fri day 119

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After a good nights sleep in a proper bed Kate and I decided to look into travelling further south again today. Savannakhet is a pleasant place to visit for a day but with no chance of doing any out of town tours we had seen enough. Wandering back to Lins cafe we had some breakfast and took a couple of pictures with the lovely owner. In low season the cafe kinda doubles also as the tourist information place - killing 2 birds with 1 stone - good idea really. So finding out the bus times to Pakse we had just enough time to pop across to the local temple. Wandering around the grounds we saw a collection of monks sheltering away from the sun under a tree, as well as a couple of men putting the finishing touches to some Buddha's. Painting and sanding them down as well as attaching the bobbly hair. Catching a tuk tuk back to the guesthouse to collect our bags, we were then taken to the southern bus station with a couple of young monks. With the bus station not looking like a bus station at all, but rather a dirty, dusty market with children, pigs and puppies everywhere ( along with a token couple of buses!) we found the bus and went to buy tickets. Leaving about 20 minutes later we didn't have too long to wait and finding a couple of seats that looked ok - until I sat on it to find the back was almost, completely unattached! We were off for a 5hr journey. Making our way through tiny villages on a jam packed rickety old bus, stopping every now and again to let women on to try and sell their local delicacies - anything from whole cooked chickens on sticks to what looked like cactus! We finally arrived about 5pm, jumping in a tuk tuk to take us to our hotel. Again being given a very nice room for the pricey sum of £4 a night each we unpacked our bits and headed out for some dinner. Finding a nice laos/European restaurant we had a nice - if slightly too spicy dinner. Going off for a wander we had a little look around the town before heading back for the night.

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