C & C globetrotting around the world…

We left the island of Don Det heading for a village called Tad Lo on the Bolaven Plateau, a journey that took forever, even though it wasn’t that far. The Bolaven Plateau is home to dense jungles and many waterfalls. At an altitude of 1500m, it also enjoys a cooler climate and is home to some ethnic groups. Unfortunately they do not dress in traditional costumes like in China, so it’s not as colourful. The area is also known for growing Laos’ coffee, although that was a bit further away from where we stayed.

Here, we were woken up early again. At night there is loud music from the village disco, in the morning it’s the kids and roosters that wake you up early. We are not happy about the lack of sleep we are getting in Laos so far. Christoph says that if in Vientiane he cannot sleep, he’s taking the first plane back to China, hehe. The adults are friendly and smiling, but the kids are ALWAYS crying and screaming. We were too tired to do much else, but we read a lot, which is also nice. An interesting thing we observed while we were reading out on the porch was the fact that although there is a toilet, the family running the guesthouse still goes in the bush. It seems that toilets are only for foreigners… Also, there is a water spring where village girls come to fetch water. One of the girls was pregnant (maybe 5-6 months), but still carried 20L of water on a bamboo stick. Crazy!

When we finally gathered enough energy, we set out to hike in the area. The hike to the waterfalls was pretty quick and the waterfalls were nice, but nothing spectacular. They are probably much more awe-inspiring in the wet season when the water volume increases dramatically. We hear of many people who are impressed by Laos’ nature, but for that one needs to hire a motorcycle and take back roads. We like adventure to a certain degree, but motorbiking on winding dirt roads in the middle of nowhere is way past that point. That is probably why we haven’t been that amazed. We have however experienced “real Laos” and its rural life-style.