Motorcycle diaries - part 2

More dust.
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Becks' diary:

5k out of Tad Lo on the main road and we turn right onto the 30km dirt track that leads up onto the Bolaven Plateau. We get a few waves from the few people we pass. As we climb the temperature falls and by the top of the track we actually start to fee a little cold. The villages up here feel very isolated.

40kms on paved road to the small town of Sekong. It consists of dirty tracks around the market. We find a place with tables to eat east of the market. Great lunch of minced pork salad (spicy!) and noodles. The menus is written by UNDP - trying to encourage tourism (of which there is none) in this, the "most remote region of Laos". Stats in the menu tell us 47% of the population in this region is illiterate.

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After lunch we are on the road again - stopping to fix my wing mirror which has come loose and is swinging in front of my face. A mechanic does it no questions asked and doesn't stop to ask for any payment. In this poorest of countries people aren't keen to take money off visitors.

We head off on the remaining 70km to Attapu. I absolutely love this ride, on smooth deserted road with high mountains covered in thick jungle along our right hand side.

There is more life about Attapu than Sekong, despite the fact that, 200kms from Pakse, it is very isolated in the south east corner of Laos. Turning off the main road we're back on dirt tracks down to the Attapu Palace Hotel. The name proimses much but it doesn't get many visitors and looks like it has been deserted for decades. We move on, finding a good room overlooking palm trees and bamboo huts below.

Beer o'clock... this is what a few hours in the saddle does (before dog sausage).
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There isn't much to Attapu - 5 minutes south and you've crossed the bridge out of town, 5 minutes north and you're back on the highway to Pakse. The only "sight" as such is a bust of a famous Laotian we vow to look up later. Much more enjoyable to see are the women selling herbs foraged from the woods squatting as they sell their goods at th emarket and the school boys playing football in an overgrown sports field next to a rusty grandstand that once promised much.

We head to a bar perched on the high banks of the river for a sundownder. There is no english menu and trying to order spring rolls with the help of Lonely Planet guidebook backfires when we receive a plate of reconstituted dog sausage instead. It seems like lots of people here, as on the Mekong, wash in the river and as the sun goes down a family washes off the shampoo below.