Vang Vieng to Pakse. Approximately 985km. 10 days of adventures.
Vang Vieng to Pakse was an insane journey made possible by the AMAZING Coconut (feisty, beautiful, lovely, hilarious, Israeli lass who is smaller than me) and GLORIOUS Quentin (a beautiful guitar playing, fire spinning, hilarious french man).
I met them in Vang Vieng and created an unbreakable bond upon the dance floor, wowing them with the worm (how original of me). It didn’t take long for my dance moves to work there magic and before you know it they had invited me to hitchhike with them down to vientiene.
This was my first time hitchhiking anywhere outside Australia, but it certainly won’t be the last. It takes a bit longer than just jumping in a bus but the adventures you experience along the way and the people you meet are incomparable (and you save money).
It took several hours, a lot of sun, a cardboard sign with Vientiene written in Laos, and 2 pickup trucks but we finally made it. With the wind in my hair, the strange looks from locals as to why 3 foreigners are sitting in the back of a pickup truck, the sun on my skin and uninterrupted views of the Laos country side, my first hitchhiking experience was amazing.
Vientiene isn’t the most amazing city, it is just that, a city, nothing that special about it, but I still really enjoyed my time there, watching the sunset from the riverside, joining in on a massive riverside Laos dance exercise session, sitting under trees in the park and listening to Quentin play the ukelele.
One of the memorable experiences from Vientiene was when we were eating lunch in a roadside restaurant and Coconut was tending to some bites she’d developed on her leg and a lovely Thai man saw and invited us back to his guesthouse where he gave her some creams and tablets to help them go away. He then invited us out for a drink and ended up buying us dinner, paying for our drinks and refusing our money. He didn’t speak much english, but he was such a lovely, energetic character we ended up learning so much about his life. I've met so many lovely people on this trip, wanting to help you out along the way for nothing in return but I think this man was the most generous (until we met Kham).
The next day we hiked out to the cope museum where we learnt all about the vietnam war and it’s impact on Laos, something none of us had ever heard anything about.
Laos is the most bombed country in the world, The US dropped 2.5 million tons of bombs on Laos, which is the equivalent of a planeload of bombs every 8 minutes for 9 years. Every time they plough a field getting it ready for rice planting they fear of uncovering a small unexploded bomb. They have to teach there children how to recognise a bomb, they have trained people to be able to destroy the bombs. It is something that still plagues these people today. There is approximately still about 30 million unexploded bombs in Laos and people are still getting maimed and losing limbs and lives. The museum we went to was part of the project helping people who have lost limbs in bombs exploding. It was such an eyeopening experience that this country has gone through so much, so recently and so much of the world is unaware.
After a day spent at Buddha park amongst countless old statues, a night spent getting shown around Laos by some Ladyboys we met it was time to leave vientiene, which meant another hitchhiking adventure.
We were making our way to the Konglor Cave, the biggest cave in Laos. It is about 400km from vientiene but it took us 2 days to hitchhike there. On the first day we got picked up by a Laos guy who spoke no english, luckily he had room in the front of the truck because just after we got picked up it started pouring down.
By the time we got to Paksan our bags were wet, we were cold and it was 5pm and the still bucketing down so we ended up staying a night there.
Best decision. We ended up in a local restaurant that had closed for the night due to a new baby, and they were all celebrating and invited us to join in. Free beer, lots of laughter, laos whisky, interesting people and a night of dancing.
I had said when I first arrived in Laos that I want to meet a monk and learn more about what they do and why and then randomly we are sitting in this restaurant talking to a man who just 2 weeks ago left the monastery after 10 years. It’s amazing the random people you can meet if you are open to it.
An hour and a few beers later we were all tearing up the dance floor in a Laos club together.
The next day we were at it again, we got picked up by some guys who were zooming around the corners in a ute and singing Laos tunes and passing us beers. They dropped us in Ban Nah hin, the town 50km from the cave.
The next morning we got up and decided to leave our bags behind and hitchhike to the cave, by the time we got there it was 1pm and so we didn’t have time to do the massive trek and had to settle just for the boat ride. The cave has a river running through the entire thing, it’s about 7km through the cave, you jump in a little wooden long boat with a head torch and start zooming through, it was quite the experience, the reflection of the rocks on the water was so clear it made it look like you were flying and some of the caverns were over 150m high. We stopped halfway through and you walk through all of the stalagmites and stalactites and then we asked them to turn the lights off and took some photos of Quentin playing poi (basically fire spinning but with lights instead of fire)
On the other side of the cave you can walk for 30 minutes and get to a small village which is apparently really nice, but we didn’t have time as we’d got there so late, so we had an hour to sit down, have a beer and walk around a little bit and then back in the boat to go back through the cave.
We had to laugh that it took us 2.5 days to get there and we didn’t even have time to experience it properly, but the journey there was what made the experience so amazing!
We got out and it was about 4:30pm and we still had to hitchhike back to town as our bags were in our guesthouse. But it was late and there were no cars! So we managed to get onto some motorbikes with some guys who didn’t speak a word of english, they were quite nervous that we wanted them to take us all the way to town, it was incredibly hard to explain that we just wanted to go part of the way and try and find another ride. We ended up in there village just as the sun had set and darkness was setting in. Luckily a car drove by and stopped for the 3 crazy foreigners waving at it.
And so began our next adventure with the amazing Kham. When he realised we had no money (this was the only way to make them understand why we were hitchhiking) and it was so dark he invited us to stay with him in his village, as there was no way we were going to get another ride this late at night. So we happily agreed. We ended up at Khams house eating some delicious Laos food, his wife laid us out some mattresses and we all spent the night cuddling together (not with Kham and his wife) listening to the barrage of noises village life brings, roosters, dogs, cows. I think we all managed a few hours of sleep but I for one was glad to go without a bit of sleep in exchange for such an amazing experience.
The next morning we were up with the sun to try and get back to town to pick up our bags and make our way back to Konglor cave to stay the night at Khams guesthouse (just up the road from the cave). We got back, got our bags, ate and then got on the road again. This day was ALOT harder to hitchhike, we didn’t get back to Konglor until 4:30pm. It took us a few pickup trucks, a dump truck and a motorbike each to get us there. But again, its the journey that makes it worthwhile! The moment we realised we had to get motorbikes as there were no cars I had to shove everything into my big backpack, my computer, camera etc. I didn’t have time to pack it properly so I ended up so top heavy I could hardly move without toppling over. I managed to stop a motorbike and jump on, I killed my shoulders and legs holding myself on and had to cuddle right up to the driver, he spat off to the side and some of it got on my leg and there was nothing i could do to get it off, if i moved my hand i would have just fallen off the back of the bike. When we stopped I tried to get off and ended up just completely falling off sideways onto the road. All of the locals where laughing, I was like a little turtle with my green backpack stuck on the ground unable to stand back up.
My motorbike driver didn’t speak any english and when he dropped me off at the restaurant he stopped and ordered 2 beers and gave me one and started sitting closer and closer. I had to get one of the girls to come and translate that I had a husband, he was so devastated and left soon after.
Again we lost another day at Konglor, we managed an amazing swim and then the park was closing. Quentin and I stayed at the restaurant just past the gate until it got dark enough and then went guerrilla style in the park to take some photos of him fire spinning. We kept freaking out that we would get caught because we kept seeing torchlight but then we remembered we are in Asia and they don’t really care about that sort of thing.
By the time we were done with photos it was late at night and we came out to a bunch of Laos people drinking in the restaurant, before we knew it they’d poured us a beer and we were learning how to count to 10 in Laos.
The amount of free beer and Lao whisky I have had in this country is astonishing. The people are just so friendly, you can never have an empty glass.
With so many free lifts, free beers, cheap accommodation I’ve been spending about $80 - $100 a week. Amazing!
I thought I’d be worried about my money lasting for 2 - 3 months, but I reckon I can definitely stretch it to 4 months if I can keep this up.
We made it back to Khams and slept on what can only be called a plank of wood covered by a blanket, and then the next hitchhiking adventure began. This time to Pakse.
After a very windy, crazy ride where we were sliding around knocking into each other in the back of a pickup truck, it was time to say goodbye to Quentin, who was going in the opposite direction.
Then it was myself, Coconut and Agnese, a latvian we picked up in Konglor. After a luxury minivan took us all the way to Savankhet we managed to get picked up by another big dump truck with a Laos couple inside who only spoke a few words of english. We had our bags shoved to one side, 3 of us shoved to the other side and one of us in the seat of luxury, the passenger seat. They were going almost all the way to Pakse and we thought we were so lucky, we were going to get across half of Laos in 1 day of hitchhiking! But dump trucks don’t move very fast, and they had to stop to pick up stones, which took about an hour or 2. It took us about 7 hours to travel a total of 200km.
They taught us a lot of Laos on the way, fed us at one of her family members restaurants where I inadvertently ate mashed up grasshopper (which was absolutely delicious by the way), and gave us free water. It was a lovely ride with lovely people, but by the time we got to the crossroads we were so tired, it was 10pm and we realised it was going to be impossible to get to Pakse that night. We had to try and explain that we needed a hotel for the night, luckily there was one in town for a fairly decent prize if we all shared a bed, but it was 7km away. So we managed to get 2 motorbikes to drive us there for free. 3 on 1 bike with bags, 2 on the other bike with the rest of the bags. It was certainly an experience which made my leg and stomach muscles a lot stronger (I was perched on the very back).
We arrived in the hotel where they said they had no room, but after a bit of arguing they finally went and cleaned a room for us. Luckily I saw them changing the sheets so I knew I'd be safe, because when I got in there it hadn’t been cleaned very thoroughly, there was a lot of open condom wrappers lying next to the bed. But alas, beggars can’t be choosers.
That night was the first night in a long time where I felt like travelling was getting annoying, I was tired, sore and had a stomach ache (possibly from the grasshoppers, or the weird meat I ate) I didn’t want to be sleeping on a hard bed with condom wrappers lying near by praying the sheets where clean. But after an uninterrupted sleep, a shower and an ice coffee I was ready to go again.
We made it to Pakse in record time and found a cheapish place to stay, ate some delicious indian food and finally got some internet for the first time in a week.
With only 3 days left on my visa I had to decide what my next move was, so an hour later I booked a flight to Thailand to visit a good friend and hopefully get my diving certificate.
It was only after the flight was paid for that I realised I was first catching a bus across the border. To get a 30 day visa you have to fly in, if you cross by land you only get 15 days. So I basically wasted an extra $50 on an unnecessary flight. But I guess I haven’t really been scammed since I’ve got to Asia, so I guess this can count as my one scam and I’ll learn to pay more attention to what i’m booking.
So another month of travel has been completed and it’s time for a new adventure.
I can’t believe it’s been 2 months, it has flown by and i’ve experienced so much in such a short period of time. I never want to come back, but alas the money will run out eventually…
