8th March, back to Amazing Thailand again!

In case you were wondering, this is NOT possible to cross without a boat...unless you are a olympic lifeguard and can swim for 1km while dragging a bike along with you...

had to pay 10,000kip for this boat trip to Champasak province to see Wat Phu, one of the World Heritage sites.

Top of Wat Phu. this is a pre-Angkor temple before the Khmer empire moved their empire further inland towards Angkor Wat.

trying to feel what the Khmer king mus have felt like while on the top of this structure ages ago... darn shiok...

Anyway, after visiting Wat Phu, i continued on my journey to Pakse city - a town just by the Mekong and only 50km from Thailand. As usual, looked around town for a bit then started to look for a place for the night. I got to a temple and asked to stay for the night. Hmmm "ok, no problem" said the young monks.

So i started to set up camp and look around blah blah. around 7+pm or so, some other monk came over and told me i had to ask the head monk for permission and i cannot sleep here unless the head monk gives me permission. ooops....sorry, thats my bad. prob should have asked a senior monk instead of some junior monks on the way to enlightenment.

"Sa Bai Dee Head monk, may i sleep here for the night?" and then he actually asked to see my passport. hmmm... ok, this is prob the 1st time i have ever been asked for my passport after i introduced myself. So i whipped out my bright, blaring red Singapore Biometric Passport wrapped in beautiful plastic casing and passed it to him. looked thru it a couple times and nodded his head occasionally. i hope thats a good sign?

after a few mins of perusing thru my personal details on the passport, he said "hmmm i think its better that i ask the village chief." er ok... so i continued waiting around and went to observe the prayer session that the monks were having in the hall. Finally, the news came... the village chief says goodbye!

sians... all the monks (even the head monk) had said ok and allowed me to stay there. but apparently in Laos, you cant do anything without going thru the village chief and especially when it involves foreigners. Lao People's Democratic Republic still isnt very democratic after all, and you cannot let a foreigner stay in your home without going thru the village chief first. Huh?!? By Lao law, i also cannot invite my Laos galfren into my home if we are not married. (dun worry, i havent got one!)

Anyway, i later learnt from my conversations with other ppl that the village chief has a book for every household and apparently you have to register every guest that stays with you with him. even if you dun register, there are "informants" around who will report it to the village chief when they see somebody not local staying there, especially when he looks farang. (duh.) it could be your neighbour, gardener, maid, security guard, any Tom that sees some1 entering your house! not sure how true this is but i hear it from quite a credible source so i am assuming its true to a large extent. you think be village chief so relax ah, of course u gotta do some work other than drink beer Lao every day la...

Anyways, it was alr about 8+ by the time the village chief decided to play safe and asked me to get lost. so i jus packed up everything and cycled across the bridge, over the Mekong and found another temple, this time out of the city and situated right at the top of a hill. this temple was much smaller - only had 5 monks. this time, i made sure that i asked the seniorest of the senior monks and he said OK immediately. no village chief to consult. no passport to check. no rubbish. really nice guy and talked with him for quite long because he could speak a little english.

the temple is situated at the top of this hill...

but i (& the monks) slept in this hut thats at the foot of the hill. crazy, did you think i would climb all the way to the top to sleep for a night? i heard from the monk that its a 1hr ride up...

 i guess Lao ppl are still very friendly and in fact, i dun blame the monks in the city temple. cause i know that they really want to help me but sometimes, there are things that they really just cant do. this is sth that they understand as well because when i was packing up, the monks were very apologetic and told me that i can still sleep in temples in villages or smaller towns but not in Pakse, because its a very big town and i guess political (and mayb others?) powers interfere quite abit in daily lives.

Anyways, I know i am probably gonna sound like a glutton when i say this, but i still gotta say it. i actually changed my planned route and decided to go back into Thailand again! the reason for this? the food in Laos is expensive and not delicious! huh?! food in Laos is expensive?! let me enlighten all you ppl who thought differently...

Laos is poorer than Thailand. So food in Laos should be cheaper than Thailand.
FALSE!!! in fact, when i was travelling thru the southern part of Laos, everything was more expensive than in Thailand, Vietnam and even Cambodia(ok to be fair its not alot, mayb like SGD 70 cents or sth like that). this is because this part of Laos is so undeveloped and far from the capital that basically everything is imported- mainly thailand and vietnam. so you have fish sauce from vietnam. chili sauce from thailand. soy products from thailand. bottled drinks from vietnam (these get lesser as you move away from the vietnamese border). if you studied economics or have any common sense at all, bringing a bottle of 1USD chilli sauce from thailand will cost money and you probably have to sell it for 1.1USD to earn some money, so naturally everything is more expensive!

besides cost, i think the Laos food variety is rather limited and there is so little meat (lots of sticky rice though) that i kinda dun even have the mood to eat in Laos. since i had a great gastronomic adventure in Thailand the previous time, i might as well head there again since i am only 50km away right? doesnt make sense for me to pay 1.1USD for chilli sauce when i can get it for 1USD after cycling 50km right? so i decided to head for Amazing Thailand again! =P yummy

the overtime fee that the Laos border ppl charged me...

When i crossed the Laos-Thailand border, it was 8th March and was a weekday. i was asked to pay this overtime fee which was ridiculous. i hadnt overstayed, in fact i only stayed 5 days when i can stay up to 30 days! it wasnt a public holiday as well, so it was a normal working day. so i went to confront the officials and asked to see their chief. after some time, some dude who could speak english came over and tried to placate me. he actually told me that it was International Women's Day so its a holiday so there is a overtime fee for everybody. HUH?! 8th march is International Women's Day?! to be honest, i think he is lying but then again, i cant be sure because who knows? any of you out there know the date without having to search the internet?

even if it is true, Laos is definitely not one of the countries i can imagine celebrating/commemorating Women's Day. 9th March is prob Men's Day. 10th March is children day. 11th march is grandfather day. 12th march is boyfriends day. 13th march is stop dog abuse day. Repeat formula anyway you wish until you get 1million kip from farangs who pass thru the border. then the border chief can retire and drink beer lao everyday. woah, i love to take up this job anytime man!

ah wells, decided to jus forget it cause i am too lazy to ask more qns to get back my 10,000 kip. i will jus take it as payment for entering Amazing Thailand to fill my hungry stomach so hopefully 10,000kip can buy you more fish sauce to throw into your sticky rice and some beer Lao to go with it as well.

and the border market is roaring with activity on both sides

6th March, crossed more than a dozen rivers... in 2 days. 4498km.

There were a few routes to get to Pakse town, and Luc (the french guy who is working at a NGO in Attapeu, Laos) gave me really GOOD information regarding the routes. happened that he works around the rural area that is en-route to Pakse, and he knew exactly what landmarks to look out for, the distances to villages, the road conditions etc. think i would be totally lost in this place if i didnt have his insider's info

the route that i took winds around the Bolevan Plateau (in the background...) the road that goes over the plateau is better paved but i am too lazy to climb that... anyway, the scenery along this route is pretty and i get to cross lots of rivers!

Luc gave me some chocs before i left and this is what happened...

it melted inside my bag and dirtied all my stuff! shit, now i gotta lick everything clean...



hmmmm actually sticky rice tastes pretty good with melted chocolate. choc fondue Laos style...

Ok, i should definitely make a mental note not to leave chocolate in my bag, under the hot sun, and not keep it in a plastic bag! literally had to lick choc from my calculator, camera, book, waist pouch etc, though i must admit it still tasted good.  

got to the river crossing, exactly where Luc had told me. there were ppl taking a swim/bath, some ppl manning the boats, random ppl jus hanging around to see what this dude is doing



should i be garang and wade thru the river or should i be humji and take the boat for 5000kip? hmmm...

of course take boat la! what if i drown inside? or get bitten by piranhas? or get dirty? no mood to be garang soldier today hehe. mayb the next river i come across bah...

Hmmmm, no idea how many rivers i crossed in these 2 days man... mayb more than 10? big ones (where you have to take a boat), small ones, shallow ones, deep ones(where the water came up to your thigh), muddy ones(like the colour of poop), clean ones. all tributaries(or whatever you call them) of the great, big, bad, mighty Mekong i suppose.

since i am wet alr, might as well give my bike a good scrub!



the really deeeep one.

i know its hard to see but thats the wooden hut (where i slept) i saw from the roadside. so yea, if you cant see it, it means its far from the road!



my home looks kinda cool eh. real traditional and ethnic. you gotta love the Laos farmers for building these shelters everywhere. too bad i dun have a lighter to do a little campfire with marshmallows =P



Hmmm, this is actually my first time removing the jackfruit flesh from the actual jackfruit! come on, those of you spoilt brats who only eat jackfruit without ever removing them from the whole fruit on your own, pls own up now. cause i am one of them as well haha! actually took me a while to figure out how to remove it cause there were some white stuff that kinda stuck to the flesh.

enjoying the fruits of my 1st labour, literally! nvr ever had to work for it before! jus had to throw it into my mouth cause my mom/fruit seller/somebody else would remove the seed and have it all ready for me!

4th March, dead dog at the market for sale! 4383km

woke up early in the morning and while pushing my bike up the huge ditch that i slept in last night, my slippers tore apart! well it didnt exactly tear apart completely, still usable for some time but i better get a new pair soon before this one gives up in the middle of nowhere. at least it survived for slightly more than 1 month, from Cambodia all the way to here.

started off the day having to climb the winding hills...

after only less than 1 or 2km, i saw this nice little road side hut that i could have slept in last night! shit man! if only i had cycled for abit longer last night. oh wells, at least it wasnt that bad last night =D

i start to wonder if i am the only one travelling on the roads in a 3km radius...

failed jumpshot attempt sians...

i never knew i could dance so gracefully  ^_^

still no cars after attempting dozens of jumpshots and random shots

March-May happens to be the hot season in Laos, where temperatures can soar to 40 deg Celsius! cant expect to have beautiful weather in all the countries that i travel thru at the times that i pass thru haha. so i kinda start to take really long breaks in the afternoon, usually around 11-3pm, depending on when the sun gets hot, usually about 2-3 hrs break. didnt really have to do this in vietnam cause the weather was pretty cool when i cycled thru, prob also because i was in the highlands so it was rather pleasant.

so what do i do during this long breaks? eat lunch, clean my bike and lubricate it, write my diary, slack around blah blah... anything that passes my time while avoiding the crazy heat, usually eating snacks =P

time for my bike to get cleaned and lubricated!

the 1st big town i see so far, Attapeu! a lively (though not as lively as compared to Vietnam or Thailand) riverside local market.

LOL this dude withdrew Laos Kip from the bank and it came in huge bundles which he stuffed into a black plastic bag which the bank staff gave him. each stack was about the thickness of 30cm?! crazy kip...

btw, the bank's security is downright laughable... when i asked for the toilet, i was directed to a room at the back of the bank. the toilet was located jus past this room, and inside the room, bank staff were counting bank notes and bundling them together in certain denominations. there was a security guard sitting (& sleeping LOL) at the corner and he wore slippers. no idea if he was even armed to "protect" the bank but honestly, i doubt so... 

So while waiting for the toilet to be vacant, i jus stood in the room and watched the staff count the money while some of them bundled them together. too bad i didnt bring my dog stick with me or i might have tried to steal some money jus for the fun of it hehe =D or mayb Laos ppl are so nice that they wouldnt even take a million kip if it was lying on the floor, hence the non-existent security. hmmm...who knows!

saw this dead dog being sold at the market. i was there for some time but didnt see anybody asking about the price of the dog though... hmmm...

i stayed for 2 nights with this french nurse/midwife couple working for a NGO in the area... they had been volunteering there for close to 5 years and spoke really fluent Laos and were rather close with the local ppl around!

2nd March, 1st day into Laos! 4288km

crossed the border into Laos at the very remote Bo Y - Phou Keua border.didnt have much of a prob and although my passport says i should depart by 30th Feb, and it is 2nd March, they didnt give me any prob and allowed me thru without much qns. not much international visitors here(in fact i think prob none), mostly just locals using the border.

the last frontier of Vietnamese soil... and pho bo =D

found this in btw the 2 border checkpoints. not sure what it is but heck, i am only gonna be here once in my life so might as well jus take a photo of it right? =P

LAOS!

hmmm i wonder how fast i will go down this hill... btw i hit 59.8km/hr!

saw a bus that broke down on the road with lots of creative stuff to get ppl's attention so decided to stop and laugh at them =D ended up taking water from them and resting there for some time under their shelter that they had built

and the dude whose bus had broken down! you would have thought he was having a fun time having a party there

the driver and his zi-high assistant

the road ahead didnt look very nice to cycle...

and the road behind that i came from was a tough climb.

and since it was getting dark, i might as well set up camp!

1st March, had the honour of sleeping in the 1st church of Ngoc Hoi town! 4236km

Bought a 3kg watermelon ystd for 10,000 dong, which is equivalent to singapore 60 cents. honestly, i doubt if u can even buy a slice of watermelon for 60cents... unfortunately, i have almost zero skill in choosing sweet watermelons so it wasnt as sweet as the one i had the previous time.

tons of seeds in this watermelon!

while cycling along the road in Ngoc Hoi (sometimes referred to as Plei Kan. not sure which is the official name but both are understood by the locals) which is kinda like the last town before the remote Vietnam-Laos border, i saw a cross on the left side of the road. hmmm... guess i will try to sleep in a church again today and see what happens!

the church and the volleyball "court" is jus in front of the church.

when i got to the church, there was alot of construction work going on and some workers at the back of the church churning out cement etc. there were some men about to start playing a game of volleyball at the front of the church and i assumed they were local villagers here for some recreation time. looked around and couldnt find anybody that looks like the Father or some1 from the church. 

decided to ask the men playing volleyball and turns out that 1 of them could speak english, in fact rather well! he told me that i could sleep there and brought me to a traditional ethnic minority kinda stilt home within the church and told me i could sleep up there. had only planned to sleep on the ground in the church so i was very grateful for his offer to let me sleep under the shelter. anyway, i later found out that he was actually 1 of the 3 fathers in the church!

later in the night, after their game of volleyball, they invited me in for dinner with them. dinner was with the 3 fathers, 3 sisters and 2 deacons (no idea what this is but i think its similar to father but mayb a lower level?) had a really good chat with them because they could all speak english very well and most of them had studied in Saigon (aka Ho Chi Minh City) before going for further education in various places and then eventually coming to Ngoc Hoi, Kontum. Kontum is a province with mostly local ethnic minority ppl and most of them are farmers and are very poor. so the Fathers have to go around and get donations from ppl from other provinces like Saigon or Hanoi and the local ppl will contribute their time and energy by coming down to help with construction, cleaning up the place etc.  

most of the catholics in the area usually gather in somebody's home for prayer session (i think that's what its called?) and now that the 1st church is slated to open, i think it would be very good for the catholics of the area for them to have a proper place instead of random ppl's home.

the blue guy was one of the deacon and he was very dedicated to his work and was learning the local ethnic language as well.

Coincidentally, the church was slated to open officially 3 weeks after, on 21st march. when i left the next day, Father Hung (i think the head Father of the church) came over and passed me an envelope with money inside and he told me that i could change the money at the border into Laos kip. i really appreciated his gesture and i think he prob wanted to help me with my trip but the amount was too big and i couldnt accept it. 

went back to look for him and return him the money & i think the money could be much better used on the church and helping the local ppl instead of giving it to me to spend on my trip.

the front of the church was decorated nicely and jus waiting for the official inauguration ceremony