Tadlo
Trip Start
Mar 10, 2007
1
56
153
Trip End
??? ??, 2007
Tadlo,
Lao Peoples Dem Rep
Saturday, July 28, 2007
(i just got my Mp3 working for the first time in 4 and a half months; this is a quote from a therapy? song i was listening to that got stuck in my head)
After a ridiculous bus journey to Tadlo involving half the time spent in the pakse bus station, i was accosted by a sweet little old lady, pap (see photos), who showed me to what was to be my bungalow for my time here. Spent the rest of the day lazing around in various cafes with different groups of people i met around, and briefly checked out the Tadlo waterfall. Tadlo is a beautiful place, to get to the guest houses you have to walk through this nice little village surrounding the 'tourist area', and you get sabaidee's coming at you from every direction (there were even kids in the trees sabaideeing me.). Its another place like Kampot where there isn't much to do but i think the place has a certain charm and warmth added to by the friendliness of the people
cute kids in the restaurant
. Its also very laid back, one of those places it would be very easy to forget that your visa does actually run out.A fellow 'backpacker' (i use the term loosely, traveling in Asia is soo easy now you don't really need to be a 'backpacker' to do it, hence how I'm still alive!) recommended tadlo to me for the amazing trek he did here, so that was my plan for today. Unfortunately due to the season, they were only doing four hour treks at the time. I thought that I'd do one of these anyway, which was one of the worst decisions I've ever made. The walk there was quite nice; we walked to some Katu and Ta-oy villages and saw examples of how they set all their houses up in a circle around a meeting place at the centre. However i could have actually walked this route myself, and our guides English was limited to 'cow', 'buffalo' 'eat' and 'fanana', so there wasn't much point in him being there either. Not the greatest trek, but oh well.
Next day i went to get a full days biking in, however after waiting for the girls to have their breakfast it was already 10am, and we hadn't even inquired about bikes. Anywho, we got our bikes, and went on up to Phousoun waterfall top. The tourist info in Tim's guest house (don't stay and eat there if you go to tadlo, there are cheaper bungalows next door and the Palamei restaurant on the corner of the road you turn down to get to Tims has friendlier staff and cheaper nicer food, and the best fruit shakes I've had in months) touted this place as 'one of the most beautiful places in the world!', so i was expecting a lot
tad phaxuam
. To be honest it didn't disappoint. We parked our bikes and went down this small jungle path, and suddenly we emerged from the trees atop this huge waterfall with a great panoramic view of the surrounding area below. See the photos if your skeptical. Unfortunately on the way back the girls got a puncture, so they said i might as well go off rather than walk with them, and the biker gang dwindled to one :(.
The next notable event of the biker gang (me) was one of true idiocy:- i would call it classic Sloan but it goes far beyond anything previously classified as classic Sloan, including leaving you car keys in Nottingham coffee shop and only remembering when you get to the car park and your tokens gonna run out. My fuel had been running low for a while (you've seen where this is going already i bet) however i kept pushing my bike a little further and further, driving past the little shacks with petrol at the side of the road, thinking to myself, 'nah, I'll use the next one, there's loads of them and if i run out its only a few metres to the next one'. This had been the case for a while I'd like to point out as a pathetic sort of defense. In the end it became like a macho thing, with me against the fuel, and i was determined to push it as far as i could. Obviously being stubborn i ran out of petrol, but where did i do it? On a dirt road in the middle of nowhere.
In the villae on the walk
And how far was the next petrol thing (i did the same route on the way back the following day so i checked the odometer)? 3.4km, up a hill, in the 2pm midday sun (with an owl! sorry, fast show reference). I reckon i must have sweatted out about a stone in water. Not so macho now eh!eventually got some fuel, blitzed through the town of Thakeng and onto Sekong, where i had a papaya salad that nearly blew my head off with its spiciness. It was very hard trying to conceal how much i was sweating and how much my nose was running (and i failed miserably in trying to conceal it too) and i nearly had to leave it in the end, but nice all the same. All in all, spiciness and general sweating aside, i had a fantastic day,, the scenery as i drove was truly beautiful and i am soo lucky that i am able to do these things i am experiencing!
Departing Sekong early morning after getting loved whilst eating in the local market, (the whole falang with blonde hair blue eyes thing, I'm practically a god here. Seriously, the women practically throw themselves at you lol. Ah, if only i was here looking for that, and if only it was the same back home!) i made my way towards Nam tok Katamtok falls, down an awful dirt road 25km south of sekong. It started raining and for once common sense actually began to kick in, in that i contemplated the thought that going down a bad very slippery dirt road in the rain might not be the best idea
l'elephant again
. However, literally as if by fate, a couple of fellow bikers looking for the same waterfall rolled up. A true biker gang! Now there was no turning back (bye bye common sense). So off we went. The road got pretty bad, descending into a more bog like state the further we went. All made for good fun though, skidding around on the bike is wicked, as long as you don't fall off (i only did once this time). The falls, when we finally encountered the viewing point, were huge, and the drive up there made them all the more amazing. After seeing the falls we decided to brave the road onwards, which the lonely planet actually says is 'unpassable'. Put it this way, if i can cover that road on a bike no problem, then its certainly not unpassable. Having said that, there was a ridiculous amount of potholes in the road (see pics).Arriving in Paksong, the gang parted ways, as the guys were off to Pakse, and i made my way back to Tadlo, chilled out, ate then left for Savannakhet the next day.
