The Pakse Motorcycle Loop

The bus ride down to Pakse was fairly short, but for some reason started off with an odd sequence of events. We started off by piling into a van with the rest of the group and some other travelers, only to be dropped off about 30 minutes away at a fairly big local house. It was about 11 pm at this point, and none of the Lao people there spoke much English (or any of the other languages our group knew), so we were a little confused when they showed us to a large room with only a rice mat on the floor, complete with several travelers already sleeping or just lying down on their phones. Taking the hint, we all found space on the floor and tried to get as comfortable as possible before the unknown time when we would have to get on the actual bus. I tried to sleep for a little while, but didn’t have much luck, especially after some fairly loud music began playing just outside the house. I decided to investigate as I didn’t think I would get much sleep either way, and I thought that the opportunity to join this little local party could be too good to pass up. When I made it to the speaker I was happy to discover our hostess, along with two other middle-aged Lao women and a small boy I assumed was one of their sons. They quickly beckoned me over and offered me small glasses of beer and ice alongside quite a few different foods. I got the opportunity to try some sort of woody green stem that looked like it had been steamed, with some tender leaves I could eat before discarding the stem. They also shared some long, dry, vaguely fishy sticks that I assume were fish or squid based. Most excitingly, though it did give me some pause, I was offered some cut up century egg, luckily dressed up with chili, green onions, soy, and probably more. To my surprise it was fairly pleasant, though the deeply eggy flavor of the yolk was a little off putting; I think the toppings and sauces did quite a bit to make it more palatable for me. After a little over an hour doing my best to communicate with the others as they continued to offer me more beer and food, I finally found myself feeling tired and left to get a little bit of a nap in before our bus arrived. I felt like I had just barely fallen asleep when our host came into the room around 2 am, calling out “Pakse” to get all of us headed that way up and ready to move. After a moment to collect ourselves and our things, our group and a couple others made our way back to the same van as before. This drove us to the side of the road, somewhere on the outskirts of Thakek. There we got our things together and waited. As several busses came to a stop along the side of the road, we thought each would be the one we were waiting for, but after several rebukes, one more bus stopped and the man who had driven us over gestured for us to board. Very much sleep deprived at this point, we all shuffled over to the bus, handed over our big bags to be placed in the cargo area, and stepped on to find our spots. This was another sleeper bus, and this time we were lucky enough to have individual cots to ourselves, so I managed to get a decent amount of sleep before we arrived at our destination early the next morning. Not wanting to start another ride so soon, especially on a night of tenuous sleep, we had arranged for a hostel for the evening and planned to take the rest of the day to relax and recuperate. After several hours of little activity, we all found ourselves with a little bit of energy in the evening. We went out to a nice dinner together and decided to check out a local cinema to relax and see that side of the local culture. Due to fairly limited options, especially in English, we ended up getting tickets to the new live action Little Mermaid movie, showing on the top floor of a nearby mall. The movie was nostalgic and fun, especially with a crowd of friends, some of whom had never seen the original. Once it ended we made our way back to the hostel and settled in for an early night, intent on being in the best possible shape to start riding again the next day. We woke up on schedule and had breakfast together before getting our bikes and checking to make sure all was working as expected. With no faults found, we set off to find gas and then made our way to the first destination, a massive Buddha statue on the hill and adjoining temple. We parked our bikes at the base of the hill and started the journey up the hundreds of stairs that lay between us and the temple above. Once we actually made it up, we were drenched in sweat and all quite tired, but enjoyed the views of the city below and the breeze at the higher elevation. There was an incredible diversity of beautiful Buddhist art on display at the temple, so we took our time admiring the various sculptures and temples before we once again set off, back towards our waiting bikes. Despite the rising temperature, the walk back down was much quicker and less sweaty than our journey on the way up. Unfortunately we still found ourselves running a little behind schedule and hurried to get on the road in search of our next destination, a small village known for making lots of knives and other bladed tools. We arrived in time to see several men by the side of the road sharpening machetes, but were a little too late to catch any hot metal being molded into shape. The knives were well priced but not terribly sharp, and certain I wouldn’t be able to get one back home, at least not without checking a bag for it, I didn’t buy anything and before long we continued down the road.

Our next stop was a beautiful waterfall down a long and bumpy partially paved road. This time without mud, we could enjoy the more technical riding without our tires slipping out behind us quite so much. We all arrived at the parking lot for the waterfall injury free and having had a good time, ready to hop into the water in the height of the mid day heat. After a quick walk up and around the falls, we got to a good spot to enter and exit the water, and all gratefully jumped in. We tested the water for depth and before long we were jumping off of the small (maybe 20ft?) cliffs beside the falls. Several of us tried swimming as close as we could to the base of the falls, clinging to the rock walls as much as possible in order to preserve energy and keep from being swept back down the river. By the time we got out and dried off, we were all thoroughly tired and refreshed, and continued our journey towards our next stop, a coffee farm renowned for good tours and a friendly owner. The owner showed us coffee growing, alongside many other plants, most prominently large fields of cassava (apparently it is particularly lucrative). He walked us through the coffee roasting process and all of the different varieties grown there. He told us that coffee beans are either male or female, and shaped slightly differently accordingly (though further research seems to indicate that this isn’t actually true, the different ones are the result of only half of the berry being fertilized). We ate more of the citrus ants that I had first sampled back in Chiang Mai, then tried some of his coffee and were gifted nice little bracelets before getting back on the road. After quite a few more kilometers, we ended up at our destination for the evening, a nice town near another waterfall with a pleasant hotel for us to spend the night. We all showered and enjoyed a delicious dinner before heading to bed. The next day started with a visit to a small village nearby, known among tourists for its sometimes jarring cultural differences, and one man who spoke enough English to give tours and tell stories about his town. He showed us many plants growing around the village and described various medical uses for all of them. Most fascinating and unexpected however, were a number of animist customs including animal skulls displayed prominently in each house, and stories of the annual new year festival involving the ritual killing of a buffalo and puppy. I was also taken aback to learn that starting as early as 5 years old, children in the village begin to smoke a mixture of tobacco and sugar from impressively constructed bamboo bongs. Our guide was relatively well educated, but told us many fascinating stories about the local beliefs, including of course a flat earth (he disagreed, but couldn’t convince anyone), and the origins of the tourist’s relatively fair complexions (I believe it was something like we only drink carbonated drinks back home, though I don’t recall exactly). We finished our tour and had lunch cooked by the guide’s wife, mine was a wonderful pumpkin curry with sticky rice. After this we rode off again, taking a beautiful shortcut over some mountains along a road only wide enough for bikes. We got to watch the sun starting to set as we looked over vast stretches of the surrounding farms and forest. Finally we made it to our accommodations for the night, a farm and homestay down a muddy side road. We had some beers together and sang karaoke late into the night with our hosts, before all going to bed in anticipation of our last night on the loop.

The final day we headed back to Pakse, along a stretch of road famous for many beautiful waterfalls. Luckily we didn’t have too many kilometers to go, so we got to take wonderful stops and swims in many of the falls. After many wonderful sights and lots of fun on the bikes, we made it back to Pakse for one more night before heading further south. Everyone else was ready to rest and shower, but with a little more gas in my bike and no plans to use one again for a while into the future, I took one final ride along a bridge and up a long winding road to the temple with the massive Buddha we had seen at the very beginning of our trip. Riding alone and in the dark was a little stressful at times, but it was mostly on the quiet temple road, and having a beautiful view of the city at night was a wonderful reminder of how far I had come and how much more comfortable I now was on a bike. I then enjoyed a final ride back to the hostel, returned the bike, took a shower, and enjoyed my well deserved collapse into bed. The next morning, we all awoke for our early morning bus (and boat!) to the island of Don Det, sitting in the center of the Mekong River.

–Sorry for the long delay in posts! Hoping to get back into it now, though maybe with a little less writing!