(written by Nancy)

Today we did almost nothing and here is it 4:30 and we have no idea where the day has gone.  Just a guess but our 4 hours on the resort deck ostensibly eating brekkie may have had a impact on the missing time.  We wanted to spread the maps and guide books out for the next few days but there was much to be seen from the deck that also kept us well distracted.

Early in the morning we had a local fisherman moving among the rocks.  Later a couple young kids (probably cutting school) came out fishing and swimming.  As you can see from the photo below, both of these activities require very little in the way of clothing.  Later in the morning a lodge worker climbed one of the tall trees near the deck to replace a light bulb.  He was quite a skilled climber but for sure there are no observed OSHA rules here either.  There was no safety gear of any kind and best we could tell, he did the job solo.  Later the rock where the fisherman spent most of his time was taken over first by a group of girls on their school lunch hour, then later by a group of older school boys doing the same thing.  Very little clothing came off of any of the kids, one can only imagine how comfortable it would have been going back to class.

We finally moved off the deck to lunch down at Tim’s Guesthouse.  Tim serves good food but best of all, proceeds from his business have built a library and computer skills centre in the village – just across from the guesthouse.  We ate lunch accompanied by a very cute little black puppy who had obviously had a busy morning as he fell sound asleep under my feet.

After lunch we walked around a bit – there isn’t much in this little area other than guesthouses as it is away from the main road and really just serves the tourists coming to the waterfall.  There is a bigger market area near the main road but we were feeling lazy so did not make it back down there.  As we wandered around a bit we saw Hans & Lieneke again – they had stayed in a little town further back up the hill last night and came here today.  We chatted for a bit and made plans to meet up for dinner.

We took a walk up to see the waterfall close up.  We had to cross a bridge at the bottom so we were now on the opposite side of the river from our lodge.  Dave wanted to go up river to a second bridge but after crossing paths with a couple local kids and figuring out that we were less than half way we decided to backtrack – sometimes I can convince Dave that doing the unmanly thing is most prudent.  He is not a big fan of backtracking, it’s a guy thing.  Finally we made it back to the deck for a rest and bit of reading before dinner.  I let Dave go down take the photos of the elephants bathing today as more deck time really was the thing to do at this point.

Tomorrow we ride back to Pakse, before heading south for our last few days in Laos.  While today was at a resort, it does feel very “local” here.  The river is very much a playground for the local folks who live here and spending a day watching all the activities was great.

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