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Published: June 17th 2014
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Hi everyone,
Well it was another early start for us on Saturday as we left Pakse and headed for Don Det and the 4,000 islands
We left around 7am and picked up our breakfast from the Indian restaurant we visited the night before. We also had to go via a pharmacy as Paddy was unwell and they diagnosed his symptoms as gastroenteritis and gave him a cocktail of drugs to take bless him. Very cheap though and he looked like a drug dealer with his pills in little see through bags Lol.
Once out of the city we were settling down for the long journey when we pulled off the road to visit the achient monument and world heritage site of Vat Phu monument.
This is the site of a former Buddhist temple which was Hindu temple prior to Buddhism being followed in Laos. We got there about 8.30am and firstly visited the museum there which houses artefacts found at the site. Sadly we were not allowed to take photos inside so can't show you what we looked at. However most of the items were stone carvings from both
the Hindu and Buddhist eras.
After the museum we took one of the electric cars which ferry visitors from the museum up to the start of the main site. It's a few minutes ride to the main site and the path fools round the two large open spaces of water rectangular in shape at the front of the monument.
Boon gave us some of the history of the site and then we walked along a path leading up to the first two buildings. The lathe was paving stone and on either side were stone pillared which used to hold lights.
We then had a wander round one of the buildings to take the obligatory tourist shots. The other building is closed.from here we walked up the hill and some shallow steps and then took some more photos. Then we talked some steeper steps where we and many others had our photos taken. We had to choose our moment in between another two groups of tourists, possibly Japanese but mot 100% sure lol. However we were just about to start our photo shoot when random tourist from the group just walked in
and started videoing his scent up the steps and took his time doing so! Grrrrrrr lol
We then carried on up some more step steps up to the temple at the top, took some photos and some shots of the amazing views and then went to see an elephant car bed in to a rock and a crocodile shaped impression in the rock.
We then descended all the steps. On our way down Paddy and I were stopped by random tourists who wanted to have their photo taken with us lol. It was only later at the bottom that I realised how hot and sweaty I looked and how ridicules I would look lol. It was a very hit and humid morning so early on
At the bottom we got some refreshments and headed back to the bus and continue our journey, then it was time to get our heads down for a couple of hours.
When it was time we had to disembark from the bus so Elvis our bus driver could drive on to the 'ferry'. I was dubious that the bus would fit on and
I was happily shown that it could be with room to spare, must have been An optical illusion lol. Once the ferry crossing was complete, about 20 minutes or so we continued on the bus until we reached our bus's final destination. We disembarked and said a find farewell to Elvis. We then walked a little way down the road to the second 'ferry' crossing of the day . This was in fact one of the long narrow style boats we have used in the past to cross over to the monkey village. The boat ride took about ten minutes or so.
Finally we arrived in Don Det, disembarked, found our rooms, dumped our bags - photso of room attached and my peekachoo towel lol, and went for lunch at Adams where they show main stream films, have banana splits and cider!
After lunch we had a siesta dispute to the early start and in the evening went to a different bar at the end of the village where they were showing the football and were open 24 hours a day during the World Cup, and had cider result! So we decided we would
get up early to see the England vs Italy game.
It was then time to head back and sleep ready for another early start and a full day of Kayaking.
Xx
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