http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Laos/South/Savannakhet/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Asia , Laos , South , Savannakhet en-us Thu, 04 Dec 2008 23:13:29 UTC Thu, 04 Dec 2008 23:13:29 UTC Wow I have just bought a motorbike here in Laos and will be riding across the country for the next month or so I am extremely excited Actually we have bought three bikes as it is three of us Karen Harriet and me. Karen and I had been travelling together twice in China and Harriet and I climbed Hua Shan together and did a Yangtze river cruise back in June. Whilst I travelled in Japan and K http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Laos/South/Savannakhet/blog-345221.html Where did everybody go hello.........hello.... No folk around here Only overgrown weeds and stray dogs. the dogs are so relaxed here you can walk past a pack late at night and not even hear a wimper.Welcome to Savannakhet the very quiet river front town.......Nic Just a short stop here to take in the relaxed atmosphere and marvel at the crumbling old French buildings left over from years g http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Laos/South/Savannakhet/blog-322658.html PART TWOSo this part covers Laos. I've been here three weeks now so it's a looong story.So we slept one night at the border still in Thailand Chiang Khong. We had our last nice meal because I have to admit if Thailand is good for something it must be the food. It's deliciousThe next day we took the boat over the mekong 5 minutes to Houei Xai. Apparently they still love the French after th http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Laos/South/Savannakhet/blog-300890.html The thing about writing a blog is how to go about doing it...some people painstakingly print out all their work on notes and then put it together when they get to an internet cafe but I prefer to get it all out while I am sitting here...this makes for some lost memories and things I realize I should have mentioned but I like the stress of getting it all out without spending a fortune...Presentl http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Laos/South/Savannakhet/blog-289301.html Not much to report on Vientiane to be honest. It's not that it's not a nice place it's just after seeing Luang Prabang and staying in a wonderful little guesthouse there it falls by wayside for comparison for both sights and living arrangements. We stayed in a dank little cell for three nights and one of the beds had bugs crawling all over it. Rather disgusting and the Lonely Planet recommende http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Laos/South/Savannakhet/blog-257966.html 1 People do actually wash in the river and even manage to do this with their clothes on..2 Laos needs even more bargaining skills and even when you think you actually got it your way you still realise later on that you still paid too much... bummer3 Washing machines are scarce and lately we have been washing all our clothes by hand... squatting in the shower with water everywhere and raw knu http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Laos/South/Savannakhet/blog-249848.html After we left the chilled rainy and 'Friends episode' infested town of Vang Vieng we jumped on a bus to Vientiane the Capital of Laos commonly described as a bigsize village.. Says a lot about the country right Its an alright place next to the Mekhong River of course with lovely places accomodating the tourists but also priced accordingly.. We spent 2 days there but the highligh http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Laos/South/Savannakhet/blog-249835.html I did a three day trek around Dong Phu Vieng NP. I had a fantastic time. There were ten of us on the trip plus our two guides. There were two french couples two Australian girls an Israeli couple an American girl and myself.DAY ONE We travelled in a sawngthaew for two hours picking up locals and dropping them off in different places. Savannakhet is well known for dinosaur footprints so we saw http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Laos/South/Savannakhet/blog-240552.html If you are not one of our family and friends we would be really interested to know how you found our blog please email us at olarsehotmail.com many thanksN A lot of life is about doing something essentially pointless and not necessarily very enjoyable in order to feel the satisfaction of having done it. I read this quote recently in a Times article by Robert Rampton and it sums up one http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Laos/South/Savannakhet/blog-234923.html Thursday November 16th Monday November 27th 3220 KM to date After a few wrong turns and innumerable curse words I wheeled into Hoi An late blinded by bus lights and searching for potholes in the dark. Sitting in a low lying coastal area Hoi An was one of a number of unlucky cities to be pounded by successive storms and devastating floods over the past month. Less than a week before I r http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Laos/South/Savannakhet/blog-224156.html i actually think that maybe my brain is rotting.......i feel like a snobby spoiled tourist but i'm really bored here in savannakhet. we have eaten some incredibly ordinary food and exhausted the sightseeing possibilities by about 926 this morning. i think that all this chillaxing is catching up with me suddenly i feel the urge to go and do something improving like working in an orphanage http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Laos/South/Savannakhet/blog-222544.html Day 131Just as the south bus station is right out of town so is the north. We got a tuktuk for the 8km journey and picked up the next local bus to Savannakhet this time it was a proper coach albeit a little prehistoricThe journey was uneventful and we arrived in Savannakhet and found a place to stay in a lovely wooden house the furniture in our bedroom was so cool very retro you'll have t http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Laos/South/Savannakhet/blog-191294.html Vom 16. 20.07. warn wir in Savannakhet Laos 2. groesste Stadt. Matze wurde hier von meinen ganzen Verwandten un Freunden laotisiert. Zwar gabs hier nich viel zu sehn dafuer haben wir umsomehr mit unseren Freunden erlebt http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Laos/South/Savannakhet/blog-185803.html The next morning we started the trek. Also on the trek was a French couple a Dutch couple and a Dutch guy. They were good people and we are still travelling with the Dutch guy called Jan. Since there was more than us the price dropped to 35 dollars. Everything started with a visit to a saltmine. Not that it is a mine in any way. There are really big beds that salty water is sprayed upon and t http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Laos/South/Savannakhet/blog-172492.html From Kratie we got a minivan to the boardertown Stung Treng. There we had to wait for hours. The reason was to wait for the next bus they said. After two hours we got on a ferry to travel over the Mekong. Still in Cambodia just five minutes away. And then more waiting. This was very strange as our driver was there and his car was there and to me there was no reason to wait. Well there was one r http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Laos/South/Savannakhet/blog-169458.html It was Tomrsquos idea to travel lsquothe local wayrsquo. Wersquod taken advantage of the luxury VIP buses with large seats and aircon or the minibuses which took us straight to our destination. The south of Laos it was decided was to be traveled via local buses and song thaw basically a truck with 2 long seats and motorbikes. This meant traveling not only with the Laos people but wi http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Laos/South/Savannakhet/blog-153404.html Hey peeps due to the relative smallness of the towns and because I spent only a few days each in both I have decided to put Pakse pop. 70000 alongside Savannakhet pop. 120000. This would be my second visit to Pakse as the first was a stop over on the 14 hour overall anyway Vientiane to Si Phan Don where the Mekong widens and the 4000 islands can be found. Alongside Rosie the hot Israeli http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Laos/South/Savannakhet/blog-145616.html Unfortunately we had to drag ourselves away from Don Khone. Our guest house owners tried to help take the pain away with some Lao tea for breakfast it tasted like how I imagine a cigar ashtrayIt took a fair bit of travelling to move on a boat a jeepney type truck think a space 6 ft by 8 ft wih 25 pasengers squashed onto wooded benches comfort with a capital owch a bus another jeepney http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Laos/South/Savannakhet/blog-137035.html caught a bus to savannakhet from pakse. all in all around 8hrs of travelling. by the time we got there we were so buggered. we went to savannakhet to do a trek with the provincial tourism office there in the dong phu vien national protected area. one word amazingaiyah went to visit all these tribes and hiked for 20k one day reliving my duke of ed glory days swimming in the river.... it was wi http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Laos/South/Savannakhet/blog-131379.html Day 251 6th February Uthomphon Savannakhet The sun rose above the treeline in misty clouds giving it a somewhat moonlike appearance at first maybe thatrsquos what the circular white disk on the Lao flag represents We had managed to survive last night the soldiers never came back only the sound of distant gunfire in the night. I began to wonder about Stephane and Toby where were the http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Laos/South/Savannakhet/blog-126232.html Gestern gings wieder los. Ich war schon fast ein bisschen aufgeregt. Wieder in den Bus steigen in's Ungewisse aufbrechen nicht wissen was einen erwartet... Aber ich freue mich es macht mir wieder Spass ich strotze vor Energie und koennte die ganze Welt umarmen. Ja es geht mir wieder richtig gut.Nach 9 Stunden Busfahrt in denen wir auch so manches erlebten ereichten wir Savannaketh um 6 Uhr http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Laos/South/Savannakhet/blog-116709.html As soon as I got on the bus heading south I realized just how different this country was from Vietnam. I took one step and was practically flagged down by a local women about 50 who was just jazzed about the prospects of sitting next to me for the drive down. I should clarify that neither the local bus driver or the long distance driver tried to charge me a penny more than the locals paid. So http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Laos/South/Savannakhet/blog-115860.html Still hanging out here in Sunny Savanahket it's just so friendly and pleasant I just can't be bothered to get on the bus and move on not in a hurry I'm done with the rushing around to see amazing things It's nice chilling here getting to know the locals.Took my laundry down a shop and the patrons filled me with local tea and a shedload of Rice Whiskey here drinking in the morning is normal http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Laos/South/Savannakhet/blog-98213.html Today is a special day it is exactly 6 months to the day that I flew off to San Francisco yes 6 months of living in various places out of a rucksack and it's also exactly 6 weeks until my flight home yes just 6 weeks until I fly out of Hanoi in Vietnam back to Singpore then the long haul back to London and then an Easyjet up to Inverness. I am just working out my plans for my return in fac http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Laos/South/Savannakhet/blog-97530.html Our last day in Vientiane was spent lounging by a pool Woke up to another hot sticky day had 7 hours to waste until we got our night bus to Savannakhet. Skip found a luxury hotel that allowed us to use their pool for US7.50. It was a great way to ease my hangover from the night before. Went to our favorite sex tourists bar had a night on Singapore Slings. Alot of old white guys with their http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Laos/South/Savannakhet/blog-96372.html Just when I thought life couldnt get any better along came Laos. Well I guess I came along to Laos. Either way I've got a whole lotta love for this country...I shared the bus on the way to the border with a bunch of ducks. This I have done before but this time the ducks were pretty angry who blames them and they got loose in the van flying around in quite the panic and pooping on the se http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Laos/South/Savannakhet/blog-96163.html Having been in Laos for almost a month I needed to do something to either extend or renew my 30 day visa and passing through Savannakhet a town on the Mekong that is also a border crossing to Thailand I decided it would be fun to go to Thailand for a couple of hours and then on reentering the country buy a new visa for Laos... I'm really glad I renewed my visa rather than getting an extension a http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Laos/South/Savannakhet/blog-88905.html So lazy I don't even bother to update my journal. Aah.In Luang Prabang the seductive town where I left you I spent most of my time hanging around in cafes and sampling the excellent coffee baguettes and Lao food on offer reading books and chatting with whoever happened to be around. It was nice. I also paid a visit to the waterfallsswimming lagoons outside town and got wet and cool in a forest http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Laos/South/Savannakhet/blog-79360.html Vietnam came and went in the flash of an eye...I barely spent 2 weeks there before the call of Laos got louder and louder.Vietnam went a little like this Arrived in Hanoi to be greeted by Sarah and a few of the rest. There was a brief Monkey Janes Reunion before all the swedes followed their own paths for a while.Hue was a beautiful city close to a secluded beach. Old very French buildings in http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Laos/South/Savannakhet/blog-27622.html Well it's been a while since I've written and we've been up to a lot. In Vang Vieng we went tubing we being team Beerlao eight people from the trek and two aussies we picked up at the border. Tubing consists of floating down the river in an innertube. What makes it so great is that all along the river banks there are bars set up where you can go off some crazy jumps and rope swings if you http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Laos/South/Savannakhet/blog-10530.html