Day 15 - A day at Saleuy Waterfalls - Trial by fire: new bike, first tour, first time in Asia

November 9, 2024

Day 15 - A day at Saleuy Waterfalls

It was a gorgeous morning - the first clear day we've seen and it has persisted all afternoon. We're having a rest day, catching up on chores, making some photographs, visiting the falls, writing...

Light and mosquitoes stream through the floorboards

A timber viewing deck at the base of the falls.

The poinsettias attracted lots of butterflies when the day warms.

The view from the dining room - a pond with copious fish and yellow-stemmed bamboo.

Breakfast brought more surprises than we could ever imagine.

We could not make sense of the menu, which contained more verbs than a menu needs. We certainly didn't want "pass the yellow", although its probably quite tasty. We negotiated rice and eggs.

Winston alerted me to a bottle of stuff on a table. It contained plant parts and insects, mainly wasps. Had it dried out? Was it medicinal? Perhaps it was even art!

Worse was to come. As we ate a woman came by selling (we think) some gorgeous wildlife including green doves, snipe, tree shrews and squirrels. Us biologists found it extremely sad disturbing. What was their destiny? There's barely a skerrick of flesh on the whole lot. This is an ongoing tragedy. So much of SE Asia lacks birdsong. I experienced it last year in Indonesia and it's little different here. Imagine a world where wildlife of all sorts is a rare sighting.

The decor of the lodge is quite festive.

Perhaps an alternative to bad taxidermy is a carved head, bamboo ears an a couple of antlers.

After the domestic chores, the thing to do here is a wander up and around the falls. There's any number of interesting things apart from the falls.

Our Ian in an uncharacteristically domestic moment.

There were some impressive spiders around the waterfall.

Now, remember those beautiful orange fruits from yesterday. Yes, at the fruit stall that was also a rat stall. It was time to try it. I hacked it open, took a photo of the bright red innards on my camera and forgot to take a phone photo. We ate it; memories emerged of past mistakes!! The seeds are enormous.

Plant this seed if you like strange and tasteless fruit.

And why not investigate the party gathering below?

More wildlife destined for the pot. This was a civet out of its suit.

Or, just wander with eyes wide open?

Ever bucolic buffalo rest around the compound.

The first horse I've seen in Laos. Maybe they eat them too.

Our last hope for the day is dinner. Its tricky. There's a party raging, music blaring and we are a side act to the main game. It's a birthday party! The cake has appeared and the singing has started.

It looks as though the cake is on fire but they are mere candles.

Winston has relayed a message "surprise me". I'm hoping not to get civet. We each got a small plate of noodles topped with vegetables. One cannot cycle on this.

We relayed a message that the food was good but we are riding bicycles and need a lot of food. Time went by. How could you not join in?

It's cool do we're wearing our cycling jackets

And then some chips arrived.

Greasy goodness. More joules for tomorrow!

It was loud, intense and fun, with a female DJ knocking out the music. But we needed to leave. I enjoyed drifting off to sleep to the sounds rising below.

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Andrea BrownI'm surprised that they didn't press the lao lao on you, that can be tricky because it's lethal weapons grade but one doesn't want to insult the host either.
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