Southern Laos

Mekong River with clouds on the hills

In the 5 days since leaving Vientiane I’ve been slowly making my way further south in Laos. I caught an overnight bus from Vientiane to a place called Savannakhet which was a nice chilled town with lots of nice French postcolonial buildings. I then moved to a place called Pakse which is slightly bigger town but still very small when compared to places in the UK and I’m now in a village called Champasak which is a good base to see Wat Phu Champasak which is Laos’s oldest and most famous Temple ruin which I did this morning.

Small town near Champasak

It’s been nice to see some proper towns that are not full of tourists but at the same time this usually means there is not that much to do. However it has still been really good to just see people going about their daily business and I’ve always been lucky enough to meet good people at the hostels to chat with and have dinner and drinks with. I’ve also been able to catch the tennis which works out quite well as it’s on in the evenings here.

Every place I seem to go I feel like I’m in the middle of nowhere however after a few hours I realise that’s not the case but today in Champasak, I think this really is as close as I’m going to get.

Fishermen on the Mekong River near Champasak

After taking a combination of bus, boat and tuk tuk I arrived at my destination and booked into a hostel. The town is literally a dirt track and a row of houses along the Mekong River, it was pretty deserted and I didn’t see any other western people. I hired a bicycle and cycled to Wat Phu Champasak . It took about 40 minutes but you have to dodge chickens, dogs, goats, pigs, cats, cows and water buffalo that all roam free along the roads (or mud tracks) Also all the locals look at you like your from another planet as they probably don’t see many Western people. It really is a strange but enjoyable experience and like something out of a film.

Wat Phu Champasak

I’m off to my final stop in Lao tomorrow for two nights in a place called 4,000 Islands. After this I will be crossing the border into Cambodia for my final two weeks before going to Vietnam to start my teaching course. Can’t believe how quickly the 6 weeks have gone so far!!! Also monsoon season is in full swing. We get very impressive rain storms on a twice daily basis and when we were in Vientiane it rained big time for two full days.

I’ve added an album of random photos from the past 5 days. They’re not very exciting as there’s not been much to take pictures of (compared to the places I have been previously) but it gives you an idea of what Laos is like.