Southern Laos...
We left Vientiane on an overnight bus called the “King of Bus.” It was by far the best bus I’ve been on. It was not only an overnight bus, but a sleeper bus- meaning it had beds! The beds are supposed to fit 2 people, but luckily I didn’t have to share mine because it would have been a tight squeeze, not to mention awkward. The attendant made rounds through the bus, first giving us a meal (pork fried rice that I couldn’t eat anyway), water, garbage bags, and then a handful of candy- it felt like Halloween. We arrived in Pakse in the morning and made our way to a guesthouse a bit nicer than usual. Margo had been sick and up all night, so the splurge ($5 each) for the hotel was worth it. Even though I had slept through the night, I was still exhausted and we spent most of the day watching TV, napping, and planning our next few days.
The next morning, leaving most of our stuff at the guesthouse and only taking enough for a few days, we rented motorbikes and set off on what Lonely Planet calls “The Southern Swing”- a motorbike loop around part of southern Laos. Our plan was to drive for 3 or 4 days, stopping in the afternoon at our destination, exploring, spend the night, and then continue the next day.
A few kilometers outside of Pakse, we stopped at a Resort that is known for its tree house bungalows, waterfall, and inside few on Laos village life. The waterfall was nothing compared to Luang Prabang, but the tree houses were cool- just too expensive for our budgets. We followed signs to the “village cultural center, “ where they had sample houses from the different villages.
The rest of the was easy until the sky opened and poured buckets of rain on us, soaking us the bone in mere seconds. We stopped at a noodle stand, and the soup warmed us up while we waited for the rain to subside. It finally cleared up and we continued on our way, arriving in Tad Lo in the early afternoon. After driving around for a bit, we finally found where the guesthouses are clustered together and secured ourselves a room in a rickety building on the river with a view of one of the waterfalls. We spent the day exploring the area, which boasted 3 waterfalls. We came to a dead end when searching for the third and largest as the bridge was under construction. Tad Lo was a slow-paced place, so it was nice to relax. Once again, 3 of us shared 1 bed, although it wasn’t quite as comfortable as the first.
The next day we headed out for what was described as the roughest ride of the trip- 30 kilometers of unpaved mountain road. It was a bumpy, and sometimes terrifying ride. We carefully picked our way around potholes and rocks, mainly sticking to the outside of the road. The worst part was an uphill stretch, which we had to crawl up. At one point, Michelle had to get off Margo’s motorbike and walk for bit while Margo maneuvered around the ditches.
Finally we reached the town the marked the end of the dirt road and the beginning of the paved portion to Sekong. Sekong was a little town with a market and not much else. We stayed at a place called “Women Fever,” the only place we could find that could accommodate 3 of us in one room only about $1 each. The room had a bare concrete floor, dirty white walls, 3 single beds lined up and a table. It felt like a prison cell. The lights and fan had to be turned on and off from the room next door because at one point or other the rooms were joined and when they split them, they never split the electricity. By the time we ate dinner, enjoyed a Lao Beer, and showered, it was dark but still really early. There was not much else to do- so we walked around and stared at the stars. Before heading out in the morning, we gave Michelle her first motorbike lesson. We had her drive down the road and turn around a few times. We watched as she puttered away and then made wide turns on the way back. Riding a motorbike isn’t hard, but it does take some getting used to.
Our next stop was Paksong, the coffee capital of Laos. Situated on the fertile Bolaven Plateau, its soil is perfect for growing an assortment of crops, but since coffee brings in the dough, coffee is the most popular.
No one warned us about the 70-kilometer stretch of unpaved road leading to Paksong. Parts of the road were in decent shape and parts you could tell became part of a river when it rained. On the unpaved road in the middle of the jungle- all we could do is pray that our bikes held out and it didn’t rain. We kept our eyes out for a path the led off to the left to a waterfall. We finally found it. The path led to a spectacular view of a tall waterfall on the other side of a valley.
The dirt road finally ended and gave way into a terribly pot-holed paved road. I felt like I was playing a video game as I weaved through the potholes strategically planning my path. After 2 kilometers of this, we were finally on a real road!
In Paksong, we stopped at a café with a huge COFFEE sign outside. The owner was a Farang that directed us to a decent restaurant and guesthouse. The guesthouse was nice; it had a decent bed and bathroom and a view of their pet monkeys out back. We went back to the COFFEE place and arranged a coffee tour for the next morning. We then drove to a resort about 8 kilometers away that had a nice view of yet another waterfall from its restaurant.
The next morning Michelle and Margo made an early trip to the market to get Michelle a new pair of flip-flops after discovering one of the owners dog had chewed hers apart. We then met for our coffee tour. The owner of the café is a guy named Cornelius, but goes by the name Coffee, which he got at a young age for his love of coffee. After a breakfast of pastries, bananas, and coffee, he took us around to see arabica and robusta coffee plants in different stages of growth, explaining how the process worked. We saw everything from the seed to the roasting. We even bought some beans that we watched his wife roast. The tour was only an hour long, but it came packed with so much information that it was worth the few dollars we spent.
We drove to Champasak, home of Wat Phou, one of the pre-Angkor temples outside of Cambodia. To get there, we had to take a ferry with our motorbikes. The ferry was just two small wooden boats held together with a few planks of wood. I thought I was going to drive right off the ferry trying to get onto it using the skinny ramp. It was at Wat Phou that we discovered the ancient obsession with “lingas” which literally means “phallic symbol.” The mountain is home to the huge temples because from a distance it resembles a linga and its name translated means “Mount Penis.” There was a path of lingas leading (which we called the “penis path”) to ancient (and very steep) stone steps to the top. At the top there was a small temple, stone carvings, and a great view of the ruins below and surrounding countryside.
Finally, we headed back to Pakse and checked back into the same guesthouse after-dark where we could prepare ourselves for the last leg of our Laos journey- Four Thousand Islands.
Four Thousand Islands is a group of islands in the Mekong, a few of which are big enough to be inhabited. Our first stop was Don Kong- the biggest island. We took a “bus,” which was really just an overstuffed songtheaw to where we could take an overpriced ferry to the island. We found a guesthouse where we could get two rooms for pretty cheap, so I ended up with the room to myself. The first afternoon we walked around, ate on the river, and relaxed.
The next morning we got up super early to go to the morning market, which turned out to be tiny. After walking down two small isles I was through the market- I like to avoid the areas with dead or still flapping fish, dead pigs, half-dead chickens tied up, and slabs of raw meat, but that’s not always possible.
After the market we rented bicycles and set out on a loop of the southern tip of the island that was described in my travel book. At the start we were on a wide bike path right along the water, but it eventually got narrower and narrower until we were on an overgrown footpath and had to walk our bikes. When we finally emerged from the woods, Michelle had a stick lodged in her front tire and her back tire was completely flat. We were directed to a little bike shop where an 8-year-old boy popped out of nowhere and set to work on patching the tire. Back on our way, we finally reached the other side of the island and stopped to eat som-tam (papaya salad) for lunch. Another 4 km, and we were back at our guesthouse…and I was sick.
That afternoon we took a boat to Don Det, where we (or at least I did since I was sick) spent the next few days swinging on hammocks and drinking fresh fruit shakes at the guesthouse we stayed. The restaurant there was called ‘Rasta Café’ and virtually anything could be made ‘Happy’ by sprinkling some magic green herb in it. Throughout the restaurants on Don Det we saw, Happy Shakes, Happy Pizza, Happy Curry, and Happy Pancakes, to name a few.
The island only has electricity from 6-10 each night, but since it’s from generators, its very noisy. The three of us were in one small room in which the bed took up 80% of the space. The power (and thus the fan) would go off around 10, and by 10:30 each night I was sweating. So I took my iPod, flashlight, and bug repellent to one of the hammocks and slept out there each night. I could give my self a little breeze by swinging back and forth, but the bugs would come swarming anytime I changed songs on my iPod.
One of the days on Don Det, we actually left the hammocks and took a walk over a bridge to one of the other islands, Don Khon, where we saw, yet another, waterfall.
We booked our next stop: Michelle and I to Cambodia and Margo back to Thailand. We parted ways and set out on the next part of our backpacking adventure…
After completing the new loan applicant interviews, we switched focus to interview each current loan recipients in Granada. There are over 150 current recipients! These mid-loan interviews focus on collecting information about our clients' quality of life, how the loan has helped them, suggestions for how we can improve the organization, and what other programs they would like to see in their community. Clients' suggestions for new programs have included computer classes, sports programs for children, educational programs for children, vocational training, and groups for new mothers. My original idea was to try to incorporate health education into PHPG's micro-finance model, but later decided it would be better to gauge our clients' opinions on what they would like to see in their community in order to create a more widely accepted and sustainable program. Not all of the suggested programs fall within the mission of People Helping People Global, but for those that don't PHPG could help organize or link community members to other organizations that offer other programs in the area. We had hoped to be a later stage in analysing the responses to the suggestions for new programs by the end of the internship, but we will have to leave that for the PHPG members or future interns. Our progress on the interview front was slowed by two unfortunate events: the death of Gilberts's father and the death of Marcela's uncle, both about a month and a half ago. Since then, Gilberts has taken over his fathers' business, which has been a tough transition for him and left him with little time to work with PHPG.
