Not long ago, I was in a small town in Laos called Paksong. It’s hard to say exactly why I ended up there. It was a beautifully peculiar place with a real air of adventure to it, but it was quite out of the way.

The journey is clear enough in my mind. I was travelling with an old friend, and the Cambodian border was our destination. But that doesn’t explain why we landed in Paksong, a small, isolated town too far off the beaten path to describe as “on the way”. Plus, we would be leaving Asia soon and time was running out. Somehow, we got sidetracked, drawn to an eerie place no larger than six square blocks.

Two nights earlier, my friend and I had stayed in Vientiane, the capital of Laos. Overnight, we travelled roughly 700 kilometres south.

Sometime around 5 in the morning, we stumbled off a bus and into a thick fog. The air was cool, and you couldn’t see more than 20 feet in front of you. I think there was a river to one side, though I can’t be sure. We had gotten into the habit of taking sleeping pills for long bus rides, which made the normally unpleasant trips seem like a dream. But the whole process left us hopelessly confused for the first few minutes after we had woken up.

We had been travelling in the region for a while, though, so we were able to get our bearings fairly quickly. It seemed we had arrived in Pakse, a transportation hub for southern Laos. It would have been a fine place to use as a launch pad for day trips, but it was not to my liking: too many people passing through too quickly, and none of the mystique of historical trading centres like Tangier or Singapore.

So we caught another bus and headed east, onto the Bolaven Plateau. Rising more than 1,000 metres above the Mekong River Valley and with a distinctively sharp cliff dropping off on one side, the plateau is truly a creation of the wild. Most of it is covered with thick jungle, and the entire thing rises from the mighty Mekong in a slow, gradual slope that lets you imagine some ancient force is pushing up from deep inside the earth.

At the back of the bus, my friend quickly passed out on a large bundle of rolled-up straw mats. I stretched out across a few empty seats closer to the middle of the bus and settled in with the sombre sounds of Johnny Cash’s later albums on my iPod. Out the window, the sun slowly rose above the forest around us.

For the next hour or so, we passed only the occasional settlement, usually no more than one family’s dwelling spread across a few huts made from bamboo and sheet metal. On rich red dirt, women prepared fires for the day’s first meal and young children played games resembling tag or hide-and-seek.

The next thing I knew, we were in Paksong. The sun was up, the day was hot, and we were standing in the dust. Our backpacks lay on the ground as we surveyed the scene.

We had been unceremoniously dropped off at some sort of machinery shop. Across the street was a long, dry grass field with low buildings lining the sides. At the end of the field was a larger collection of buildings, and we thought it logical to make our way in that direction.

I turned to a young local who had taken an interest in us. I wanted him to confirm that this was the right direction to head in, but he was either unable or unwilling to help. His friends, standing a few feet back, laughed at the tired and confused looks on our faces.

So, unsure of where we were going, we headed down one side of the field, toward the buildings. They were all two storeys tall, while most of the others in the town were one. And they were very colourful, though even from afar, it was obvious that most had fallen into disrepair.

Or maybe these buildings had never looked like much, I thought. In the history of warfare, few countries on Earth have been punished as severely as Laos. In the ’60s and ’70s, the U.S. spent years absolutely devastating southern Laos’s beautiful countryside in a futile effort to defeat the Viet Cong.

Paksong is the sort of town I imagine might never have recovered psychologically from such a horrendous ordeal. In stark contrast to the gentle, friendly Laotians we had met over the previous two weeks, most of Paksong’s residents were quiet and kept to themselves.

As we got closer, I saw that the strip of buildings at the end of the field resembled a scene from the Wild West. Paint chipped from the outside walls, and on the first floor, saloon doors swung freely into restaurants and simple shops. Looking up at the second floor, I admired the quaint apartments, which had broken windows or boarded shutters opening onto tiny balconies.

No luck finding a bed, though, or even a point in the right direction. We walked on.

Finally, a block down the road and around a bend, we found our man. A quick negotiation with many hand gestures got us a room for the day and a wash. Half an hour later, with a B.C. driver’s licence and a couple of pocketfuls of crumpled kip, we had gained ourselves two motorcycles. We were off for the day.

We spent the rest of our time in Paksong racing down the town’s main drag and negotiating smaller dirt roads that cut through the jungle. We never really got to know any of the locals, and no one seemed to take any interest in us. Nor did we see another tourist, or speak with anyone who knew a word of English beyond “hello”.

Paksong was blissfully quiet, yet mysterious.

My friend and I are both adventurous eaters, but we realized that we had stepped out of our comfort zone when, during lunch at a makeshift restaurant, I mistook the organ of a pig for a barbecued bell pepper. We ordered instant noodles to eat instead.

As the sun began to set that day, my thoughts drifted to Cambodia. Our time in Asia was limited and we had to move on.

But we had been dropped off at a tractor shop, not a bus station, and we had no idea how to leave. From what we could make out from the man who had rented us the bikes, there were no buses out of Paksong. Hitchhiking seemed like a good alternative.

Or so we thought. Not only were there no buses, there was barely any traffic at all after dark. Walking back down that long, straight road out of Paksong, with a heavy bag on my back, I remember feeling very far away from civilization. But despite fatigue and the chill that had set in, it was a pleasant walk. We enjoyed it in silence.

Finally, someone responded to our outstretched thumbs. We rode the rest of the way back to Pakse in the back of a pickup. Exhausted, we watched the sun set, cracking the occasional joke.

It wasn’t our destination, but Paksong had made for a good diversion.

Access: Getting in and out of Pakse is made relatively easy by a small airport and a large bus station. Both VIP buses and cheaper rides head north and south numerous times a day, usually for the equivalent of $5 to $10. Transport east to Paksong takes approximately 90 minutes. Tuk-tuks (converted pickup trucks) depart from Pakse’s bus station hourly for the first half of the day, according to Lonely Planet Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos & the Great Mekong.

There are two small hotels in Paksong. To find them, head north from the town’s main road roughly 500 metres, until you are one block past the large field.