Heat and dust

24 January 2013

Two months into the dry season and the countryside starts to turn brown and dusty with crinkly edges. It has only rained once since we arrived at the beginning of December– just a light shower really – so the cars throw up clouds of dust on the dirt roads and everything gets covered with a brown layer. Although water is not yet in short supply, the rivers are noticeably lower and the water pressure in our shower is not what it was. Khoun tells us that the well supplying the bungalows is much emptier than it was last year but he’s getting a piped supply from the village next week.

The temperature has started to rise again too. It’s quite cool and misty in the mornings still, but by mid afternoon it’s into the thirties until the sun sets at 5.45. Not uncomfortable, but too hot for sitting on the balcony.

It’s worth noting some things that Laos doesn’t have. It doesn’t have Macdonalds or Starbucks or KFC, there’s no snow but no seaside either, there’s no railway and no motorways. In fact the one main road that runs the length of the country, Route 13, would hardly class as an A road!

This is Route 13, the main road through Laos!

No Macdnalds, but Man U is ubiquitous!

There’s also little in the way of planning regulations. Just down the road from the bungalows one family have decided to sell their garden – that is they’ve brought in JCBs and bulldozers and dug away the hillside, taking all the soil and rocks away in trucks as aggregate to fill in some fishponds in the town. They get $20 for a 10-ton truck load. But they’re left with bare rock round their house. We see this scarring along every road.

Carving away the mountainside.

Having been here for over a month we could no longer put off the visit to the waterfalls for which Luang Prabang is famous. Many of the streams and rivers flowing down the mountains drop dramatically over limestone cliffs, forming cascades and pools in beautiful green forest settings.

We hadn’t taken any of the standard trips to the main waterfall, Kuangi Si, which is about 25 km from here but felt we ought to do our waterfall duty before we leave.   So our Monday outing this week was to a lesser known and nearer waterfall called Tad Thong. As the crow flies, Tad Thong is probably only a couple of miles from the bungalows, but there’s a socking great hill in the way so we had to go the long way round by road - about 9km. O took us in the Landrover and dropped us off near the turnoff from route 13.

Tad Thong waterfall.

It’s a beautiful spot. A paved walk has been constructed up the mountainside through the woods, past massive mahogany trees, dripping with ferns, lianas and orchids. The woods are quite different here from the more managed mixed dipterocarp woods at lower altitudes. At various heights viewpoints allow glimpses of the stream as it tumbles over and under rocks forming deep pools.

I bathed my poor sunburnt toes in the ice cold water.

Mahogany in its natural state.

The way through the woods.

Top of the waterfall. It's difficult to convey scale.

Some amazing fern-like foliage.

It takes about an hour to complete the circular walk up to the highest waterfall and down again. At the bottom is a lake-side resturant where we enjoyed a well-earned fruit shake. Unlike Kuangi Si, this waterfall is off the tourist trail so there were only a dozen or so falang to share the place with.

Walking home gave a sense of achievement to the day.

I haven't seen many goats in Laos. This was a healthy-looking one.

This guy lives inside our bungalow wall and pokes his head out on sunny afternoons. He's a lizard of some sort, about 8 inches long.