Welcome to Laos

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So you left us on the night train to Ubon Ratchathani in North East Thailand. We arrived at around 9.30am but at around 7 we have had made our way to the dining car and had a thai take on an american breakfast.

On arrival in Ubon we made our way to Warin Market to catch the bus to Chong Mek in order to cross into Laos, this wasn't quite that simple as the bus only took us half the way the we had to change into a pickup truck. But, We made it out of Thailand and into Laos and had a steaming bowl of beef (Water Buffalo) Noodle soup then into another pickup to get to Pakse - the driver refused to leave until he had at least 7 passengers for the trip to Pakse, which when it's midday heat, is very annoying.

So by 2pm we'd made it to Pakse central market - an 18 hour trip from Bangkok, just when we thought we were home and dry it appeared that no-one in town had heard of the Imoun Homestay - this was a slight problem as we'd paid to stay there. This tends to be a problem in Laos all the time and isn't helped by the fact that the concept of maps has passed them by. Eventually Lee directed the driver to the road it was on and we got there.

Quick shower and out to see the town and have a quick 'beer Lao' by the Mekong (yes Chris it still taste good)

In truth we were all tired by this stage and we needed to chill, we had a quick snack and went into town for some more noodles, afterwards back and nights sleep on an extremely hard bed. Note - These noodles were very good but Dawn and Rick put a very small amount of dry chilli flakes in it - BIG MISTAKE.

Tomorrow, southern Laos and Kingfisher Ecolodge www.kingfisherecolodge.com

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