Happy shake, waterfalls and coffeeplantations

saarisweg
Oct 27, 2014
2 min read

Sabai-di! (some integration is necessary and fun ;) ) The Mekong is even greater than we thought :D so big that there are 4,000 islets, we obviously counted. On Don Det we had a room on a high pier with hammocks and stunning views of some of these islands. We rode our bicycles along the train tracks (which are about 2km long and have no function) and in the dark in the rain through the jungle on the 'main road' (read: dirt path) back. Of course someone's chain fell off the bike and there were with flashlights and Swiss army knives (I was the hero of the day) trying to fix it.

Furthermore, everything on the menu in the restaurants have a 'happy' option: happy pancakes, happy full english breakfast, etc. We went for a happy pineapple shake and did very little but stare at the river the rest of the day. Then we went to Pakse, again a beautiful riverside town, where we rented a motorbike and spent 3 days driving around the Bolaven Plateau. Huge amount of coffee plantations (and the coffee is gooood Prove comes back home obviously) and tons of beautiful waterfalls. weird markets with trays full of live frogs, people who obviously had never seen a white person before and laughed at us constantly, and goats and pigs everywhere. In the mountains it was actually pretty cold in the afternoons and it rained like crazy. Just got back to Pakse, where we left our backpacks in a guesthouse this week. Tomorrow we go to Champasak, a large temple island, and the next day we take the bus to Hue, Vietnam. We heard a wonderful quote this week: "they grow rice in Vietnam, in Cambodia they look at how the rice is growing, and in Laos they listen to it." Travel remains delicious, but maybe someone wants to send me a wholegrain cheese sandwich from home? Appart from that we are now embarrassingly tan and blonde, both drive flawlessly moto thrue the chaos and we just taken our first warm shower since we left. I am mega excited about Vietnam, but also very curious to go back to Laos next month and admire the north of this beautiful country.