Southern LaosOh how I miss your green jungles, murky rivers, and happy elephants. Over our October holiday, my good friend, Joanne, and I decided to venture to Southern Laos to see 4 Thousand Islands and to just spend time RELAXING. When you work 12 hour days, you tend to want to do NOTHING on vacation. Needless to say, we did a lot of reading in hammocks along the Mekong River, sleeping in 2 dollar a night bungalows, eating lots of crepes with copious amounts of bananas and chocolate, biking through rice fields, traveling in Seang Taews with the wind blowing in our hair, and riding elephants through the jungle. If you ever dare to venture in Southeast Asia, particularly in Laos, you have to try to become an elephant mahout. There's no better way to ride an elephant than to do it by yourself! ha, ha! So, here's some pics of our wild adventures! Enjoy!
Boarding the train to Southern Thailand and then onto Laos, baby!
My view outside my train window in the morning
Arriving at the Train station in Southern Thailand before making our border crossing into Laos
So, after walking across the border into Laos, we found a taxi to take us to the nearest town called Pakse. We arrived to a sleepy little town with not much to do, but we were quickly whisked away by a cool-talking Laos man who did tours. Upon negotiating on a Kip (Laos currency)price, we were promised a chance to see 2 waterfalls, a coffee farm, and a green tea farm. As we were riding in the back of a Song Teaw (a pick up truck with two benches and a roof in the back), we started seeing the real countryside of Laos with homes on stilts, rice farms, jungles, and waterfalls. Here's some pictures from that town and our little excursion to the countryside.
Fruit market
Rice Anybody?!
Typical Laos home on stilts
Hmmm....it sure smells good...this here is green tea my friends
Us and Grandpa...Aren't they cute? They own the tea farm that we bought this tea from. Note: If you look closely, you can see the pic of the cute little grandpa on the tea bag. Cool huh?!
Ms. Joanne and Me at the Waterfall
Yuang Waterfall
This looked like a Smurf Hill, so I now deem it Smurf Hill. Gargomel is sitting on the side.
Top of Smurf Hill
Picking coffee
Little sisters picking coffee
After staying at night in Paxse and eating fresh fish dinner on a floating restaurant, we packed up the next morning and headed on out of town to our next destination: Wat Phu. It's a famous Buddhist temple inside the Champasack region and a World Heritage sight in Laos. We had to take a ferry to get there.
The boat captain on the ferry over to see Wat Phu
Tada! We're here!
Beautiful Wat Phu
Even Buddha needs an umbrella :)
What a great view!
We're almost to the top!
Offerings to the Buddha
A guardian at the front of Wat Phu temple
Temple at the top of Wat Phu
If you squint real hard, you can see the big Buddha in back of me
One last look out over Wat Phu
So, after visiting Wat Phu and also the Niagra Falls of Laos, we were finally on our way to the final destination: 4 Thousand Islands! They call it 4-Thousand Islands because supposedly during the dry season, all of these little sand bars come rising out of the river.....creating thousands of islands of sorts. We saw a few here and there but definitely not 4 Thousand! :)
Approaching 4 Thousand Islands in a wee little boat
Old Saeng Taew on the island
Even in Laos, they keep track of children's height every year! This was in a bungalow restaurant that served great Pumpkin burgers.
Sunset on the Mekong River
View from the Bungalow along the Mekong River
Staredown with the Water Buffalo
Walking through the rice fields
People Working at Sunset in the Rice Fields
A rice cart
Riding through the Bamboo Forests
Okay, so it was a bit tricky, but we managed to make it to Kiet Ngong. We read about this amazing Ecolodge that was there. It seemed hard to get to, but we talked a driver into taking us there and were very impressed! The place was immaculate with gorgeous views of the wetlands and views of water buffalo, birds, and elephants in the morning. We loved every minute of it, especially since we didn't have to go outside to go to the bathroom! Best of all though was our mahout training course we took to learn how to train elephants!!
Hammock outside our room
Village Kiddos in Kiet Ngong
Rice fields at sunset
Riding through the jungle. Look! No hands!
This is the view from the top of my elephant AND Phou Asa, an ancient temple, in Laos. If you look real close, you can see Cambodia from here!
I heart my elephant!
So much fun! I can't stop smiling! :)
Feeding my elephant some sugar cane. Yum!
Those are some big toenails!
It's official! We're Mahouts! What a great asset to my resume'! Ha, ha!
The sunrise over the Laos wetlands on our last morning. What a great view from our bedroom window!
