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Published: October 3rd 2009
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Dragon boating
A group of kids practice for the upcoming dragon boat race. On the other side of the Mekong river is Thailand. We were only in Laos for a few days but it turns out that it was one of the highlights of my trip so far. We took a bus from Hue in Vietnam to Savannakhet in Laos - a 10 hour journey which was actually fairly enjoyable due to the great sights and scenery we saw on the way. In general the Lao people seem to be an extremely friendly bunch and it came as a bit of a shock to us at first when people in the street came over to us to talk to us not because they were just trying to sell us something but because they just wanted to be friendly. After walking around the town for a little while, we found a nice guesthouse which was a really nice wooden cabin styled place and it only cost $3 a night so it was a bit of bargain.
On our second day in Laos we booked ourselves on an 8km trek through the big forest which is about 15km outside of Savannakhet. Loaded with insect repellent we left the guesthouse in the morning to catch a lift in a tuk-tuk to the forest. It turns out
Fried rice eating monkey
A monkey enjoying some fried sticky rice which was left over from our lunch. we were the only two people on the trek and we had two guides with us - one from a local village near the forest and one from the town. The first few kms were quite tough because we were going through really thick forest with a little gap in the trees only big enough for a little Lao person who tend to be quite small so I was having to do a lot of ducking and forcing my way through branches and leaves which was a bit annoying but funny at the same time. The guides were a lot of fun and they kept finding us berries and nuts that the local people collect to eat and we got to taste them all - most were quite nice but one was too bitter and the taste lingered for a few hours. They also showed us how the local people use certain trees to make oil and a few other interesting things. After we had a bit of lunch by a nice lake, we carried on walking and saw some monkeys which apparently are quite rare to see there. After we finished walking, the guides took us to a nearby
Salt mine
Two workers from the salt mine a few kms outside of Savanakhet. village to show us around and one guy invited us into his house for a drink which was nice of him. To finish off, we got shown around a salt mine that was close to the village. It turned out to a great day mainly due to the fun guides and the other people we met.
After spending another day looking around Savannakhet, it was time to catch our bus back to Vietnam. However, we found out that the road to the border was flooded due to a big storm that came through from Vietnam and no one knew when it would be open again. After a bit of researching, we decided that our best bet was to travel further north to a town called ThaKhek and try to cross into Vietnam at a more northernly border. We took a local bus on the 3 hour drive to ThaKhek which was an extremely crammed minibus but it was bearable and actually quite fun. When we arrived in ThaKhek we went to the bus station to try to find out how we could get back into Vietnam. One of the strange things about Laos is the fact that bus is
the only way to get around yet there is no official bus timetable or anything written down anywhere and no one seems to know when buses leave or where they go to. We spent a good hour at the bus station trying to get info on how to get back to Vietnam and failed, it seems that the people at the bus station only know about their specific buses, no one knows details about all the buses and there is literally no way of finding out! As we headed from the bus station into the town centre feeling frustrated and wondering how on earth we were going to get back to Vietnam, we luckily stumbled across these two extremely useful guys who had a tuk-tuk and one had pretty good English so he could translate for us. They took us back to the bus station and after another 30mins or so of trying to find out information on a bus back to Vietnam, we were told that there might be a bus leaving at 9pm that night which goes to Vinh in Vietnam over one of the northernly border crossings. We arranged with the tuk-tuk guys to get a lift
No trumpets?
Probably the best sign i've seen so far on my trip. to the bus station at about 8pm so that we could try and get this bus which we weren't even sure existed or not. Luckily the bus did exist and we managed to get on it. Some of the buses which go from Laos to Vietnam are terrible but this was one of the better ones as it is what they call a 'VIP' bus, but don't be fooled by the name - all it seems to mean is that that bus actually has windows and the amount of livestock on board is kept to a minimum. The bus was loaded with a fair few people, most of who were Vietnamese but there was also two Lao guys and any space which wasnt taken up by people was filled with cargo. In the end, the journey was pretty horrible and took 16hours, but we'd finally managed to get back to Vietnam and despite that journey we had an fantastic time in Laos - its an amazing country.
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