Much to our delight, the sleeper bus from Vientiane to Pakse DID have actual beds, and even allowed a modicum of sleep! We did however feel sorry for those travelling on their own, who had to share the narrow double beds with complete strangers! The roads have improved as we headed south, with more tarmac and fewer mountains and hairpin bends. After a picnic on our double sleeper bed, we settled down for some sleep, thankful that this bus did not feel it was necessary to "assist" sleep with a huge video screen and speakers blaring out Thai pop music ("music" is a word that should be used very loosely in SE Asia as the bubblegum pop the Thais export really should be banned!). Before falling asleep we did chat with a few of our fellow bus passengers and discovered that several of the travellers found that the over the counter Valium available here is the way to get through long bus journeys in Asia. We also had a completely mental Spanish neighbour on the bus who was very chatty but thankfully exhausted himself so we could sleep by very loudly and amusingly slating the French!
We arrived in Pakse at 6am, just as the sun was coming up. We found a guesthouse, dumped our bags and wandered out in search of breakfast. We were lucky enough to chance upon some of the monks from one of the temples in town walking round collecting alms from the townspeople, a sight we wanted to see in SE Asia but could never heave ourselves out of bed early enough! After coffee and fried eggs, we began to feel more human again.
The next day, we went on a trip to the Bolaven Plateau (with two French girls, one Japanese girl and a Swiss-Barbadian guy - who incidentaly was mad about Top Gear). The plateau is 900m above sea level so was a bit cooler than Pakse and had some beautiful scenery. We visited tea and coffee plantations (anyone else know that coffee beans begin as round red berries??? We didn't!) and three spectacular jungle waterfalls. We visited a couple of minority villages, the first was virtually empty as everyone was working in the fields, however the second village was clearly less industrious.....taking advantage of the holiday in Laos due to Laos National Day (marking when the current "democratic" government came into power.....in 1975) - a good percentage of the male population were somewhat enebriated on lao-lao and the women (and children!) were busy smoking home-made pipes. A brief stop at a local market on the way back allowed us to observe the local custom of removing a huge live catfish from a bucket and placing it in a plastic bag to take home for dinner. After several attempts at freedom, the poor catfish was finally secured in its bag. Also available for your gastronomic delight were (all live): frogs, toads, eels, crabs and what looked like cockles/whelks. All-in-all a good day!
Today we are heading to the southern tip of Laos, to stay on some islands in the Mekong river. This is an easy-peasy bus journey of only 3 hours and we have several days of relaxation planned before we head into Cambodia.
