20/4/25
In the morning, we woke to a burning pile of plastic mounded up by the owner of outside. As we were getting ready, we put masks on and got out as quickly as possible. The air quality in general wasn’t actually that bad at the moment. The residents tried their hardest to fix that. There were piles of pungent smelling burning rubbish and foliage that occasionally wafted towards us.
National Road 13 was going to be our mistress again. It was a much shorter day to head into Pakse. We hit the road at 6:30am. It had just rained. A small localised shower. After 4 km, we stopped to buy coffee. It was inexplicably hard to even say that we wanted coffee. The word coffee or café seemed to be poorly interpreted. Pictures were meant to be our friend, but even then they thought it was hilarious. A picture of a black iced coffee putting them into hysterics.
The landscape wasn’t notable. There were more trees and jungle though. But also huge clear felled areas. It was hard not to try and draw a comparison with Cambodia. There were no more pyramids of cassava stalks. Instead, dried up, shallow, rice paddies.
As we were passing through a small town, it started to rain. We stopped to share a dragonfruit and eat a banana each. We were feeling quite weary from the day. before. Large angry looking red ants covered the piles of rubbish next to us. Cows wandered down the road past us. Flies flocked to us in the humidity. We heard some mumblings of thunder. The clouds didn’t look dark enough for it to be heavy.
A gaggle of children ran out of their house to greet us. One of the small boys clearly asked for money. A cheeky grin on his face. The streets of the next town were lined with flags of that classic communist symbol, the hammer and sickle. It wasn’t more than a few kilometres later that a brand new range Rover went past. Whatever they thought communism was, this wasn’t it.
We saw dozens of traditional old buses during the journey. The benches were full. And then some. Suitcases were strapped to the roof. Rear loading steps were full of goods. We stopped to buy some fruit. A new fruit we hadn’t seen before. Small yellow balls. A young girl was selling them. We forgot our rule not to buy anything from children. It was a dollar badly spent. The fruits had thick skin. A layer of the familiar latex underneath. Our lips immediately got stuck with the non-water soluble substance. We used lip balm as a fatty freeing solution.
The road started to climb. Most of the elevation for the day was to get over a hill to Pakse. The gradient was mostly slight, but the elevation was hard gained. We were struggling to find the motivation. The road occasionally sent us back down. Far from the top being a calm and shaded place, it was a hectic busy townscape. Dust was kicked up continuously by trucks, buses and cars.
To top it off the road was of a terrible quality. A patchwork of repairs made it bumpy, despite the perfectly smooth tarmac. We freed ourselves of the 13 and joined Street 28. Sadly, much of the heavy traffic did too. We did our best to utilise the downhill, weaving round the worst of it.
After a few miles of city streets we reached the large market. It was starting to wind down. A 7-eleven was on the corner. There was a vegetarian restaurant nearby. Ha Pham Viet. It was like being back in Thailand again. We ordered a couple of plates of food to eat and a few to takeaway. It was actually more expensive than we thought. Fifteen dollars felt steep. We concluded it was tourist/city prices. The whole trip we had expected cities to be cheaper.
We had a plethora of choices when it came to accommodation. Sabai ça Baille had good reviews and a gated parking area. Pierre greeted us. He’d moved from France a year ago. It was surprising how welcome the French were made to feel, given that they were on of the colonial occupiers. He was a nice friendly man with a good sense of humour. It was surprisingly rare.
We had a nice big room, air conditioning. And we could bring the bikes into the courtyard. The exposed wooden frame of the building felt like it had French colonial styling. We locked ourselves in the room for a fair few hours. Finished our second lot of food and watched television. The heat outside wasn’t worth beating.
At half past 4, when it was slightly cloudy, we went for a walk. Down to the Mekong. A bridge spanned the river, a large golden Buddha in the hillside opposite. We walked atop the river embankment. The lack of scooters was refreshing. There was a cultural and economic blend of people.
We stopped at a market and bought an expensive mango before viewing the 1935 built Wat Luang. It wasn’t anything magnificent to us. One more stop in the Friendship Mart to buy chocolate soya milk. It was like a 7-eleven but more ‘communist’. We’d asked Pierre earlier, he said he felt more free here in Laos than he did in France.
We ate our mango with peanuts. Then attacked the bananas we’d been carrying around all day. They were nice with chocolate milk and peanuts. We were mainly watching the Shield but threw in an episode of Matlock. We’d started watching that way back in Crete. The route ahead looked a little mundane we had to admit. We’d have to follow the 13 all the way north or find ourselves on unpaved trails.
Surly They Won't Make It 