Hog Tales – Motorbiking the Bolaven Plateau, Days Three and Four: Born to Run (Provided We Have Cushier Seats)
Someday girl I don’t know when we’re gonna get to that place
Where we really want to go and we’ll walk in the sun
But till then tramps like us baby we were born to run– Born to Run, Bruce Springsteen
We awoke early on Day 3 and set off from Paksong towards Tad Lo, determined to put our previous day’s mishaps behind us. I’m not going to lie – we both were still a little gun shy – but cruising along on the paved roads seemed like a cinch after navigating the soft dirt of the day before.
Once again, the sun was shining and the fluffy clouds were out in full force. Mountains dotted the backdrop of the landscape. As we headed away from Paksong, the chill in the air disappeared. Before long, smiles reappeared on our faces and the only sign of our spills was the dirt caked into our clothes. (Oh, didn’t I mention were were wearing the same clothes for the third day in the row? It is not like we had a lot of options for chilly weather anyhow, and we’d left most of our stuff behind in locked storage at the Pakse Hotel to lighten the load for the bike. Months later, there’s still traces of the orangeish brown dirt on our daybag, our trail runners, and Sean’s pants where he hit the hardest).
Considering our current state of dishevelment, we hesitated when, out of the blue, we came across a fancy resort and coffee plantation advertising tours of their gardens and cups of coffee. The resort seemed out of place in the middle of very rural Laos, but the colorful flowers we could see from the road looked so inviting and we welcomed any excuse to hop off our bike. We soaked up the sunshine as we drank coffee from the plantation and watched women weave Lao silk into scarves. Afterwards, we strolled through the grounds and checked out the coffee trees, ponds, and gardens. Groups of butterflies danced around the garden. If it sounds like a little oasis, a little Eden, it was.
But we still had a ways to Tad Lo, so we continued down the road, passing through villages with roaming pigs and cows with real cowbells, schoolgirls walking to school in their traditional skirts, and roadside stands selling steaming bowls of noodle soup and Beer Lao.
We arrived in Tad Lo in mid-afternoon. Tad Lo, which is not too far from Pakse and home to several gushing waterfalls, is one of the more popular spots on the Bolaven Plateau. Whereas in Paksong, supply far outweighed demand (as a result of people being just a little too hopeful about the somewhat increased tourism), in Tad Lo, we had trouble finding a place to stay. Most everything in town was booked, leaving our choices as a primitive $4.50 hut with a neighbor in the other half and a shared bathroom with cold water, or a $19.75 cabin up on the hill next to a big waterfall. The $19.75 place left a lot to be desired, and the $4.50 price was tempting, but in the end, we value privacy and hot water.
After traversing the town’s rickety bridge more times that I would have liked and checking out the waterfalls, we ended the day with Beer Laos next to the waterfall gushing to the right and monks frolicking in the river to our left. Day three? Not too shabby.
Day four, on the other hand, was rather uneventful. In the morning, we stopped by a road stall for some noodle soup on our way out of town. Like most roadside stalls, the restaurant doubles as the family’s home, meaning you are eating at plastic tables steps from the family’s television (everyone’s got a television, even in the Lao boonies!) and beds. As we waited for the preteen girl to serve us our breakfast, I did a double take. Were those? Are those? Staring me right in the face were not one, but two large posters of a completely topless girl. The posters looked like something that might have been hung illicitly in a warehouse of one of my former clients’ places and later made an exhibit in a sexual harassment case. I looked around. The only people I saw were the preteen girl preparing our soup, and her mother nearby. It was very bizarre, very bizarre indeed, especially considering we were in one of the more traditional, conservative countries in Southeast Asia where locals sometimes can be offended by the shorts and tank tops worn by Western tourists.
Other than some surprise breakfast boobs, there’s not too much noteworthy about our return to Pakse. The day was mostly characterized by extreme discomfort in the rear end. Sure, maybe a motorbike could hold two people and a small bag for four days, but should it? I must have made Sean pull over at least every ten minutes during the last hour. But we finally made it, pulling into Pakse rather dirtier than we had been four days ago, with all feeling in our butts lost forever, but glad we saw a side of Laos we wouldn’t have seen otherwise.
Hog Tales: The End (until we get to Vietnam, that is).
Hog Tales – Motorbiking the Bolaven Plateau, Day Two: Welcome to the Jungle.
You know where you are
You’re in the jungle, baby
You’re going to die– Welcome to the Jungle, Guns’n’Roses
Day two of motorbiking the Bolaven Plateau started off innocently enough. For breakfast, we did as the Laotians do and had a bowl of steaming Lao noodle soup. After stopping by for a quick cup of coffee at Koffie’s place, we set off under blue skies and white fluffy clouds. We intended to head to Sekong, a town on the outer edge of the plateau, and had to head down a dirt road to get there. Koffie and an American expat living in Lao cautioned us before we left that the dirt road to Sekong and Attapeu, another town, wasn’t great. We figured we would be okay if we took it slow; we had heard of troubles during the rainy season, but there were no rain clouds in sight this time of year.
Shortly after we left Paksong proper, we spotted a dirt road to the right, where our map indicated the road to Sekong and Attapeu should be. There were no signs that we could see. We paused briefly, but ultimately shrugged and forged ahead. The dirt road seemed to be in good condition, and we sailed along past coffee plantations on either side. If it wasn’t for the large trucks flying by, spraying clouds of dirt, life would have been good, right up until we hit the road work. Who knew dirt roads have road work? The first segment of the dirt road was wide but completely torn apart. I felt like we were back home in Pennsylvania, where the road work never ends. Because the Laotians didn’t actually feel the need to close the road while they were working on it, everyone drove their scooters and trucks where ever the large steamrollers working on the road weren’t, which might be the flat, dusty parts on the sides, or might be the rubble in the middle. Hmmmm…maybe this isn’t such a good idea.
To top it off, we still weren’t really sure we were on the right road. No one mentioned road work. Efforts to ascertain that we were indeed headed in the right direction produced less than certainty. Anytime we saw a person, we pulled over to ask if this was the road to Attapeu. Many times, the person smiled and looked confused, giving us our first indication that no one around spoke English, and we were probably once again butchering the only word they might have otherwise recognized in our complete inability to pronounce names of towns. A few seemed to nod yes and point where we were pointing, but you never can really be sure. Hmmmm…hope we are on the right road.
One thing was for sure, however. The tourists we kept seeing the day before on the way to Paksong were nowhere to be found today. Kids playing alongside piles of coffee beans drying in the sun stopped in their tracks to give us big, huge smiles and loud, happy sabaidees. Their mothers, donned in traditional Laotian skirts, looked up to see what all of the fuss was about. Even though we were covered almost from head to toe to ward off the chill in the air and the dirt sprays, everyone knew we were foreigners from a mile away.
The roadwork finally ended, but then the potholes began. After dodging the craters, we thought we were home free when we came upon the village that was supposed to be the halfway point between Paksong and the end of the dirt road. We stopped at a roadside stall and had – you guessed it – Lao noodle soup for lunch. If you’re counting, that makes our third soup meal in a row. Delicious. Before we ate, I wiped my face and hands with a wet wipe. The wipe came away an opaque orangish-brown. I mentioned something about being dirty to our host, while Sean kicked me and whispered, they’re covered in this dust all of the time! It was true. With their houses, restaurants and workplaces mere feet away, getting dirty was unavoidable. Our meal was accompanied by the lovely screech of Lao music. Sharing with us the pineapple being passed around the family, the one guy in town who spoke some English explained everyone else in town was at the wedding ceremony. I wish we could have solved the eternal mystery of why Asians only enjoy music blaring out of loudspeakers at top volume, but I couldn’t figure out a polite way to inquire about this. Alas, another time.
Unfortunately, the semi-English speaker disappeared after lunch, making it quite difficult to inquire whether there was a toilet we might use before setting off. After exhausting every possible word I could think of to convey bathroom and only getting blank stares, I cursed myself for not learning more Lao. Who ever thinks they’ll actually need the suggested phrases in guidebooks and translators like where is the bathroom or those drugs are not mine, officer? I was racking my brain trying to figure out how one would convey going to the bathroom in Charades without being culturally offensive, when someone finally figured out what we needed and showed us to the shed out back where the hole in the ground was located.
Waving good-bye, we set off again. A ways from town, the road turned soft, made of fine, rusty terra cotta dirt. We passed a local couple on a motorbike, and I noticed Sean noticing them right before we toppled over. We hit a divot in the road and landed with a big thud. Even though I landed intertwined with Sean and the bike, I only had a small scrape on my knee. Sean, on the other hand, was a bit more scraped up, but nothing a few band-aids couldn’t fix. I gave thanks to our foresight in wearing long pants and sleeves. Even though the soft dirt was our nemesis, it also broke our fall. As we wiped everything down in vain, two women came around the bend and toppled in the spot where we just fell. Great; now we’re going to cause a scooter pile-up. Luckily, they drove away unharmed.
We took off again, rather shakily. I had to turn away from the road; I was certain we were going to fall again at every hole and every rut, Sean was certain I was going to make us fall again at every hole and every rut with my squirmings. I tried to concentrate on anything else but the road: the fluffy clouds, the dense greenery, the occasional house. But then we both saw the worst thing we could have seen in the entire world at that moment: a fork in the road. Hmmm…that’s funny. There are no turns on this map. I thought it was supposed to be a straight shot?
We crossed our fingers and picked left, since the dirt on the road to the right seemed different than the road we were on. I’ll spare you the suspense; we picked wrong. Or maybe it didn’t even matter at that point, because it was quite possible that any number of slight diversions from the dirt road we ignored in blissful ignorance (lalalalala, I don’t see you!) could have a road we were supposed to take. As we figured out much, much later when we ran into a group of travelers at dinner who traversed the dirt road in the opposite direction, it DID appear to be a straight shot coming from Attapeu. From Paksong, not so much. Going in the opposite direction, everything appeared to be in a straight line for hours, with an occasional road joining the way, whereas in our direction, there were ever-so-slight options.
At the time, we decided we were too far from town to turn around. We kept driving onward, deeper into the what was increasingly looking like a jungle. There were no kids calling sabaidee now, just an occasional scooter whipping by and thick tropical greenery on all sides. I entertained the possibility this was where we’d meet our demise when we came to the end of the road. We’d probably been driving for two hours since we left the village where we ate lunch. At the end of the road, we were greeted by two Lao men in military uniforms. Their knowledge of English was only good enough to point over the hills and far away towards Attapeu. Turning away, we came to the realization that we had no idea where we where, and we had no other choice other than to turn around and retrace our steps back to Paksong if we didn’t want to be enveloped by nightfall in the jungle. So for two very long hours, we headed back, dejected, to the village at the half-way point, itself over two hours from Paksong.
Naturally, as a fait accompli, we wiped out again, this time trying to avoid a ridge in the soft dirt. We had spectators this time around; a family of 12 or so came out to the road to see what was going on. What was going on wasn’t pretty. Sean’s arm and the bike’s kickstand got the brunt of the fall. The arm was bleeding; the kickstand was wedged in such a way that the gears could not be shifted. I was resigning myself to having to walk miles and miles or moving in with this Laotian family when the husband and father came over to help us. He didn’t speak a word of English, but he knew exactly what the problem was and how to fix it. He laid down in the dirt and tried kicking at the kickstand, but couldn’t get enough force with his short legs and bare feet. Sean gave it a whack and we all smiled when the bike actually started. Considering there hardly was anyone around in these parts, we are eternally thankful that this kind man happened to live near by.
The four or five hours back were some of the longest of my life. We both were frustrated, fearful and occasionally blinded for minutes at a time thanks to the dust kicked up by the larger vehicles on the road. Pulling into Paksong, caked in the rusty dirt, we both breathed sighs of relief when we saw the paved road.
And just think: we had at least two more days of driving ahead of us. Whose idea was this, anyway?
Lao noodle soup: the breakfast of champions. And lunch. And dinner.
Roadwork, even in Laos.
Faced with two by fours and views of the creek below, Sean goes it alone. We've never met a Lao bridge we've trusted with the weight of two, even though the Laotians have no qualms about driving huge construction vehicles and zipping scooters over them.
On the way to the bathroom at lunch, I had to step over these little guys.
Laotian nuptials.
When you arrive at a fork in the road, take it.
Shortly after crash two.
Next on Hog Tales: I’ve got the fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell!
Forty Before Forty (with a Wanderlist too)
I never been on a railroad, as many times as they pass me by
I never crashed in the desert or seen a rodeo
I don’t know much about the world wars or Vietnam
I’ve yet to read about Uncle Tom
Never climbed a real rock or seen Colorado
Am I the son I think I am
Am I the friend I think I am
Am I the man I think I wanna be – hey
I never had a day where money didn’t get in my way
I never listened to much Elvis
I can’t remember a warm December
Am I the son I think I am
Am I the friend I think I am
Am I the man I think I wanna be – hey
Cause I’m here for my sanity sanity
I am here for you
I’m here for your fantasy sanity, I am here
I am
Am I the son I think I am
Am I the friend I think I am
Am I the man I think I wanna be
Cause I’m here for my sanity sanity I am here for you
Whether or not I’m walkin in
Whether or not I’m walkin out
I’m always here for you– I Am, Train
The other day, I was sitting on a train making its way north in Vietnam, and this song came on my Ipod. Something about this song always gets me. I think all of us want to be a certain type of person, and at some point in your life, you have to either be that person or realize that person just isn’t you.
The irony was not lost on me that now, I do know something about Vietnam. And the only thing passing me by was the scenery, not railroads. Not to mention that I can remember a warm December.
I turn 32 today. And I’m not getting any younger. If it is one thing taking this trip made me realize, it’s that if there’s something I want in life, it’s up to me to do something about it.
So, I’ve created a list. A list of dreams, you could say. I’ve been thinking about creating a list of dreams for a long time. I think I first read about the concept from Chris, over at Notes from the Trenches (one of the first blogs I ever read and one of my favorites to this day). Karen at Chookooloonks calls hers a Mighty Life List. I’m a visual person; I like seeing things spelled out in front of me. Having it all there in black and white appeals to me. I don’t view this as a to-do list; I’m sure I will look at some of these things at 40 and laugh. Many won’t get crossed off. Maybe some will take me more than eight years. Half the things on this list are contradictory or just a small seed of thought in the back of my mind. I’ll probably change my mind a million times, anyway. But I think it will be interesting, at 40, to see who the 32-year-old me thought she wanted to be. And writing down your dreams is the first little step to taking that giant one.
Without further adieu, here’s my Forty Before Forty:
1. Figure out what I want to be when I grow up. (Might as well just start with the big one).
2. Find a job that doesn’t make me miserable.
3. Take the plunge and stop being DINKS (or more accurately as of late, NINKS) and have some rugrats.
4. Learn how to drive a stick shift.
5. Live in a house, with original character, that is finished. (Might as well dream big!)
6. Eat smaller portions and less meat.
7. Compost.
8. Grow a flower and vegetable garden.
9. Write a novel.
10. Live in a foreign country for a year.
11. Become fluent in Spanish, preferably by spending some time in a Spanish-speaking country.
12. Make yogurt, mozzarella cheese, and bread from scratch.
13. Make pierogies from scratch with my cousin Karen.
14. Take a photography class.
15. Become scuba certified.
16. Start shooting my camera in manual mode.
17. Can fresh local vegetables for use in winter.
18. Decorate with fresh flowers for Chinese/Vietnamese New Year.
19. Live by the ocean.
20. Own a shop/cafe with fair trade products and tasty treats.
21. Open a bed & breakfast.
22. Celebrate New Year’s Eve with Sean, Danielle, Matt and Tony in a different locale each year.
23. Bake apple pie just like my mom’s.
24. Ride a bike to work.
25. Be a tourist in my own city.
26. Become friends with someone who owns a boat.
27. Bind together a book of my blog posts.
28. Create a photo album of our trip.
29. Get caught up and resume making photo albums of everyday life. (I think I’m somewhere in 2008? Who knows).
30. Finish the photo album of our house renovations. (Probably should have done this before we sold the house last year!)
31. Keep blogging after we return home.
32. Join the library again.
33. Stop talking about volunteering and do it.
34. Learn from the Europeans and spend more time appreciating beauty, lingering at cafes, and taking more vacation time.
35. Go on a girls’ trip, finally.
36. See Josh Ritter and the Royal City Band play in Idaho.
37. Live in a walkable community and walk whenever I can.
38. Perfect a chocolate chip cookie recipe.
39. Keep on experiencing my Wanderlist!
40. Be a person who creates happiness instead of a person who complains about not being happy.
And, because all of my travel related dreams often take on a life of their own, I created a sure to be never ending Wanderlist:
1. Stop neglecting Canada. (Because it is true that all I know about Canada I know from HIMYM. And the South Park movie).
2. Take a road trip from Vancouver to LA.
3. Visit “our” bakery in France again.
4. Try all different types of Belgian waffles in Belgium (and eat Pierre Marcolini chocolate again. And since I’m over there, drink lots of beer).
5. Eat my way through Italy.
6. Eat real Mexican in Mexico.
7. Go to Madagascar and see cool animals.
8. See the Great Migration before it disappears.
9. Visit an island in the South Pacific.
10. Go to the Caribbean without being on an all-inclusive trip.
11. Enjoy life in small villages in Spain.
12. Go to Cork, Ireland. (We missed it this time around).
13. Go to Cesky Krumlov, Czech Republic. (Ditto).
14. Drink beers at breweries throughout the Czech Republic.
15. Return to the Andaman Islands in 10 years.
16. Get the courage and strength to visit India again.
17. Go on a microbrewery tour in the United States.
18. Take a cooking class in Italy, Germany, China, and Mexico.
19. Board the next plane or train going anywhere.
20. Drink malbec in Argentina or Peru; sauvigon blanc in New Zealand; and shiraz in Australia.
21. Drive a VW Beetle throughout Southeast Asia. Or South America. Or Central America. Where ever. I’m not picky.
22. Take a cross-country road trip.
23. Take a trip entirely based on food.
24. Visit all 50 states.
25. Travel in South America, especially Argentina.
26. Learn how to make pastries in France.
27. Explore the Deep South.
28. See koalas and kangaroos in Australia.
29. Go to Thailand during mango season.
30. Explore other boroughs in NYC besides Manhatten.
31. Trace our roots in Germany.
32. Go where the live music is.
33. Go white water rafting at Ohiopyle.
To be continued…