Our Last Stop in Laos: 4000 Islands

Our last week in Laos typified our entire Laos experience: laid back and relaxing. We spent almost an entire week hanging out at the southern tip of Laos in an area known as 4000 Islands – a place where the Mekong River fans out and is littered with islands. Some islands are as small as a bush (actually they are just that: bushes) while others are inhabitable – complete with small sandy beaches.

We split our time between the larger island Don Khong and the smaller, but more densely populated, Don Khon.

Sunrise from Don Khong

Although the area has a fair amount of tourism, due to its proximity to Laos’ southern border, it is still a place that allows you to really take in the Lao way of life and live among it.

The villages on the island are vibrant places (no doubt economically bolstered because of the tourism industry). And everywhere you look is Lao life: farm animals always underfoot, children playing, women doing the washing, men doing the fishing…

I almost ran over a couple of baby chicks on my bicycle

A fisherman setting out on the river at dusk

By the end of the week we were bathing in the river with the locals, where they wash their children, their clothes, and themselves.

Amazingly there were fewer mosquitos near the river than there were in our bathroom! We even indulged ourselves a couple of times with ice-cream cones from the local ice-cream man. Homemade coconut ice cream, made from fresh coconuts – it was amazing!

One of the great things about Laos is that the people don’t pay much attention to tourists. They’re not cold, nor are they overly friendly, they’re just indifferent. It is a stark contrast to Indonesia where locals were literally following us down the street hounding us to buy something. In Laos we never felt like we were targets to be ripped off nor did we feel like minor celebrities (as is the case for a white foreigner in Taiwan), we were left alone to feel like a regular Joe… and it was so refreshing.

We spent most of our time relaxing on the river, reading and taking in the sunset, and floating down the river in tubes.

The most activity we did was taking a bike ride around the entire island of Don Khong (which, incidentally, I don’t recommend. It took almost 5 hours and there really isn’t much to see) and another bike ride later in the week around Don Khon to check out the resident waterfalls.

After a full day of biking, Nick found an alternative way to ride the bike to give his back a break

Although it was a pain in the butt to find the waterfalls - both of us ended up with flat tires from the bumpy trails - at the end of the day, it was worth it.

Tat Somphamit waterfall

It was a fantastic way to end our time in Laos – so great in fact that we were actually quite hesitant to make the leap across the border into Cambodia – but we had to go!

Lao Food

The food in Laos was pretty similar to the food in Thailand, only lacking the wide variety that is available in Thailand. Over the last three weeks, we’ve lived mostly on three things: noodle soup, curry, and fried noodles.

The main staple of Lao cuisine is sticky rice, which is only ocassionally served in Thailand. It’s usually served piping-hot in one of these little bamboo steamers

Then you grab a chunk, squeeze it into a tight little ball, and dip it into your meal. It goes GREAT with curry, like my absolute favorite curry of all time from Pan’s restaurant on Don Khong island. Curry in Laos is pretty similar to what you’d find in southern Thailand, delicious and sweetened with coconut milk.

The typical noodle soup in Laos has a mild, clear broth (I’m not sure what the stock is from, but it’s not chicken) with some leafy greens, shallots, noodles, and meat.

And it will usually come with a plate of onions, limes, and chili peppers so that you can season it to your own liking and some more greens in case you like your soup extra leafy.

Some other popular dishes in Laos include:


Glass Noodle Soup

Lao fried noodles

Rice soup for breakfast

Another popular snack (or main dish) is BBQ. Typically, they will take a piece of bamboo and cut it down the middle (length-wise). Then they'll put the meat in between the make-shift tongs, tie the ends together, and use this as a handle while they cook the fish or chicken on the grill. I never got up the motivation to try the fish, but the grilled chicken was delicious!

grilled fish displayed at the night market in Luang Prabang

And the traditional Lao dish of Laap – it can be fish, chicken, pork, or beef (this is fish) and it’s mixed with lots of herbs and spices, most notably lime juice and basil. The taste was a bit too overwhelming for me (which is surprising because I found most Lao food a bit more bland than Thai cuisine), but if you put the laap on the cucumber, it’s a pretty refreshing meal.

Although in general we really did enjoy the food in Laos, we were certainly tiring of the local cuisine after three weeks here. It will be nice to move into Cambodia and try something new!

The Bolaven Plateau

Well, we spent one night recovering from our 12-hour bus ride to Pakse and then we were off again. At this point in our trip through Laos, we had been in the country for 12 days and spent 5 of those days in-transit, so we were feeling the need to get away from the mass-transportation and savor some independent exploration for a couple of days. Nick and I, along with our new Dutch friend Daniella, rented motorbikes and set out for a 3-day journey through the beautiful Bolaven Plateau.

At first glance, there’s not much to the Bolaven Plateau. The ride is scenic, but by no means breathtaking.

But tucked away inside the plateau are gorgeous cliffs and plunging waterfalls that make the long bike ride worth the while. I had absolutely no expectations about any of the waterfalls we were planning on checking out during our trip, but if I had had expectations, they would have been far exceeded.

The first pull off we came to was Tad Paxuam where the water falls over ink-black cliffs.

The cliffs were wide open for exploration, so we were able to walk right over to the top of the falls, climb over the boulders,

and sit right at the edge. (Which I have to admit was just a little bit frightening!)

After a short time visiting these falls, we got back on our motorbikes. We weren’t sure how long it would take us to get to Tad Lo falls where we planned to sleep for the night, and we wanted to make sure we arrived before the sun set.

As we made our way through the Plateau, we got a taste of Lao life; we passed by small farms, bamboo houses on stilts with thatch roofs (many equipped with satellites!), cows, pigs, goats, and chickens.

Finally, after a surprisingly grueling 2 ½ hours on the road, we made it to the stunning TadLo falls.

In the late-afternoon light, it was absolutely gorgeous. We sat on a deck overlooking the falls and ate dinner while we watched children playing on the rocks. They were climbing up over the falls just like monkeys and running after each other through the water.

We found ourselves some little bungalows over-looking the river, close enough to the waterfall to hear it as we slept… or so we thought.

The view from our porch

While we were envisioning a quiet and relaxing night listening to crickets and the rushing waterfall, the townspeople had something different in mind. Apparently there was some sort of Buddhist full-moon festival going on at the temple just down the river from where we were staying. The festival must have required celebrating until the moon went down (or the sun came up) because the temple blasted Thai pop music throughout the village until 5:00 in the morning!

But when it finally did finish, we found the peace we were looking for. We spent the next morning reading near the river and then went for a short hike to the top of the falls where we hung out for the rest of the afternoon – sunbathing and swimming.

our friend Daniella sunbathing on a rock

Thankfully, the next night there was no festival and we fell asleep early to the sound of water rushing down the falls.

The next day we were up bright and early to make our way back to Pakse. Although most of the drive we did was paved, the first 20 kilometers after Tad Lo were on very a very dusty dirt road (at some points it felt like we were on a BMX dirt-bike track).

 watch out for the dust cloud!

the Lao equivalent of orange traffic cones: rocks and sticks

Daniella was a bit gun-shy on the unpaved roads (driving about 5-10 miles an hour the entire time) so it took 2 hours to make it past those 20 Km.

A bit dusty and impatient at 10:30 am, we were happy to be off the dirt road and on our way to the next waterfall. We spent the rest of the day exploring the three waterfalls between Tad Lo and Pakse.

The gorgeous Tad Niang falls:

The breathtaking Tad Fane falls:

 The Tad Fane waterfall ran down a sheer cliff right in the middle of the plateau. It looked as if someone had taken a huge apple-corer to the plateau and dug out a hole in the center. 

 The cliffs were so steep, it gave me vertigo just to look at them, it was spectacular.

And the refreshing E Tu falls:

Where we stopped for a refreshing dip in the water.

After one last stop at a local “gas station”

we were headed back to Pakse for the night feeling refreshed. 

Although I had no idea what to expect when we entered Laos, it is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been.

Nick inches toward 30

Last week was Nick’s birthday (the big 2-9) and I was on a mission to get him his favorite food: Birthday Cake.

On a bike ride the day before, we had come across two promising leads, a bakery and another restaurant with a sign outside that said “Happy Cake Birthday.” So it was with confidence that I started out on my birthday cake hunt.

After about 25 minutes on my bike, I came across the first bakery. It was owned by an Australian (or an Austrian, I didn’t pay too much attention to the sign) and was as proper a bakery as you can find in Laos. But when I inquired about a birthday cake, I was very disappointed. If I wanted a proper birthday cake, the smallest he would make for me would be to serve 15 people (for a 2-person party) and cost $150,000 kipp (about $17 or $18 USD). Wayyyy out of our budget. So I headed off to option number two.

5 minutes later, at the furthest point on these islands from our own guesthouse, I found the other restaurant. I found an old man there who spoke no English but was able to get out the words “Cake, Birthday?” and so I placed an order for one for $50,000 kipp and headed back to our guesthouse.

Later that day, on my way to pick up the cake, I worried myself thinking about the logistics of my cake transportation: How would I be able to fit the thing in my bicycle basket? What about the icing? Would it melt off? Be ruined on the bumpy ride home? Could they write “Happy Birthday Nick” on it for me?

But all of those worries were put to rest when the cook came out with the birthday cake - holding it in her hand the way you might hold a sandwich. There was no icing at all. It looked like the bottom layer of a layer cake (when you make each layer individually in a circular cake pan). No frills – just a chunk of yellow cake. The woman dropped it into a plastic bag and I was on my way.

Light and fluffy, this cake was not. It was dry and very dense - like a brick, and not very sweet either. But not to fear – condensed milk saved the day. We borrowed the can of condensed milk usually used for coffee and doused that cake with the stuff. MMMMM.

  It almost tasted like real icing, and if we used enough of it, the cake was almost moist!

So I sang happy birthday to Nick, and the two of us proceeded to eat ½ of the cake all by ourselves. Then we gave the other half to the family who runs our guesthouse. I have to admit we felt a little guilty when we saw 10 children crowding the cake…. we had just eaten ½ of it between the two of us! But hey, it was his birthday cake.

All in all, besides the travelers indigestion Nick was dealing with all day, I’d call it a birthday success!