In a galaxy far far away... or a Hydroelectric Dam and village far away! - Part 1

I had an awesome opportunity to visit my tutor's home village in Salavanne province (pronounced 'Sah-lah-vahn' or sometimes 'Sah-rah-vahn' ... r's and l's are often interchanged here which can produce rearry funny resurts). Turns out, I would be the first foreigner to ever come to that village... So, I heard a lot of murmuring with 'Falang' (Lao word for foreigner) and got many stares with smiles. His village is about 2 hours away driving on a motorbike.

He also wanted to take me to see an electric generation dam on the way. This dam apparently generates enough electricity to sell some to Thailand. Its located off Road 13 about an hour north of Pakse (about 60 km... give or take... roughly 40 miles). We had to cross a river on a small platform boat (roughly 15x15ft) which Saleumsai drove my motorbike onto (and made me a little nervous about the whole stopping before ending in the river!). We crossed above the dam and drove down to it.

I was surprised because it felt a little like an American dam with a little park and manicured lawn/bushes surrounding the generator control station. This was definitely not normal Lao style (at least from what I've seen). There was a little stream that bypassed the dam and we crossed it to explore the bottom portion.
Saleumsai unaware of my camera sneakiness...

Conquering the river with pure muscle .... flexation!

Power station:

We walked downstream a little and although there were numerous signs about not fishing (in English) apparently this doesn't stop some people...


We crossed back over to the power station and walked around to the man-made waterfall to the left of the generation station - very cool. We walked out on the massive concrete wall that protected the riverbed from erosion. Here is a fun video panorama of the area:

And some great pictures of us making Superman poses... reminiscent of the original 1981 movie:
Ok, maybe not 'exactly' superman poses...maybe more like Beegees:


Exploring the waterfall was manly (yes, Heather...I said manly!). My favorite is one with us together (which took a lot of practice and sprinting and about 10 minutes of running back and forth between camera and waterfall).

Here's also a short clip of the waterfall...


Here's a link for more pictures from the Dam:

The HydroElectric Dam in Salavann Province

This was really fun and I know Saleumsai enjoyed taking me out to see it. Definitely manly bonding and exploration... now, next episode... the village (and not M. Night's village). Stay tuned for foreigner meets far away baahn! (Lao for 'village')