Pakse or Pakxe, is located where the Se Dom River flows into the mighty Mekong. The way the Se Dom flows into the Mekong creates a peninsula in the same way that one exists in Luang Prabang. This offers Pakse a sheltered boat landing area. However, while I was in town, the only boats I saw were small local motor ferry boats. I was somewhat amazed to watch one of these long, narrow boats being loaded with countlessbundles and parcels even though many seats were full with passengers. Along the riverbank, several old larger riverboats have been moored and converted into restaurants and bars. One was very busy over lunchtime and may have been an organised function from the neatness of everyone's tidy clothing. Up on the side of the riverside road a whole series of food stalls are set up under the shade of spreading trees. Most have set out small tables and plastic chairs. One even had cane units which incorporated reclining seats with low tables - sort of what I consider to be Middle Eastern fashion. Near the centre of town is the market and the market shopping centre building. In the building are the typical Asian small business stalls. There were mostly clothing stalls grouped into women's, men's and children's areas. But, there were only a few 'other' businesses - a cell phone outlet, a couple jewelery and some shoe sellers. Upstairs, I located a well stocked supermarket with food, household items and a children's toy area. In a neighbouring open sided building was the produce market. Here were the fresh vegetables, a large dinning area with a number of cooking spots selling similar meals. There were also some packaged food stalls as well.
I felt that the commercial hub of Pakse was more compact than say, Savannahket, although when leaving I did pass a market area and large supermarket which I had not been too. They were on the edge of town near the Mekong River bridge.
The streets and footpaths in the commercial area are well maintained although it was common to have walk along the road because food stall filled the pavement or cars were parked along or across the pavement. No one seemed to mind.
Several of the cross roads have traffic lights as does the one way bridge. In every case traffic obeyed the lights although you seem to be able to turn left against the light pattern if traffic allows the clear space. Mind you, on many of the light controlled intersections, there was also a police control kiosk with several officers always present.
I met a tuktuk driver parked near my hotel on the first morning. He told me that he ran tours and gave me his flier. I was not interested in doing anything on the first day other than walking around and getting to know the town. However as the day progressed the thought of doing a trip got increasingly interesting, especially a half day trip into the Bolaven Plateau where I would see and ethnic village a tea and coffee plantation and a couple of water falls as well.
I spent much of the day thinking about the idea as I walked around. I had to balance this with the need to stay in Pakse for an extra night and to delete a day somewhere during the next few days.
The next morning was clear sky and sunny. It was too tempting not to stay and do the trip. I rang to check he was available and then extended my room booking.
The area we were going to travel around verges onto the Dong Hua Sao National Protected Area and consequently there was a cost 5000 kip to entre to see each waterfall.
The route out of Pakse was the road to Paksong the next town on the map and then further on to a boarder crossing with Vietnam.
This was one of the areas heavily bombed by the USA during the Vietnam War and there are still many UXO (Unexploded Objects) lying around. Each year there are still people being injured and killed from unexpectidly stepping on a hidden land mine. Fortunately, the area I was going to was considered cleared, at least in the most visited areas. Certainly I have lived to tell the tale.
Our first stop was at a Katu ethnic village established along the roadside. The Katu are a section of the Mon-Khmer ethnic grouping.
As we had travelled to this point I had already noticed the way in which village varied in the construction and style of their houses.
This particular village had the houses built up abouve the ground with storage space underneath. There couild also be some household activities there as well but there was no consistency with this. The village people seemed happy to have my driver and I walking around and I suspect that he was a regular visitor as this would be on all his itineraries.
The homes were largely palm and thatch construction. Palm trunks for framing in many cases and woven palm frond matting panels for the sides of the houses. Roofs were also made of palm thatch. However, I did notice modernisation as well. Some houses had corrogated iron behind the palm wall panels and some had it on their roof. A few had sawn timber boarding incorporated into their construction.
The area around the village was largely bare earth, still damp but not muddy. The moisture gave the ground a black colouring overall. There were scores of hens and roosters wandering around freely as well as a few ducks. Also a pig or two as well. A few hens were enclosed in small cane domed baskets about a metre wide. These seem common in both town and country throughout this part of Laos.
Of course along with kitchen and cooking utensils on the hut decks or in areas on the ground, there were also large water collecting and storage jars as well as the very common rusting satellite dishes which are everywhere in Laos. One lady I talked to who had visited Laos around 6 years ago said that there were no satellite dishes at that stage. Dishes imply tv sets which imply a supply of electricity. It is very common to see power lines running to even small villages but the wiring around huts and homes would not pass NZ safety inspection.
At this village there were some stand alone rice storage huts which looked a bit like the Maori food storage huts.
One thing which did interest me especially was the school. In the centre of the village was hut with only lower half walls, but with a roof of course. This was being used for a school. I was told that there was another school somewhere else but it was being rennovated. That would be good as the conditions here were not good. Home made desks which would seat 3 or even 4 pupils with a little storage shelf underneath. Floor was bare earth. The children seemed happy and although they were on a break when I arrived they quite soon returned to their desks and got exercise books out readyI met the one teacher, a young man. He was teaching two classes here and I noticed his seating arrangements. At one end of the hut he had a large blackboard on the left hand side with desks and students facing it.
At the end closest to me a large balckboard was on the right hand side and the desks here facing in that direction. He was teaching the 9 to 12 year olds and the young ones were at one end and the older pupils at the other. In the conditions available to him, I thought that this was a good seating arrangement. I was told that as there was a teacher shortage in this part of Laos it was common for teachers to take two classes. Actually I had read something about this in a Vietaine English language newspaper while I was staying there. Obviously a situation of concern to the government as even when they assign teachers to the area they shift as soon as they can. Alos apparently, once a teacher achieves public servant or public service status, there is a tendency for them to move into other government departments.
I took the opportunity to take a few photographs of the classroom and the pupils.
After the village we soon turned into a driveway and parked at a tea and coffee plantation. First we inspected some tea bushes which were not much more than chest height and later some similar height bushes with very thick trunks which weee over 40 years old. That's how long the present owners have been there. We saw tea leaf sorting and drying and the brying kiln. It was all on a small scale though. I picked some recently oven dried tea leaf and smelt it and tasted it. Surprise - tasted like crunchy tea. This was the process particularly for green tea. Oolong tea is sundried. I had always assumed it was the reverse. Oolong tea 'with its strong bitterness it will clear up your throat and curb your cholesterol and glycemia rates,' claims the packet. It is distributed by Sinouk Cafe Lao Ltd. They also have a few cafes in different towns to push their own coffee brand. I had to visit Sinouk Cafe in Pakse because it had free wi-fi and the hotel's system was down for a couple of days; not that they seemed that worried. So I walked through heavy rain in my plastic poncho to get there. The poncho is a throw away item but so far it is standing up to quite a few re-uses. Mind you it does smell if you don't get it really dry before wrap ping it up for storage. I was invited by Mrs Ya to enjoy a cup of their coffee and couple cups of their green tea and it was pleasant. Unfortunately I didn't see the coffee process as it ws not harvest time. Both crops are sent off to large companies for processing and sale. So the coffee beans were just from the general area rather than specificly from this plantation. They were all robusta because of the farm's altitude - it was not high enough for arabica. I met both the the owner, Mr Ong Ya and his wife who are Vietnamese and they did seem elderly. He is the master tea blender and had his picture on the tea packets. A sort Mr Dilmer character. I took his photo with the tea packet in the forground. Later we drove on to the national park to see The Tat Fan waterfall.Admission was 5,000 kip. First, we had to walk down a very muddy road from the highway to the national park about 800m to 1km – but interesting of course. The depth of the mud and ruts running for a distance would have made if difficult even impossible for the tuktuk to get through. Walking down the road took me past several small holding coffee plantations. In one place they were still clearing land amongst the remanents of tall tree trunks. Another had a coffee plant nursury set up under shade cloth. There were hundreds even thousands of small plants in their individual plastic bags. On the more mature bushes,most were covered in masses of coffee beans. Only a few beans here and there were showing the red colour indicating ripeness. So it was too early for me to see harvesting in progress. Most of the bushes along this road were arabica. Talking to small holder through my driver I found that they would get $3-4 US per kilogram of washed and dried beans. That would be beans with all their skin and flesh removed and just the green bean ready for roasting. Well, we walked through the grounds of Tan Fan Resort to the lookout points. Across a large wide ampiheatre were two rivers falling side by side to unite in the plunge pool below. I could see that each was coming down their own jungle clad gullies. They were not just a division at the top of one river. I read that the falls are 120 metres high and I am sure I have also read that they are the highest in Laos- but I cann't be sure on that. Certainly seeing them plunge from the dense forest covered hills was impressive. The next falls, also 5000 kip entry, were also very impressive. First we climbed down a steep rocky step access called 'the step ladder' which brought me down to a spur jutting out at spray level. The path carried on from that observation point further into the spray and mist, but it looked rather a slippery venture along the ridge of the spur. Coming down the steep windy series of steps cut out of the rock face was challenging enough and I wondered how I would go climbing back up. Much to my surprise I was able to ascend without much difficulty. I just made sure I had hold of the step railing all the time, I did not want to slip on the damp stone steps. Back at the top and I could now go out on a path which took me over some low bridges near the top of the falls. Here chairs and tables had been set up for people to have picnics. I did think that would have been a good idea, but rain was just beginning to lightly fall so it was time to move on. Actually, the previous afternoon around 4 pm, I had been wandering around a large wat just along from my hotel when the rain suddenly commenced. Actually, not quite suddenly as I had glanced at the sky and seen the heavy dark clouds and some unexpected gusts of wind swept past me. So I had seen the signs but didn't expect such a heavy and prolonged downpour. My little folding umbrella would be of no use at all. So I stood under the overhanging verandah of one of the buildings and watched the surface water build up and move across the landscape. In the middle of the heaviest rain, several monks came in through the gateway complete with umbrellas up, but completely soaked. You often see monks with umbrellas but they are more likely to be using them as sun shades. At least the rain was warm. I watched it come off the roof like a waterfall. Lightning flashed and thunder rolled across the sky like a long tympany drum roll. It did remind me of similar thunder on some Suva afternoons years ago. I am reading through Bill Bryson's book 'A Short History of Nearly Everything' as I travel. I noted some informiation he gives about thunder and lightning. 'Lightning travels at 435,000 km per hour and can heat the air around it to 28,000 degrees Celsius' He adds that that this is several times hotter than the surface of the sun. Best to keep out of its way I suggest. Well, that was Wat Tham Fai, which on its roadside wall had a notice that read: 'Dear guest we welcome your sight seeing' But although the War had spacious grounds it did seem fairly typical. But, there was a sort of rotundra at one spot were there was a raised statue of what appeared to be a very elderly Buddha. Was this really a representation of an old Buddha? One who was nearing the end of life? If so, it would be rather unsusal as most Buddha statues seem to show a youthful image. So it would have been unusual, although I have read about another one some where in Laos. There were two ladies present, worshipping at a nearby rotundra which contained statues of Buddha for every day of the week. This is something that does appear in some other wats. There is the reclining Buddha and Buddha in various hand poses. Some had recent offerings placed in front of them and inscense sticks were still smoking away. After about half an hour the rain lessened and finally ceased. People started moving and the traffic resumed. I continued my wander around the wat,carefully avoiding as many pools of water as I could. Then back to my hotel to dry out. On the way I thought that I would stop at Delta Coffee shop for an esspresso, but just as I got almost there, a double deck tourist bus pulled up and a large group moved to the waiting tables inside. It was pretty obvious that trying to get a cup of coffee now was not going to happen quickly. So I gave it a miss and coontnued back to DaoVieng 2 - my hotel. There are about 20 wats in Pakse and the only other one I looked at was near the Se Dom – a tributory to the Mekong River and one town bridge. This was Wat Lung and behind its tall white walls were a crowd of buildings funneral columns and stuppa. I chatted to several novices who where getting ready to go to school or at least to classes. It seemed that the large multi soried building was a dormatory for the novices. I also chatted to a 23 year old monk who it seemed was a teacher. As I wandered around I glanced into one doorway and saw that it was a modern looking office with an older monk intently working on a dest top computer. Back in the Pakse shops, I sorted out a couple of DVD to purchase. The lady wanted 7,000 kip each and would not budge, so I gave them back to her and left. A couple of days later in another shop I was able to get similar DVD for 5,000 kip each. That's the going price in most towns I have been to. Quite cheap really as it is about 80 cents NZ per DVD. However, the selection is not that great and it is quite 'exciting' to find a title or two of interest to me. Most titles in English are action movies, some rather ancient and a lot totally unknown to me.. Of the newer titles I have been able to get 'Black Swan' and 'The King's Speach' . Late one afternoon I went back down to the river bank. It had been a nice sunny day and I was hoping to get a sunset across the Mekong photo or two. Well I was in luck and although there were clouds against the horizon and some higher; there was a decent sized gap in which the great glowing ball of the firery sun shone through. So some shots of this ate various camera settings and the darker images seemed to be the best. The rich reds and oranges came out best when I underexposed the shot. A pity though that there was no general overhead colouring of the clouds and sky. I sunset effect was localised and short as it tends to be in the tropics. The time of sunset was 5:40pm with the previous hour or so being very much into the twilight zone. But keep in mind that sunrise is about 5:45am to 6am, so the day remains around 12 hours long. My hotel was Dao Vieng Number 2, a modern 6 story affair fortunately with an elevator, as I was on the third floor. No resturant but a large ground floor foyer and reception area. The staff seemed to spend most of their day here watching local tv. The single room with ensuite was reasonable, a little small perhaps, but other wise ok. The charges had increased over the listing in Lonely Planet and no way could I get them brought down. But it was the end of a long day in a bus with little leg room and the next accommdation was down the road a couple of blocks, so I stayed. Later, talking to other travelers I realise that a better bet would have been ther Lankham Hotel which was more into the centre of town, but a little noiser I am told. Very good value I am told. I crossed a large bridge leaving Pakse. This was the Lao-Japan Bridge which was opened in the early 2000's. It is a modern bridge with suspension wires at one end. However I had not noticed a similar feature at the start of crossing it. With the crossing completed it was good bye to Pakse and here I come Champasak.
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