Tadlo party rockin’

So we found ourselves on a road basically in the middle of nowhere after the bus from Pakse dropped us off. Tadlo was a couple of km’s away. There was one guy with a tuk-tuk sitting in the restaurant where the bus dropped us. Porter’s 5 forces of competition say that when there’s a lack of suppliers in the market (in our case tuk-tuk drivers) that they have the power and can demand higher prices. This is exactly what happened. We bargined hard though but he didn’t budge. Despite not really feeling like the walk we put our backpacks on and made off as if we were going to hoof it. It was all a bluff though and it worked.

A few minutes later we were in the sleepy tiny village of Tadlo. After looking around for a place to stay we all ended up settling a lovely place with bungalows set in the forest. The restaurant run by the bungalow owners had a great view of the amazing local waterfalls. See the picture below.

After grabbing some food we all retitred for a a nap. A few hours later I woke up and forced myself outside. I can’t remember being so lethargic ever. The others were still sleeping so I headed down to the restaurant to find there was a party going with a bunch of locals since it was a holiday for Buddhas birthday. A huge P.A. was set up along with a synthesizer and some microphones. There were 20-40 locals sitting on long tables eating and drinking and having a great time listening to each other sing karaoke. They weren’t serving food to guest though so I set off to another guesthouse to get some food.

Later on everyone else awoke and we went out for more food together. On the way back the party was still going and by this stage the locals were all well and truly drunk and dancing around to latin tunes they were pumping out of the P.A. system. Chris and I grabbed a couple of Beer Lao’s and we all hit the dancefloor. We soon got our groove on and we were the hit of the party. It was so surreal partying with these locals, dancing to latin music, with amazing waterfalls as a backdrop. We couldn’t believe we were here and had a laugh that just 24 hours ago we were probably just getting on the bus in Vientiane.