Blogs from South, Laos, Asia - page 77

I left Pakse at 7am.  My tuk-tuk driver was a lazy bastard and took me to the wrong bus station so I missed the truck I was supposed to catch down to Champasak.  I ended up hiring a sawngtaew for the reasonable price of $3 as I wasn't going to stay in Pakse a moment longer than I had to; there's very little to do there except drink fruit shakes and eat too much Indian food at the cafe opposite my hotel. I was driven to Ban Muang by the Mekong at a breakneck speed.  There's something frightening and exhiliarating about travelling so fast.  I tried to convince myself that if we crashed I would land in one of the mud puddles with a wallowing buffalo and be ok.  At Ban Muang I caught a boat ... read more

I have been away from internet cafes for 10 days or so (which is harder to do than you would think). I think when last I wrote I was talking about going on a five day trek in Savannakhet province. For some reason (which due to communication difficulties I was not able to ascertain) this trek is not being run any more. So instead I went to the very southern-most part of Laos to an area called the Four Thousand Islands. It is an area where the Mekong stretches to 14km across. In the dry season there are many many small sandy islands in the area (four thousand at last count apparently…) in addition to the larger ones with vegetation and even villages. At the moment it is the rainy season, and the area is more ... read more