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Going South
At all times throughout recorded history people have been attracted by the unknown. Since Laos opened its borders anew for foreign tourists in 1989 the country has become a kind of quiet secret among those who are fond of traveling and discovering. Growing numbers of them are now beginning to flood the Laotian capital, Vientiane, and the former King's residence, Luang Prabang, in the north.
But very few "long noses," as Europeans and Americans are called in Laos, go to the south. Yet that's where one can still discover a lot of fascinating things. While Thai travel agencies introduce Vientiane to tourists through the expansive tinted windows of air-conditioned buses, one cannot go to the south like this. Roads will not allow it.
By plane one flies a highway in the sky from Vientiane to Pakse, capital of Champassak province. Pakse with its 55,000 inhabitants is somehow more a village than a town. In the center a five-story building protrudes high above the other houses mostly built in the 60s during French colonial power. These two-or-three story buildings with baked tile roofs are very similar to those in French Mediterranean towns. However, architectural harmony in the narrow southern streets can still be felt. But here and there one can already see "progress a la Thailand," chiefly detected by the everyday use of imported marble tiles and corrugated steel.
The palace ordered built in 1968 by a southern Laotian prince, Boun Oum, is now nearly ready for occupancy and will soon become a hotel after a lot of discussion and confusion. One can take this as a sign of change or not, but it's true that the provincial committee of the National Lao Revolutionary Party considered seating itself here before the restoration was altogether complete.
Going deeper into the south means to escape even the last reminders of our modern world. About 50 km south of Pakse former American military boats today fulfil civil tasks. Linked with a large wooden boat they transport people and all kinds of vehicles from one bank of the majestic Mekong river to the other. On the right bank of the Mekong the town Champassak drags itself out. Here, too, some buildings, despite being sorely affected by the ravages of weather and time, silently show the former glory of the "Grande Nation." Telegraph poles with glass insulators are elsewhere already antiques, yet here they still fulfil their original task.
After Champassak one goes back far deeper into history. Wat Phou is the next destination. The ruins of this temple, built in the 5th century, attract not just gallivanting historians. Originally set up as a place of worship by the Chams, Wat Phou eventually became the center of the Hinduistic Khmer Empire in 10 to 11th centuries, making it the perhaps the earliest (and therefore arguably the most important) precursor to one of the greatest Wonders of the World--Angkor Wat in neighboring Cambodia.
Wat Phou is still a place of worship, but used now--irony of history or sigh of transitoriness--by Buddhists and Animists. Every year, in January and February the temple becomes a pilgrim place for Buddhist monks. On the other hand--some might even say extreme--in June Animists beseech their spirit ghosts of this life and the next world. To calm them a buffalo is offered as a sacrifice. The buffalo now replaces the human beings that historians claim were offered there not so long ago.
By bumpy [insert word] one can penetrate even deeper into the south of the country. Dust, microscopic fine, first red hued, later grey, comes into the car through every crack. For three hours one follows Route 13 South until the last village before the Cambodian frontier is reached. And still beyond this village is the final destination of the journey. The place--or even better the event--is called Khong Phapheng.
It is here that the Mekong, mother of rivers, lost all the attributes it is often described to encompass. It's neither flowing majestic nor sluggish, the water is neither red nor brown. Roaring loudly, the Mekong plummets 11 or 12 meters to some invisible bottom, producing foaming spray and swirling whirlpools at least 30 meters wide. It is so breathtaking that one can not imagine there are seemingly countless nearby branches of the Mekong. But the truth is that the whole area here is called Siphandone--Four Thousand Islands.
The smallest island may only have space for one foot, but the biggest one has an area exceeding 120 square kilometers and sustains over 100 villages and has the same name as the island--Kong. In former times an outpost of the French, it is now an idyllic place surrounded by 3,999 islands. The Mekong is very [insert word] here and the distance between its western and eastern tributaries is more than 14 kilometers. Even going by boat can only give one a speck of an impression of the beauty of nature here, where still some of the very rare sweet water dolphins live and can even be seen by visitors.
Coming back to Pakse one sees the town with totally different eyes. Houses seem to be skyscrapers; traffic is shrill and lively; loud-colored posters try to attract customers for Thai products. In the evening, electronic guitars and drums in dancing bars contest with loudspeakers in ribbon-like streets.
But how fast can one forget the quietness and calmness of the Laotian South? Maybe never.