Yey! the guesthouse had my passport. P.H.E.W. Close one.
Sadly Billy had to go back to Bangkok the next day so we commiserated by having lots of Laap and sticky rice and Beer Lao in a restaurant overlooking some sort of parade-y festival. Lots of groups of people walked in the streets, some banging percussion instruments, some whooping, some attempting to sing. They carried kind of tree things with money pinned to them. The procession ended up at a big Wat and we worked out that these money trees were donations. There were lots of stalls with balloons on that you could throw darts at and a big stall selling nappies. Like you do. We had a bit more Wat action the next day when we rode bicycles through Vientiane to the big important golden temple called Wat Phu Luang. It was all shiny and beautiful but to be honest I just liked being on a bike and whirling about with my camera around my neck taking snaps on the fly.

Then it was Bye Bye Billy Zeik and hello hello to Courtney who you might remember I met in the hostel from hell in Ko Phangan back in Thailand. She’d just come back to Laos after doing 2 weeks at the Elephant Nature park (I made her go) We caught up over more lovely Laos food and decided where to go as we journeyed south the next day. It was fun to hang out with a girl again!

The next day was hot hot hot and we yearned to get wet. The Mekong looked too brown and that swimming pool I went to before was too green so we searched out some blue. We found it in the form of a private sports club and paid to have a dip and chill by the pool. Twas lovely.
That night we got on the sleeper bus to Pakse, a big-ish town in the south of Laos. Now I’m getting quite pro on the old buses but this one was so cool. We had a double (yes that’s right, double) sleeping bunk with loads of legroom, storage and snacks to boot. It had a curtain round it too so it was like being in a cool tent. We were busy cracking up about how funny it would be to be traveling solo and have to share a double bunk with a complete stranger, as the two big men in the adjacent bed shook each other’s hands and introduced themselves. We than laughed too loudly, for too long about them accidently spooning in the night. Immature girls.

We arrived in Pakse in the early hours, the only ones up being the monks. We convinced a nice guesthouse owner to let us shower and change at their hotel, even though we have no intention of staying there. We only have one thing on our mind: MOTORBIKES.

In the big tuk-tuk to get the sleeper bus in Vientiane, I was sitting next to an American girl. She was annoying. Very annoying. She was speaking to the whole bus loudly (although to no-one in particular) in her grating, monotone and drawly voice about this ‘import supermarket that she had found that sold proper Cadbury’s chocolate and 70% coco chocolate/how she missed good chocolate/would anyone like to see the chocolate she had bought/ how it was for her friend/ how she hoped she wouldn’t eat it before she got it to her friend ha ha ha/ how she was holding it flat and hoping it wasn’t going to melt before I smashed her in the face!!’
Being a tolerant lady, I just clenched my jaw and gazed at the passing traffic as she moved her riveting conversation topic onto avocados. Now. I’m a big avocado fan. They are possibly my favourite type of pear, but she went on and on about how she missed them so much/how she has called a friend in the states and ordered them to bring avocados with them when they join her later in the month/how she hopes they will be okay getting through customs/ how she has searched Vientiane high and low on an extreme avocado hunt/how she would sell her grandmother for a bit of avocado and how she cannot believe that the Laos people do not eat avocados. I had to stop her. Especially as the previous day I had eaten a delicious Avocado and bacon sandwich. In Laos. From a Laos cafe. Wa-boom. In your face annoying be-hatch! I win.
Unfortunately, then she aimed the rest of her vocal harassment at me for the remainder of the journey. I lose.
One thing that she did talk at me about however, was the motorbike tour she had done before of the Bolavern Plateau from Pakse. Although she wasn’t, the tour sounded just what Courtney and I were looking for.

So, after we had showered we sought out the hire place and a map. We packed enough clothes for a few days and off we set on our massive 100cc motor beasts with baskets on the front. We were like a scene from Mad Max. But with less leather and a bit more wobbly. I’d ridden a few bikes in Thailand and Vietnam but was no means a pro and Courtney was a complete rookie. After a close shave with a spiky potted plant and a petrol pump, she got the hang of it and we set off on the first leg of our journey- 83 miles north to Tad Lo via a nice waterfall.

We got approximately 1/2 mile down the road and waited at a red light. Suddenly we were being beckoned by two policemen to get off the road onto the pavement next to their little hut. Was it because we were western? Was it because we were clearly amateurs at this malarky? No, it was because we had stopped in the right hand lane (only slightly marked) when we wanted to go straight on. No problem I thought, we’ll just explain our mistake and pop up there on the side of the road. Well easier said than done. Especially for Courtney, bless her, who had realised that going faster on the bikes was easier than slow, exact, tight maneuvers. Alot of ‘OOOOOHHHH SHHHHIIIIIIT-ing’ and revving later, we managed to get the bikes off the road. We were told were were being taken to the Police station and were to be fined for being so ridiculously naughty. 50,000 kip each. Can you barter with the Laos police? It seems you can. A back-hander of 25,000 each and we were again on our way, wrists slapped but no police station and both very aware of any road markings for the next 82.5 miles.

We stopped at a lovely waterfall for a pineapple shake and a local market for a bum-rest in the sun and eventually got to Tad Lo in the afternoon. The scenery was pretty amazing. Proper stilt houses, farmland and these amazing mountains in the background. The Bolavern Plateau is known in the Lonely Liar as the ‘Southern Swing’ and is a big circular route through these mountains and coffee plantations with routes off to nice remote villages. The roads were pretty good and the majority were sealed tarmac even if there were some potholes the size of paddling pools. The traffic was fairly manageable as long as it was motorised; the dangers came from the living things crossing the road. on the trip I nearly hit a puppy, a herd of goats, about 17 cows and a very small child. Although I thought we blended in quite well, there must have been something about us that stood out as the children all along the way rushed to the roadside and to their gates waving and screaming ‘Sabadie!’ (hello) or occasionally ‘Falang!’ (foreigner) but were all so friendly and cute. Apart from the tiny one that I nearly totaled. That one was a crazy brat.

We stayed the night in a lovely village called Tat Lo, but it seemed to be called Tad lo and Tak lo too depending which sign or map you consulted. The village was full of dogs and babies. I was asked to stay to make tall babies but I politely declined instead ordering more sticky rice and a chocolate pancake as a way to distract from the topic. Everyone in the village was so happy and looked after us so well and I realised how little these people have in their lives and yet how full they were with joy.

More biking over the next few days included an un-made road that had recently been watered making it like biking through chocolate mousse, both of us falling off a few times, a big exhaust pipe burn for me, an incredible rainstorm, a hilariously hairy moment when I slipped at a waterfall and a sheer adrenaline ride though some of the most beautiful scenery I have seen on the trip.

When we got back to Pakse, covered from head to toe in mud, we found a guesthouse by the river and got clean. We went for dinner on the roof terrace of the Pakse Hotel where we enjoyed the sunset and my first Bloody mary since Vientiane. Oh I forgot to tell you about that one didn’t I? Well it was in the Blue Banana bar and was pretty damn good. There was no celery, but everything else was pretty much spot on so that scored a 9.2/10
The Pakse Hotel one was average and small, only scoring 6.1/10 but the 360 degree views kinda softened the blow.

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