Laos: Sweet and Simple

Driving through Laos to Savannakhet you see life. True life. You see people build their lives, homes, and country by hand. Brick by brick. Skeletons of unfinished and abandoned homes lay scattered. Fathers rest in the hammocks hanging on the porches of their stilted homes. The roads are shattered. Little children play with their imaginations. Smiling wives sit on picnic benches hidden from the sun. Young men gather for some pickup on cracked volleyball courts. Segments of paved roads follow rocks and dirt. Tractor engines connected to two long handlebars pull wagons full of giggling girls. Goats wonder freely and swim in the ponds of rain water. Out-of-place billboards advertise cellphone services for bus loads of travelers that barge through each day. Rusted satellite dishes of all sizes litter roofs and front lawns. 

We reached Savannakhet in the early evening, with enough time to settle down and explore the city for some food. Savannakhet is a sleepy town. It is quite, clean, and full of remnants of the French colonial rule. There is an old church square in the middle of town, with run-down buildings sitting opposite of restaurants geared towards the few tourists that pass through. A few blocks from the church square is the great Mekong River, which runs through China, Burma, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam before emptying out in the South China Sea. 

The following day in Savannakhet, Laos’ second biggest “city,” we visited a dinosaur museum, got a massage, and ate some lunch before jumping back on a bus headed south to the city of Pakse. The dinosaur museum was two small rooms full of unidentifiable bones and material only written in French and Laos. Oh, and a dinosaur made of Christmas lights that wrapped around the first room. 

Pakse also sat along the Mekong River, and it was also a very lazy town. There was nothing really to do in the town, except enjoy a nice cafe breakfast and walk along the river. While walking, we found a tourism office, full of very friendly Laotian ladies. Sarah joked with them about grabbing a beer together for lunch, which then turned out to be a lunch date by the river. 

Six of the employees closed the office and brought us to a small restaurant where we had our first real taste of Laotian food. The waitresses brought over three clay pots full of boiling broth. We then dropped some vegetables, uncooked meat, and noodles and waited several minutes for it all to cook. We each had our own personal bowls of peanut sauce, which made the lunch even more delicious. 

Our new friends told us how we were the first tourists that they took out to lunch. My beer Lao turned into several glasses of beer Lao as it was constantly being refilled. After lunch we returned to grab our stuff from their office, and then made our way to the bus station to head south yet again. 

Our next stop was Si Phan Don, which translates to “4,000 Islands.” There are three main islands were tourists can stay called Don Khong, Don Det, and Don Khon. Most of the four thousand islands were small shrubs that popped out of the water.  

During our two days on Don Khon, we rented bicycles, swam in a natural swimming pool, floated down the river on tubes, and tried to hide from the massive cockroaches that infested our room. Aside from the cockroaches, the islands were very relaxing. We found ourselves riding our bicycles through small villages hidden in the jungles of the islands, with little girls and boys waving and smiling at us as we went passed.