Savanbanhao Hotel Savannakhet

... ventured into the Khet. We were through immigration and baggage within ten minutes but this wasn't fast enough. As we got outside we saw the other couple buzzing off in a tuk-tuk and there were no other tuk-tuks in sight. We'd spent the past month in Cambodia being bludgeoned and harassed by tuk-tuk drivers. It was tuk-tuk cold turkey. When we were told to just 'wait' at this ghost town like airport we felt sick...out of place. After 15 minutes a less ...

... completed, we left the border post to find no town on the other side. It took us a good few kilometres of 'it must be round this corner' before we eventually found our bus comrades again, all sat around enjoying their post-lunch laze. <br><br><br>That evening we pulled into Savannakhet - a moderate sized Lao city but a world away from the craziness of Vietnam. The wide, grid-patterned ...

... were in front of us and they weren't very impressed with the price of the visas (about $37 rather than the $30 they had expected.) We weren't too bothered, we'd expected to pay about that, but, in our wisdom, we decided to hang back and see if they managed to negotiate a better price, after all, we didn't want to be the suckers who paid over the odds, and most Asian prices are open to negotiation. Unfortunately, the immigration officer didn't take kindly to haggling and decided to throw ...

... 3 Riesenspiesse mit Kaefer verdrueckt...Kein Wunder kotzen die Asiaten fast bei allen Busfahrten (Tanja, das waere doch etwas fuer dich :-)). <br><br>Auch in Savannakhet gibt es nicht viel. Die meisten Touris stoppen hier nur fuer eine Nacht und gehen anschliessend direkt weiter nach Vietiane. Wir nehmen uns die Zeit und suchen Spuren der Dinosaurier, die hier anscheinend gefunden worden sind :-)

Unfortunatly we did eventually have to leave my favourite town in the world, Luang Prabang and head south down through Laos. Our first stop was a small town called Phonsavon after a terrifying mini-bus journey along the most mentally windy road i've ever seen across a mountain range. We've had a few scary journeys so far but this was the worst, at one point the tires were sreeching as we went round a really sharp bend with a sheer drop to our side. I was glad when that trip was over ...

We left the village and caught a local bus to Savannakhet the next day. We tried to find the dinosaur museum but the map was useless so we couldnt find it. Apparently its just a room though so we didnt miss a lot. Apparently they have found lots of dinosaurs in this area though. We then went to the eco tourism office and booked up a trek for the following day, it was pricey but the money goes to the local ...

Savannakhet We bought tickets to Savannakhet and continued our journey North. This involved a small boat to the mainland, a minibus to Paske and a local bus to Savannakhet. There seemed to be an awful lot of people involved in getting us across the river where we were crammed into a minibus heading for Paske. It was a little cramped but still quite good. All the other people, backpackers, were going to Paske or East of there, we were the only ones going North. We ...

From China, it was on to the much heralded region of South East Asia with our first stop being the beautiful country of Laos. Our propeller plane flight from Kunming to Laos' capital Vientiane proved problem free despite much pre-takeoff angst on our part, the reason being that Lao airlines does not publish its flight safety record, simply because it is not one to be proud of! In any case, we glided gently down into Vientiane airport letting out huge sighs of ...

From Phnom Penh, I worked my way to the Lao border via the nondescript town of Stung Treng, where everything seemed to have a thin skin of red dust. The border post was isolated - just a couple of huts on a long grey road. From here, I planned a couple of days relaxing in the strangeness of Si Phan Don....a collection of islands covered in small round trees that look as if they have pushed their way out of the riverbed to to surface ...

Yesterday I very reluctantly left the Lao capitol of Vientiane and headed south to the township of Savannakhet. I had a feeling the bus trip was gonna be something special when I climbed on and the driver fired up the on-board karaoke machine. Unfortunately, I can't speak or read Thai, nor did they have any English VCDs othewise I would've gotten up and given it a bash. Being just under 183cm (6&#8242;1&#8243;) tall and taking a 10 hour ...