Tad Paxuam Waterfall and Uttayan Bajiang Village Pakse Laos

Thamuang is very close to the border with Laos.  There is also a twice daily international bus service to Pakse in Laos and it only takes about three and a half hours.  This is very convenient for me to re-new my visa to allow me to stay in Thailand a while longer.

We first visited Pakse last year - see July 2011 blog posts.

The border at Chong Mek (Thailand) and Vang Tao (Laos) has changed a lot in the last year and travellers now have go through an underground tunnel from Thailand to Laos (and vice versa).  It's different, and once in the tunnel it is rather James Bondish, but I can't for the life of me think why they have gone to so much trouble when the border control and customs procedures are so informal.  No luggage is checked so the transfer of anything one way and the other is easy.

An unusual way to cross borders

 We stayed at the Champasak Palace hotel again.  The quirky but good hotel that stands so dominant by the river Se and close to the enormous Mekong river.

After a good night's sleep we rented a motorbike for 60,000 kip (about £4.75 - amazing value) and rode the 35 kms or so to the waterfall known as Tad Paxuam and the ethnic village called Uttayam Bajiang.  I mentioned in last year's post that the driving in Pakse was at best mayhem, and I can report that after one year there is no apparent improvement.  I rode the bike with caution and still wonder how I picked my way through the traffic.  At one point I can remember being overtaken and undertaken whilst seeing bikes and cars coming towards me from the right and left.  It was like being in a real life video game.  

Once we left the outskirts of Pakse we could relax and soon reached Uttayan Bajiang.  The village is the culmination of years of hard work by a successful businessman Wimol Kijbamrung.  He describes how he arrived at the site in 1999 and set to work with the local villagers.  All they had was an old hoe between them and Wimol describes that the most valuable item then held between them was an old bicycle frame!  The site had been stripped of its wild life as the locals would kill almost anything with a heart beat and moving for food.  Gradually the site was transformed and given back to nature, for example 25,000 indigenous trees were planted.  The locals have survived and in the locality 13 tribes exist side by side.  Visitors can stay in traditional houses and enjoy a break next to the nature of the Bolaven Plateau.  The villagers produce crafts and generally manage the area.

Sadly Wimol was struck down with malaria just one week after the village opened and as a result he is blind.  However, his enthusiasm lives on in a quest and promise to support and sustain the culture and nature.

Main waterfall

Bridge constructed entirely of bamboo

Guest house

Guest house

Jungle house

Jungle house

Local explaining the pan pipes

Sorry the video is on its side - but its worth a look anyway

We had a very pleasant couple of hours wandering round this really beautiful conservation area.  The locals are friendly and the wildlife abundant.  

We then moved on to the Tad Fane waterfall, which we visited last year as well.  The area is obviously being developed at a fast rate for industry because of the proximity to the Thai border, and tourism with resorts, luxury villas and restaurants.  Nevertheless, it is a beautiful area and if you get the chance just go for it.  There are connections onwards to Cambodia and Vietnam by overnight bus at good rates.

The Champasak Palace Hotel

The fact that the photographs of the Champasak Palace Hotel are impressive and the rate offered at www.agoda.com was even more impressive, I was immediately hooked on this gem of a hotel.

It really is a former palace of a former King, really!  Well at least the advertising blurb says so.  I have tried to research the last King of Life, a certain Mr Jao Ma Ha Chee Vit, without success.  It seems the palace was built in 1969, but wasn't this the height of the Indo-China war?  Lao territory was crucial to both sides and the proximity to Ubon's US held air-base springs to mind as well.  From 1964 to 1973 the USAF flew 580,944 sorties, (average of 177 per day!!!), and dropped 2,093,100 tons of bombs.  That's one plane load of bombs every eight minutes round the clock for nine years!

I would love to know more about the construction of a palace in the midst of all the bombing.

However, Mr Jao Ma Ha Chee Vit left Champasak for France in 1975, before the palace was finished.  This probably co-incided with the proclamation of the Lao People's Democratic Republic on 2 December 1975.  The king abdicated and the communist government, fearful of a Royalist reprisal, imprisoned the royal family in a cave close to the border with Vietnam.  Sadly they died and the Lao monarchy was gone for ever.  If Jao Ma Ha Chee Vit was related, he had a lucky escape.  But what happened to him?

The Champasak Palace was renovated in 2004 by Thai investors. The result is an excellent and fine example of Laotian craftsmanship.  With the opening of the road bridge over the Mekong and a direct road route to Thailand, the area is currently thriving with commerce and the hotel is well placed to take advantage.  In addition, a hotel with a unique style will appeal to the tourist, especially on their way to or from Thailand.

I really like the hotel.  It is quirky though, and tries very hard to keep up to the image portrayed by its marketing department.  It boasts a coffee shop (the area around Pakse has excellent coffee plantations), but it is the same as the restaurant, and you cannot see the difference.  It boasts a gym (yes I packed my trainers and shorts) but the equipment is broken and has grey strings of cobwebs hanging in shame from dumbells and barbells.  The running machine belt was ripped and obviously not in working order. It has a laundry service, but Khamma could not borrow an iron.  There is also a sauna, spa and massage but we did not check this out.

But, and it is a big BUT, the rest of the hotel lived up to my expectations.

Everywhere was very clean.  The bedroom was very large with AC (although the room had a curious front and back door arrangement I could not get used to).  A good bed that was wider than it was long, an excellent bathroom, although the bath plug was missing.  Good TV, good internet, good food, wonderful friendly staff. 

If you are staying in the area I recommend the Champasak Palace Hotel.

The price was £44.71 for two for two nights.  Good value.

A quick visit to Laos - Part 1 The Journey to Pakse

I previously mentioned that on my birthday, Khamma and I were in Laos.  Actually, to be more precise we were in Pakse, which is in the south and about one hours drive from the Thai border at Chong Mek.

On occasions whilst waiting for a bus to somewhere in Ubon’s busy bus station (opposite Big C), I had an urge to jump on the ‘International Bus’ to Pakse and see what was going on over the border.  I visited northern Laos about five years ago and with Dave, where we travelled for three days on the river Nam Ou from Luang Prabang to Phongsali close to the Chinese border on local cargo boats.  It was a wonderful river trip into the heart of the Golden Triangle, and I spent most of the time thinking about the movie Apocalypse Now!  About the scariest thing to happen though was the trussing up of pigs for transport to market, although we did spot a local with an AK-47 slung on his shoulder.  Anyway, I digress….

The bus leaves Ubon at 9.30 in the morning.  You can only book your ticket at the time of departure and you obviously need your passport.  The ticket clerk enters your passport details into a ledger, and issues you with a ticket.  The cost is 200 baht.  There was plenty of room on the bus, but I think it gets crowded at weekends and holidays.

Once on the bus it is about one and a half hours to Chong Mek.  On the journey, it is worth filling out the immigration forms if the bus company hands them out, otherwise make sure you have your pen handy for later.  There is a great market at Chong Mek selling clothes, snacks and all the usual stuff, but you do not have time to wander round.  The Thai border station is in the process of being upgraded, and will be a fine building when it is finished.  The bus driver will ask you to leave the bus to enter Laos on foot.  Going through the Thai border is simple enough and is similar to the process at the airport, just a short queue and a patient wait (Ha Ha!!).

Walking through no man’s land, you can sense you are entering a country where the apparent affluence is not as great as that found in the country you are leaving, which is not exactly flush either.

The real fun starts at the Laos Border Control.  Signage is non-existent at worst and misleading at best.  But, that’s part of the fun.  As Johnny Foreigner, you are required to pay US$35 for a visa, and everybody has to pay 50 baht for an entry stamp in their passport.  Eventually, after a confusing fifteen minutes or so, you are free to walk into Laos and back on the bus.  There is a moment of panic when you think the bus might go without you, but the driver counts everybody out and everybody back in.

I love border crossings.  As we entered Laos, we quickly saw the similarities and realised the differences.  Khamma was pointing at the rice fields and the houses and said ‘same Thamuang’, but there was less sparkle about the temples and the roads were not quite as good as Thailand.

We reached Pakse and the sight of the Laos-Japanese Friendship Bridge across the wide river Mekong.  The building of the bridge in 2003 has created a trade route into Thailand from southern Laos and transformed Pakse into a vibrant commercial city.

Even so, I thought Pakse presented an air of promise that something was about to happen, but of what it was not sure.  It was like an actor frozen on the stage and staring into the footlights, knowing he should be doing something, but for the life of him could not remember.  First impressions are often wrong, as were mine on this occasion.

Once off the bus, we had to find the hotel, but first we needed money.  The Laos currency is kip and there are about 13,750 of them to the GB£.  Unusually, the main currency exchange is the Western Union money transfer office rather than the bank.

With a fat wallet containing nearly 1,ooo,ooo kip (I wished it were GBP) we caught a taxi to the Champasak Palace Hotel.

It was at this point that Khamma realised the local dialect was the same as hers and should speak quite freely to the locals.  A fantastic asset to have that would save lots of bother during our stay.

Our Friendly taxi driver.  Passengers sit on a seat under the canopy.

The magnificent Champasak Palace Hotel