Heading South

Returning from a Day's Work in the Woods
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February 23, 2006

We decided that we hadn't taken enough punishment yet, what with only 24 hours on that bus from Hanoi, so after only about 40 minutes in Paksan we caught the next local bus to Pakse, a mere 12 hours south and one more night spent on bench seats.  Catching the bus proved easy, with helpful and friendly locals willing to play charades and point us in the right direction.  Even the bus attendant was willing to cut us a break and accept a bit under the fare in a combination of Thai Baht and US Dollars, since all of the banks were closed for the day, and it was the last of our money.  We had carefully spent the last of our unexchangeable Vietnamese Dong before exiting the country, and had planned to change some traveler's checks in Vientiane...

Buses, Sawngthews, and Elephants

Caroline's Dismount
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The hours dragged on and food began to grow more scarce, as we finished off our rations and had no money to buy more.  Ignoring the rumbles for real food that emanated from our empty bellies, we tried to sleep away some of the night.  Relatively unsuccessful at this, we befriended a nice, young, Lao girl, who ended up sleeping more than us on Caroline's shoulder, after we shared some of her candy and chips.

Exactly twelve hours after leaving Paksan, we arrived in the outskirts of Pakse before dawn.  With nothing open yet in town, we passed the time watching the sunrise from the steps of a silent and deserted temple.  Thirty six hours had passed since leaving Hanoi, and as soon as we could, we hit up a not-quite-open guesthouse to drop our bags, a bank, and mowed down some delicious brelunnerfast.  Wallowing in fullness from our extended meal, we discussed our travel plans and decided to just get where we were going.  This meant reclaiming our backpacks from the guesthouse we had not yet checked in with and catching a jumbo, an extra large tuk tuk, to Kiet Ngong just an hour south of town.

Phu Asa
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Kiet Ngong was actually just a stopover on our way to Si Phan Don in the very southern tip of Laos.  The reason for this destination off the beaten track weighed about five tons and came lumbering around the corner of the dusty road ahead of us as we approached.  Kiet Ngong is one of the last places in the world where elephants are still used agriculturally for logging, though even here it is being quickly phased out due to ecological reform put in place by the government.  Elephant rides for tourists have become the main source of income for the majority of elephants and their mahouts (bonded keepers), and the dozen jumbo Dumbos provide most of the financial support for this small village.

Enigmatic Stone Pilars
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We rode a young elephant up to the summit of Phu Asa, which is a bizarre archeological site enshrouded in mystery.  Many experts debate the origin and function of the stone columns that ring the mountaintop, but most agree that they were built by one person or a group of people for either defensive or ritualistic purposes some time to a very long time ago.  The male elephant was willing and healthy and the older mahout and younger mahout-in-training used only verbal and visual commands with no physical prodding necessary.

Bus from Paksan to Pakse
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Returning to the camp and thanking our friendly pachyderm with a few stalks of sugarcane, it began to dawn on us that we had no transportation back to the main road five miles away.  We were just dreading the long, dusty hike in the sweltering heat of the noonday sun, laden with our heavy backpacks, when another group of elephants came out of the woods and delivered our savior, Alex.

We jumped in the back of Alex's rental truck and not only got to the main road, but had a nice, breezy ride all the way down to Si Phan Don, the 4,000 Islands, where Alex and his friends happened to also be headed that evening.