Resisting the temptation of octopus beards

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Rather than a straight run through to Pakxe, I fancied breaking up the journey with a couple of days in Thakhek to see some karst scenery nearby. My attempts to obtain info about suitable buses to Thakhek proved highly frustrating, with different sources stating the "only" daily bus was at, variously, 6:30AM, 7:30AM, 11AM, and 8:30PM. I chose to turn up at the bus station at 6:15AM and take it from there. 7:15AM was the correct answer, but even then the ticket seller said it would take 4 hours to reach Thakhek - which would have required an average speed exceeding 90 km/h, which I doubt even Laos Airlines could achieve.

The first thing I noticed was that Thakhek was extremely hot. The north of Laos had been getting close to my temperature threshold, but Thakhek took things over the limit. We're talking A/C being essential and sweat starting to bead as soon as you stepped outside. I don't like heat - even an English summer is about 10 degrees too warm for me - and this did not bode well for continuing further south into the heart of the hot season. I was sufficiently drained by this that I abandoned the idea of seeing the nearby countryside (not that I could find a moped rental place anyway) and instead focused on relaxing.

There'd been some sort of uneven technological Great Leap Forward in Thakhek that had furnished the town with several traffic lights but only 2 (expensive) Internet cafes, both dial-up. Food prices were worse than Vientiane, though the portions at Smile Horse (presumably a typo) were almost US-sized. I gave my own guesthouse's restaurant a miss when a casual perusal of its menu revealed "Simon mixes" and "Octopus beards".

At Thakhek, the Mekong forms the border with Thailand, so the Kingdom is only a river's width away. I plonked myself down on the bank to take some sunset shots and was soon surrounded by a group of street kids, who insisted on mugging for the camera. It all seemed harmless enough with them pulling faces, but when I happened to zoom out from a shot I was unpleasantly surprised to see that one of the boys had pulled down his pants to expose himself. Not wishing to end up in court on a child pornography charge, I brought proceedings to a close by announcing my camera battery had gone flat (which of course they didn't understand), and eventually they left me alone. There clearly are exceptions to the rule that Asian kids are all cute.

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Photos

Building
Detail

"Cute" street kids
Exposed member just out of shot

Temple
Detail