Sala Champa Hotel Pakse

... a whole parade of dolled-up cars (open pick-up trucks) with buddhist symbols, flowers, monks. I think the first pick-up truck tends to contain the body. <br><br>French couple<br>Immediately on the street in Pakse I bumped into the nice French couple from Lille I'd met on that earlier bus ride (the one that broke down), Manon and Luca(s). They recommended a hotel for me and invited me to join them for drinks ...

... plastic surgery on his nose. But I told them I also have sort of an Asian nose, and showed them the pictures I brought of my family, including my father with Indonesian blood. <br>We also had fun going through my Point It booklet and them teaching me a few Lao words. <br><br> The bus was finally fixed and on we went, through beautiful sunsets, but so much for my full evening in Pakse. It always nice to see the countyr passing by.... Lao people like to play a ...

... sitting on the edge of the water, in the evening all of the villagers would come to wash in the river. Marc and Simon managed a swim in the Mekong Mel and I opted for cold showers! <br><br>The people here were the kindest we have come across, it was a pleasent change to not have anyone selling any touristy stuff to us every 5 minutes, and no tuk tuks. One night Marc was desperate to see the football and a lady let us stay in her home until 11pm to watch it, we ...

... between the two towns. At Vientiane we had an unexpected overnight stop as we needed to visit the doctor to check out a nasty rash that had appeared for no apparent reason on the back of my left hand. (Paul had helpfully diagnosed this as leprosy). We went to the doctors with some trepidation with what to expect, however they were fantastic. The doctor spoke English, diagnosed ...

... as the coffee I had in Vietnam though. We then pushed on to Paksong where we went to vist two more waterfalls, Tad Nguing and Tad Fane . I thought the second one was more impressive then the first but they were both nice waterfalls. We had some lunch here and as soon as we sat down after taking photographs the weirdest things happened. A fog just whipped in and covered the entire area and lifted ...

... Even at times in the restaurant the fog would creep in and I nearly disappeared from view across the table. Hmmm, we wondered whether the next set of falls would be the same and if we should actually make the journey there.<br><br>As it turns out, we were glad we did, even though the roads to Yaung Waterfall were even worse than before and we got out of the car from the beginning to let our driver tackle them on his own. Once there, a ...

My next stop was Don Kho, a little island about 15 km from Pakse. THe island is known for its silk weaving. It is also a place where you can do a homestay. Sophie, a friend I had met in India had recommended I do a homestay there. When I asked in the tourist office in Pakse how I should arrange this, I was told to take a sawngtheaw from the Morning Market to Ban Saphai where I could catch a ferry across the river to the island. When I got to the island, just tell someone that I wanted ...

This week was defined by my time in Pakxe, Laos. The beginning of my week was preparation for my trip to southern Laos. My boss and I made sure that we had all the information we needed to travel south, our attorney's girlfriend was also coming with us because she is redoing the website content for VFI. We went to yoga at Vientiane Yoga Studio before our ten hour bus ride, so I quickly packed my bag at my apartment and met her there. We did yoga for about ...

... remains of a concrete tunnel where the French had finished buttressing the line. Locals were out, some squatting on the ground, one dad clad in flip-flops, seemed very loving towards his daughter. A situation picked up by Anne-Marie:<br>"He looks like a good father," she confidently thought.<br>My immediate concern was to beeline towards a nearby solitary toilet. Once done, we made our way to the riverside from where Cambodia rested at the other bank. In ...

... them a Beer Lao if they won. So it was off - again - to our lodgings.<br>We met later for an evening meal. It was black and pleasantly cool, making our way back along the shore road, listening to the distant beating jibe of resort-type music emanating from the opposite shore on Don Det, complemented by dimly lit restaurants overlooking the shore on this side.<br>That's what I liked about Laos, the '4,000 Islands' turned out to be full of surprises.