My Egg Noodles

Yesterday I took the bus from Savannakhet (Laos) to Hue (Vietnam) – a 7 hour journey that takes you east across Laos, over the Vietnamse/Laos borader and down into Hue.

Any travel exceeding 4 hours really gets on my tits, but seeing as I’m heading down to HCMC, there are not a lot of other options available.

The bus departs Savannakhet at 10am – a good start. We had plenty of time to check out of our hotel, change some kip into dollars and make our way over to Savannakhet’s bus station. The fee is 90,000 kip from Savannakhet to Dong Ha and 120,000 kip from Savannakhet to Hue.

It pays to be cheeky

As I gave the bus attendant our ticket, I noticed that there were only 16 passengers on the list as he crossed of our names and allocated seat numbers. As I boarded the bus, I headed straight for the back row of seats. Sitting there with my head down praying the attendant would let us get away with it, I began sorting out a $10 note for a “tip” just in case he did have a problem. Luckily he didn’t, so as all the other passengers began to take advantage of the additional seats avaible while I laid down across 5 seats with my head firmly placed on my missus lap. This wasn’t going to be as bad as I first thought.

Around 1pm we stopped off at a restaurant that had some interesting foods layed out which you could pick and chose. After lunch, everyone started to huddle around the huge jars of whiskey that had weird looking animals and reptiles in them, like these jars with Gecko’s inside them:

A few hours later we arrived at the Lao immigration – which was very straight forward. A couple of minutes later we arrived at the Vietnamise immigration and were directed through to a small open building with a huge sign that read “QUARETINE”

The lady in front of me sat down and the official with a mask over his face put a small device on her temple which bleeped, which I later found down was a thermometer. She pulled a face like she was in pain, and as no one at this time knew what the device was, I could feel my heart beating faster thinking shit – I have to go through pain in order to get into the country. Of course, we all found out later she was playing a sick joke.

After passing quarantine and passport control, we were back on the bus going up and down lush mountains making our way east over Vietnam, and down into Hue.

All in all, Savannakhet to Hue by bus journey wasn’t as bad as I had expected.

I’ve just spent a couple of weeks exploring southern Laos on a motorbike, which has ended up being one of the most raw, exciting, rewarding and cultural trips I have made during 5 years of travel in South East Asia.

I wanted to share some tips, thoughts and ideas that will hopefully help people who are considering doing the same. I also wanted to keep this post open as a Q&A – so if you have any questions or need advice, please leave them in the comments below and I’ll respond as quickly as I can.

The Route

Savanakhet (2 days)
Driving down to Paske (8 hours due to heavy rain)
Paske & Waterfalls (3 days)
Khon Phapheng Falls and the 4,000 Islands (2 days)
Kiet Nong + Elephant Trecking (2 days)
Don Daeng (1 day)
Wat Phou & Champasak (1 day)
Paske (1 day)
Savanakhet

The route I recommend

The only reason I started the route in Savanakhet was due to needing to come back to get a Visa for Vietnam. If you’re onward travel includes either Vientiane, Thailand or Cambodia, I would recommend skipping the Savanakhet to Paske leg as there’s not much to see or do, and starting the tour in Paske.

After spending a few days exploring Paske, I would head out discovering the many waterfalls, rural life and coffee plantations around the Bolaven Plateau.

I would then head south to Don Daeng and base myself at the excellent La Fuli hotel for a couple of days while exploring Wat Phue and Champasak.

After the luxury of staying at the La Fuli Hotel on Don Daeng, I would make my way down to 4 thousand islands, stopping off at the Khon Phapheng Falls (it’s around an additional 20km from the turning you need to get the boat opver to 4,000 islands) and ruff it in a couple of dollars a night river side bungalow for a few days while chilling out in your hammock, checking out near by islands and canoing.

On the return trip back to Paske I would stop of at the KingFisher Eco-Lodge, live with nature for a day or two and take the one day Elephant safari.

Driving a motorbike in Laos

Most guest houses rent out motorbikes and are happy storing your belongings while you embark on your journey. Although, don’t expect any insurance or RAC cover. If you have an accident or the motorbike incurs a problem while it’s in your hands, you’ll have to folk the bill.

For the most part, driving a motorbike in Southern Lao was a piece of cake. Outside of the main towns, the conditions of the roads are excellent and are virtually empty, which make for a nice relaxing drive while you take in the views, bamboo huts and river streams.

The most changeling part of the whole trip, in terms of driving, was this little hill that lead down to the boats that would take us over to the 4,00 islands.

The down side to driving on a motorbike in Laos is the blazing sun, the animals (pigs, cows, goats and dogs) that run out into the middle of the road, and the way the Lao’s drive themselves. Lao drivers seem to only care about what is in front of them, and they expect you to do the same. This can prove a little tricky if you were taught to be aware of what’s going on all around you while you drive.

Luckily, every town, big or small, will have repair shops. I had to take my bike into 3 different repair shops spread out over the 14 days and luckily all 3 repairs cost less than $10 to fix.

What to bring

I strongly advise packing light. In fact, the lighter the better! We took 5 pair of shorts and 5 t-shirts each – along with some toilitaries. You’ll only need one pair of flip floops – I can’t speak highly of the North Face collection. Also, a good quality bag is highly recommended as we bought a bag here in Laos that fell apart on the first day… so a quality rucksack bought outside of Laos is recommended.

Sun cream is a must – Sun cream hadn’t touched my skin since my mum slapped it on my arse during our annual holidays to Spain when I was a kid. It works, and with the blazing sun beaming down on your forearms and back of the neck while driving, this can really save some sleepless nights.

Guide book – I bought a 2nd hand copy of the Lonely Planet Laos when I was on Don Khet for a couple of dollars, which was printed 2 years ago. Most of the hotel and restaurant info was incorrect, but obviously the sights are still in the same locations so it’s worth getting a guide book just in case you decide to venture of course.

How much did it cost?

The motorbike cost just under $10 a day, and the friendly owner gave us one day free when we returned the bike. – so try your luck! Food and accommodation in Laos is peanuts – very similar to anywhere other than Bangkok in Thailand.

Got any Q’s?

Fire away!

Today I visited Wat Phou. A ruined Khmer Hindu temple complex in Champasak. It was worth visiting, but I think that once you’ve seen a couple of temple ruins in Asia, you’ve seen them all.

We hoped onto another small boat to take us over to Don Daeng, which was about 40 minutes away. As we were approaching this small island in the middle of the Mekong River, something just didn’t seem right – there was no people to be seen – just a secluded beach with a small dirt path leading into some trees. As we got the bike of the small boat a sense of adventure come rushing over me – This is what I had been seeking. It took us at least 10 minutes driving around the island before we saw a farmer!

As I was driving round the island looking for the La Folie Hotel (I later found out we had got dropped off on the other side of the island were the hotel was located), I was blown away by how friendly the locals were. I’d say 80% of the adults and 100% of the kids were screaming “sabidee” – Why can’t everywhere be this friendly?

After checking into the La Folie Hotel (Best hotel I’ve stayed at in Laos), I was eager to hire one of their bicycles and explore more of the island. It was great to cycle along for 20minutes and then stop off somewhere and get some water – which also gave me a great opportunity to mingle with the locals.

After 4 hours of cycling, it was great to be able to dip into the pool, get some email done and enjoy the best dinner I have eaten in Laos – Smoked Salmon, Rib Eye steak with mash washed down with a nice bottle of red.

Just as we were ending our meal, the manager who I had gotten to know well over the course of the day invited us to the beach once he had finished work. With the moon glowing above, the sound of the Mekong a few meet away, the great atmosphere a fire creates along with new friends made this a truly memorial night.

As most of my long term readers know, I am currently dedicating this year to travel looking for a new “home” – Hanoi is already on the list, and I’ve now added Don Daeng – Yes, it doesn’t have a lot of the stuff I need – But wow – It’s the closest thing to “paradise” I have found as yet.

I’ve come to the conclusion that getting up at the break of dawn is worth every second of missed sleep in order to miss the hottest part of the day, as my forearms and the back of my neck are getting more sore by the day; not that I’m complaining thou! It’s just getting a little uncomfortable.

So another early start, getting the motorbike back onto a little boat leaving 4k islands and heading over to the main land was easy peasy, although cost double what it cost to get it here

Within a couple of hours we arrived at the Kingfisher Eco-Lodge in Kiet Nong. This is the first time I’ve stayed in an Eco-Lodge and I liked what I saw (from a business perspective)… Basically you set up a hotel in the middle of nowhere, offer little entertainment such as no TV’s and your pretty much guaranteed that the guests will spend their spare time in your bar/restaurant, where are you can charge highly inflated rates!

Okay, it wasn’t that bad… in fact, it’s the nicest place we have stayed during our trip, and the rates were not as bad as the owner could have got away with.

The closest you’ll get to Africa in Asia

I really did feel like I was on an African safari, due to the heaps of wildlife all around us. While sipping a fresh lime juice on the impressive upper viewing deck, we saw elephants, cows and buffalos freely roaming the fields. It was an impressive sight.

After having a walk around the town and being greeted by the friendly locals with “sabidee” (hello) everywhere we turned, we had an excellent dinner consisting of Laap, BBQ fish and a veggie soup – which was perfect.

On the way back to our room, I noticed 2 buffalos, around 2 feet away from me beside the walk path. I was just so wowed by the experience that I’d rank it as one of the best experiences I’ve had so far on this trip. We stood there for a few minutes just staring at the 2 buffalos staring at us wondering what we were doing.

The next day we had booked up a guided jungle elephant safari tour- trekking through thick jungle on the back of an elephant. I was a bit skeptical as I had done an elephant trek on my first visit to Thailand in Chiang Mai. And It was horrible. It felt more like an elephant factory due to the mahouts consistently beating the elephants… as if the elephants had clearly had enough of ferry tourists from a to b hundreds of times per month. Fortunately, this trip was nothing like my experience in Chiang Mai.

There were 9 of us; myself, the missus, 2 French tourists, a guide who spoke excellent English, 3 mahouts and 3 female elephants. We spent the morning going though little towns, alongside rice paddies and into think jungle.

I got to admit, it’s pretty scary sitting on the top of an elephant as you are positioned a lot higher up than you imagine – and with the elephants having to go up and down water streams and small steep hills, we were often hanging onto the side of our seats wondering if we were going to fall out. Good fun.

We stopped to have lunch, and let the elephants roam around for an hour or so. Then we watched the elephants bath in a shallow river before making our way back to the elephant. It was an exhausting day, but one that I’ll always remember.