Blogs from Champasak, South, Laos, Asia
March 3rd 2012
Jan and I caught a small tourist bus from Pakse to the small town of Ban Nakasang where we hopped on a boat for the short but scenic trip to Don Khon, one of the more touristy of the four thousand islands. We checked out a few of the guesthouses along the riverbank before settling on one with an attached restaurant, hammocks, and a nice view across the water to Don Det. We stayed a total of 5 nights here doing a few small things here and there, but generally spent most of the time just lying in the hammocks or on the comfortable benches in the restaurant. Unfortunately I had bedbugs the first night, changed rooms the next day where I think I brought them with me into the new room. I liked the place ... read more
December 29th 2011
5.30am - a noise, music, an alarm clock, a mosquito net above us, jungle sounds outside, where are we? Day 1 at Kingfisher Ecolodge and we are off bird watching at 6am, the suns just coming up but it's already very hot - we have 3 local guides the tallest around 5 feet. Heading out through Khiet Gong village the locals are all up sitting around smoking fires to keep the insects away, sitting under their stilted homes surrounded by Pigs, Chickens, Ducks etc. Just another day of very basic living in Laos. We head out across empty rice paddies, waiting for the second planting of the season. The forested hillside is full of big Rainforest trees, no chainsaws have yet ventured this way. The 3 hour session across first paddies, forest and finally wetland was ... read more
Pakse to Kingfisher Ecolodge - The Wrong Way!
Published: December 29th 2011Asia » Laos » South » Champasak
December 28th 2011
Another day dawned and we were refeshed from yesterdays travels, no extra mozzie bites overnight and no side effects from the consumed chilli flakes. A couple of jobs to do before heading south, Cash and a long sleeved shirt for Rick from the Market. The ATM's here do work but only allow 1 Million Kip per tarnsaction - sounds a lot but it's around 12,000 to the pound, unfortunately the family in front of us had decided to buy a car (for cash) today and were using both ATM's and several different Credit and Debit cards. After 20 minutes we left with 2 Million Kip on the hip! We visited a nearby monastry for 20 minutes or so and Lee and Rick had a chat with three novice monks. To the market, Shirt for Rick - ... read more
LAOS- The Land of smiles..... red tabs and collectivity
Published: November 30th 2011Asia » Laos » South » Champasak
November 30th 2011
The ATR 72 made a wide turn over the Mekong hills, over a bend in the river. The plane curved again around the lush but steep hills. Soon enough we were below the hills and flying up a valley. A small tin roofed town came into view; an unassuming place in a bend in the river. A temple went by my left side, level with the wing, we descended rapidly and then with a crunch we were down on an asphalt air strip. We rolled and the pilot used reverse feather on the propellers. The door opened at the back, it was surprisingly cool. We were first off the plane and strolled to the small concrete building with an old, communist era control tower. This was Luang Prabang- and we had landed in Laos! Laos was ... read more
March 30th 2011
Wednesday 16th February 2011 With our heavy rucksacks weighing us down we walked to the local bus station (would have got tuk tuk if we’d known how far it was) got in Sawngthaew to Wat Phu Champasak, and had to wait for an hour until we were graced with the presence of 16 other passengers to get going. An hour later we arrived to a mass of people as the annual Buddhist festival was taking place. The museum kindly agreed for us to leave our bags while we visited the ruins... We were slightly annoyed that the ‘foreigner’ ticket cost 10x the local entry fee, and in addition, they wanted us to pay to take in our cameras (but that was never going to happen!). There were elephant, crocodile & Buddha’s foot imprints in some of ... read more
January 28th 2011
Just a brief stopover to take a look at this ancient capital city, which is basically a one street town, but home to one of the oldest Khmer temples around – Wat Pho. As usual the transport was full of surprises; 5 mins into the journey the buses aircon broke so we sat for ½ hour while the driver tried to fix it. With no avail we continued on with the door open. As he was late he stopped at the junction to Champasak and bundled us out. Unbeknown to us the actual town was about 3 miles away, and over the river. The four of us (Mary, John, Angie and I) + another couple from Italy (I think) started to walk in the direction of the town. After about 15mins we thought something was wrong. ... read more
Vientiane and Beyond (or The Songthaew That Never Came)
Published: March 15th 2011Asia » Laos » South » Champasak
October 11th 2010
Dust and heat are what I remember from Laos. Long long roads with swirling orange clouds. Aching bums from bumpy bus rides, curious looks from dirty children eating lotus seeds. From Phonsavan we got a bus south to Vientiane. It was a funny bus. Most of the buses were run by companies but this seemed to be three guys who had bought a bus and were out to make their fortune. As with most Asian buses, people weren't the only cargo. Previously we'd ridden with a large variety of vegetables. On this occasion, we spent the 11 hour journey with our feet on boxes of amoxicillin and our knees under our chins. As always the people were jammed in. We stopped next to every single pedestrian on the road as the bus boys tried to persuade ... read more
August 9th 2010
After getting back to Pakse, we randomly ran into Duck, a Korean guy we met previously in Luang Prabang. We were planning on ridding to Champasak that evening, and he wanted to come with us. Unfortunately, all the rental places were out of motor bikes, so after trying to find a bike for him for like 2 hours, we gave up and put him on the back of Fanny's bike and set off for Champasak. The road was kind of cool, but it got dark quickly and we missed our turn off, so we ended up riding an extra 18 km. We got to this small town by the river, which we had to cross, and put our bikes on a small ferry, which was 2 dingy boats with some wood put across. It was pitch ... read more
May 10th 2010
Finally I have managed to get this to load, this short video is one of the more unusual modes of transport we encountered in South East Asia... read more
January 8th 2010
Fredag den 8.1.2010 En dag vi aldrig glemmer.... Vi har besluttet os at tage til Wat Phu Champasak. Og vi har yderligere taget den beslutning, at vi vil tage turen med offentlige transportmidler i stedet for at blive kørt i minibus. De 50 US som chaufføren fra forleden skal have for at køre os derud og tilbage synes vi er for meget og så lyder det andet også mere spændende (synes vi - ikke ungerne). Det skal dog vise sig, at blive mere spændende end vi havde forventet. Inden vi tager af sted bestiller vi busbilletter til bussen i aften til Vientiane. Afgang er kl. 19.00 fra hotellet og kl. 20.00 fra busstationen. Efter morgenmad på indisk restaurant tager vi en tuk-tuk til busstationen. På den ca. fem minutter lange køretur skal vi lige have benzin ... read more
