Friday, December 16, 2005

Back On Our Travels

We are now in Champasak, which is a small sleepy little district town in the south of Laos. We came here from Pakse where we spent yesterday. We arrived in Pakse from Vientiane on the night bus, arriving in Pakse at about 6.00am in the morning. We'd got talking to a couple from Canada, so we all went seeking a guest house together.

Sam and I went to the market in Pakse, which is supposed to be the largest in Laos. To be fair it is pretty big, but no where near the best we have seen. Sam got ran over by a vendor with a handcart, no major damage done just some skin off her leg. We did the circuit of the town and was heading back to the guest house when we bumped into the Canadian couple who were heading for one of the waterfalls nearby.

We ended up sharing a tuk-tuk to this 40 metre high waterfall, or so we were told. It may have been 40 metres at some point in history but wasn't anywhere near when we got there. Despite that we had a great time climbing over the huge boulders that the previous once BIG waterfall may have created. A beer or two with the tuk-tuk driver afterwards, we then headed back to the guest house.

The evening was spent eating and drinking, and watching the back half of the third part of Lord of The Rings.Then to bed, as we had an early start to get down to Champasak.

Up early and made our way to the landing for the ferry to take us to Champasak. We were the only ones there and the guys hanging around tried to get us to charter a boat down the Mekong. After a little while 3 other travelers turned up, and we did end up chartering a boat, almost by mistake rather than planning.

Anyway we made it to Champsak and were directed to a guest house, which happened to be the older brother of the ferry boat captain. Luck would have it that it turned out to be an okay place to stay, hot shower which is a big thing for us after 2 months of freezing cold showers.

We dumped our stuff, hired some bicycles from the guest house and headed south to Wat Phou. This is a Khmer style temple complex, a mini version of Ankgor by all accounts. Biking the 8Km through the southern Laos countryside was really cool, and we were not dissapointed by the Wat Phou. It's not huge, it's small and compact yet impressive at the same time. Somewhat like Laos itself. So we spent all morning and into the afternoon chilling out and wandering around the ruins. The view from the upper terraces across the countryside was impressive.

After that we biked back to Champasak, did a quick ride around the town, which wasn't hard. Champasak consists of one main road that runs for about 2Km, if that, and contains about 6 temples. We know, we passed them all and even visited 2 of them.

Next we think we will be making our way down to Si Pan Don (4000 islands), and spend a few days milling around there. Walking over lots of bamboo bridges between the many little islands and looking for fresh water dolpins. If we do not spot any there then they hang out in Cambodia too, so we may ge to see some there.

Anyway, that's about it. Will write another blog when we get to Si Pan Don. Looking forward to going there as it is so differnet to anywhere else we have been so far. We'll let you know what it is like, and maybe even up-load some piccys!

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