps in the heat. Missions for the afternoon: lunch, reading, maybe a nap, perambulating the waterfront, more reading, dinner, and because it’s unlikely I’ll find someone to hang out with tonight probably an early night in, with more reading or possibly watching the box. Ahhhh…. is it possible for stress levels to go negative?

Imagine the biggest, most impressive cave possible. Then double it. Then double it again. Then stretch it out reaaaallly far and run a river through the middle of it. You might now be somewhere close to understanding just how overwhelmingly huge Kong Lo cave really is.

Karst formations dot the landscape of Laos and parts of Vietnam, the remnants of ancient coral reefs and seabeds eroded by the aeons into spectacularly sharp mountain ranges and hills than can run for dozens of miles. The beautiful hills around Vang Vieng are karst formations, as are the world-famous islands of Halong Bay and Lan Ha Bay. Apart from usually being stunning to look at from afar, another common feature of these porous limestone edifices is that they can have deep caves within their bases. However the biggest, baddest and most impressive of all is Kong Lo cave in central Laos. Running for more than seven kilometres beneath a mountain it dwarfs anything your imagination can conceive, and entering its gaping maw is like taking a trip into the Underworld of fantasy and myth…

Getting there is simple enough these days, though few seem to do it on their own, preferring instead day or overnight trips from the bigger tourist centre of Tha Kaek. After being deposited on the highway from the Conservation Centre, I waited for the next passing bus to Lak Sao (near the Vietnam border) and got off at Ban Na Hin. Though there are a number of guesthouses there it’s quite unappealing, and as it was early I decided to go straight to the town near the cave and stay there overnight. I was greatly helped by the french woman I met the other night as she’d told me about a good new guesthouse that was only a short walk from the cave, so I knew I could stay comfortably in the village. I had to wait an hour for the next sawng-thaew to leave, an easy pause, and just before it left a French-Canadian couple joined the ride as well. They had walked around Ban Na Hin and decided they didn’t want to stay there either. Apparently the trip to Ban Kong Lo used to be awful, but late last year a new road opened and it’s a breeze these days. We found the guesthouse without a problem and it was much better than expected: five bamboo and wood bungalows featuring a large hard bed with mosquito net, modern bathroom with hot water and best of all a neat balcony out the back overlooking rice fields to the karst mountains less than a kilometre away. Nestled at the pointy end of a closed valley It’s a very peaceful and beautiful end-of-the-road kind of place, and you can stay there for just A$9 a night. I decided immediately to stay two nights and visit the cave the following day.

Though it’s now a popular tourist attraction the infrastructure around the cave is charmingly simple, with tickets purchased from an old guy sitting under a large canopy. I think the proceeds go directly to the local villages, and the whole operation appears to be run as a semi-collective with an orderly allocation of tourists to boats. Each boat can take just three passengers but you still have two guides, both with a powerful light and knowledge of the cave. This is presumably so that if something goes pear-shaped you won’t be left alone, stranded in the pitch black wondering why you’ve let yourself be led so far into darkness… It’s late and I don’t want to wait for others so I commandeer a boat to myself, and after a short walk past a beautiful lagoon outside the cave’s mouth we enter the maw and board the boat for our journey under the mountain.

The staging point just above some small rapids is like the landing bay of a sci-fi spaceship, a wide, low-domed roof opening to the light of the lagoon on one side and pointing to black on the other. In the boat and we’re away, through chamber after chamber lined with smooth white rock. Some are low with sloping sides that almost brush your head as you pass close to the wall, others are larger than cathedrals, so high that even the beams of the guides’ torches don’t reach the top. It’s utterly entrancing, and you don’t even feel too alone because boats coming back from the other end pass by often. At a few places the water is so shallow that the boat has to be dragged across, and at one point we dismount to wander through a particularly fine collection of stalactites and stalacmites that are artfully illuminated – a surprising touch. Back to the boat and onwards, and it’s easy to lose track of time and space in there. All you know is an endless series of caverns that emerge as the river snakes and winds, the occasional smooth white-sand beach that looks great for a picnic (if you’re into creepy picnics), all to the soundtrack of the two-stroke engine that drives you forward. It’s relentlessly awesome.

We turn a corner and I see what appears to be another illuminated section up ahead. As we close on it I realise it’s actually the end of the cave, and I’m looking at trees and sunlight again! I forego the option of walking to the nearby village so we turn around and head back through again, and it seems more familiar already. This is not just a tourist site: we pass a local boat full of supplies and reclining men on their way to the village which is inaccessible by road.

Now I’m not normally a big fan of caves. The kayaking trip I took in Vang Vieng included visits to three of varying size and difficulty, and at best I found them dull (at worst very uncomfortable). I don’t see the attraction in crawling through a dark, dank space so you can experience emotions ranging from “meh” to claustrophobia; it’s just not my thing. But from now on I don’t think I ever have to see another cave. I’ve seen the biggest and most stunning of them all: Kong Lo.