This was published 15 years ago
Left wide-eyed over bushy tails
Travelling through ancient outposts in rural South-East Asia is tantalisingly different, Erin O'Dwyer writes.
By Erin O'Dwyer
The bus driver lets us out at a dust-bowl service station in the middle of nowhere. It's been hours since our makeshift breakfast of cold baguettes and bottled water in Savannakhet, and we've resisted the temptation to buy boiled-egg-on-a-stick from the hawkers who have thrust them through the window at every stop along the way.
After some confusion about how long the bus will stop, my American friend Nicole decides to wait near the bus while I buy some food. Minutes later I'm running back, red dust churning in my wake.
"You have to come and see this," I stage-whisper. "And bring your camera."
Lined up on low tables, alongside roasted frogs and birds, are rows of small bushy-tailed creatures. Some are cooked, some are raw, and for some rigor mortis has barely set in.
"They're squirrels," says Nicole sagely.
"Squirrel-on-a-stick, anyone?" I reply.
"More baguettes?"
Southern Laos is not for the faint-hearted. Most travellers to Laos adopt a fly-in and fly-out kind of attitude, taking in Vientiane's French colonial architecture and Luang Prabang's World Heritage-listed temples without ever venturing further afield.
This is mainly because the remotest areas have long been plagued by bad press: bus drivers who arm themselves with guns and bandits who range the pot-holed highways.
But these days, that's a load of elephant dung. Southern Laos is far too laid-back to be dangerous, and although scant infrastructure makes for tough travelling, this means that those who do make it are rewarded with rare glimpses into traditional village life seldom seen in other parts of South-East Asia. There is hidden beauty at every turn for those prepared to be patient and persistent.
The best base for exploring the country's south is Pakse. The capital of Champasak province has a population of 64,000 and is the gateway to the stunning Angkor-era ruins at Champasak, as well as the lush Bolaven Plateau with its coffee plantations, tribal villages and traditional riverside weaving.
The overland trip from Vientiane is a 14-hour endurance test, so we halve the journey with an overnight stop in Savannakhet. Route 13, which stretches from Luang Prabang in the north as far south as the Cambodian border, is a dusty red-dirt scar and the landscape seems endlessly barren. But it's the people that we meet along the way who make getting there part of the adventure.
At first we have the bus to ourselves. But before long we are squashed three to a seat. We stop whenever a villager flags us down, and our grim-faced driver shoves tiny plastic chairs in the aisle to make more space. In the seat in front of us a beautiful young mother spends the day vomiting out the open window. Her gaggle of urchin children play hide and seek with us over their chairs, and she seems grateful for the distraction.
We meet hip young Lao tour guide, Bouhnme, who reckons us to be better company than his paying customers a group of middle-aged New Zealand women. He tells us more about growing up under a communist regime than any history book could, and recounts how his mother sold her only water buffalo to send him to university. He chose tourism over medicine, and now, despite the fact that he has never left the country, earns 10 times as much as the village doctor.
When we suggest that he should buy his mother another water buffalo, he just laughs.
"She doesn't want a water buffalo anymore," he says. "She wants gold. Here and here and here and here," he adds, touching his ears, his neck and both wrists.
Later Bouhnme invites us to a friend's house for dinner whole baked fish that we break apart with our fingers and wrap in wilted leaves.
We are taught to drink Beer Lao in the traditional way one person fills a glass then passes it around for each to sip. When it is drained, it is the next person's shout.
Lao food is generally similar to Thai and Vietnamese cuisine, with rice noodle soups (foe), sticky rice (tip khao), and spicy green papaya salads (tam maak hung) served with an array of meats such as chicken, duck, pork, beef and fresh-water fish.
But in the country, the diet can be described only as wild. Traditional farm animals are labour-intensive and eaten on special occasions only. This means game meats are the order of the day.
After two days on the road, we find ourselves increasingly comfortable with Lao-style fast food a bizarre array of bite-sized delicacies threaded on sticks. We see frogs, rats, small birds, wild dogs, but it is the squirrels that really turn our stomachs.
By the time we arrive in Pakse we are relieved to find a fresh food market filled with fruit and vegetable stalls, so we stock up on dragon fruits and custard apples. Markets are the places to drink Laos coffee, which is perhaps the best in the world. Freshly ground and brewed through a cloth filter, a dash of sweetened condensed milk is added just to take the edge off.
Wandering around the stalls we see everything from freshly butchered pigs' heads to enormous eels bumping around in buckets. We brave a local restaurant for dinner, but take the safest option duck.
APART from the colourful market there is little else in Pakse. The presence of only one internet cafe and a tourist bureau whose staff can't be bothered to come to the door indicate how humble this place remains. Instead we day-tripped around the area.
For about $US25 ($37) a day you can hire a jumbo driver to take you in his small passenger truck exactly where you want to go. An hour's drive away is Ban Saphai a cotton and silk weaving village where men and women of all ages weave with looms under their stilt houses.
We travel two hours to see the impressive Tat Fan and Tat Lo waterfalls, which tumble through the thickly forested gorges. On the way home we visit a remote village where there is neither running water nor electricity, and where cows seem to fill the streets rather than people. We are amazed to see children smoking pipes filled with tobacco, and even more amazed when our guides tells us that they smoke to keep malaria at bay.
The trip's highlight is Wat Phu Champasak an ancient ruined Khmer temple built on a sacred mountain and probably originally dating from the 6th century. Although Champasak is small compared to Angkor-era sites in Cambodia, there is almost no-one here on the day we visit and we feel a sense of incredible mysticism and serenity as we stand atop the 600-metre-high hill and gaze over the surrounding plains. The frangipani trees that line the hundreds of stairs are just starting to bloom, and we wish that we had time to wait for the sunset.
The next morning we leave Laos, taking a saamlaw (three-wheeled vehicle), another jumbo, a sawngthaew (passenger truck) and two buses to cross the Chong Mek border and arrive in Thailand's Ubon Ratchathani. Accompanying us on almost every leg of the journey is an enigmatic young monk clad in saffron robes, and a Swiss national who has made reafforestation of the Bolaven Plateau his own private mission. We ask about the religious significance of the silver coin the young monk wears in his right ear.
"Religious significance?" the monk says, raising an eyebrow at his grinning comrade.
"Only practical significance," translates the Swiss.
"He's a bit short on pockets."
We arrive in Ubon in the late afternoon, starving. We locate the market and wander around the noodle stalls before ordering some Thai-style fast food stir-fried noodles cooked while you wait. It's backpacker comfort food, basic and boring. But we're quietly relieved there's no squirrel.
TRIP NOTES
· Australian citizens visiting Laos require a tourist visa, which is valid for 15 days and can be obtained either on arrival at Vientiane International Airport for $US30 ($38.85) or in Australia beforehand for $45 by phoning the Lao Embassy in Canberra on 6286 4595.
· There are no ATMs in Laos, and credit card facilities are rare, so take US dollars, which can be used along with Thai bhat, or changed into Lao kip.
· There are direct buses between Vientiane and Pakse daily for about $US7. The 14-hour journey is best broken with an overnight stay in Savannakhet.
· Day and half-day trips from Pakse include cotton-weaving villages, coffee plantations, waterfalls and villages on the Bolaven Plateau. The highlight is the Angkor-era ruins of Champasak. The newly renovated Hotel Pakse, which offers clean and comfortable three-star accommodation for about $US16 for a twin room, can help arrange drivers for daytrips. Email info@paksehotel.com.
· Pakse is approximately one hour's drive from the Thai border crossing at Chong Mek. Local buses run regularly or hire a taxi for about $US5 per person. From Chong Mek, take another bus to Ubon Ratchathani in Thailand. Overnight sleeper trains direct to Bangkok leave Ubon at dusk and arrive at dawn. First class air-conditioned sleeping berths are THB1320 ($42).
· For more information see www.visit-laos.com.
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