Three countris in two days ...
Trip Start
Nov 04, 2007
1
10
62
Trip End
May 03, 2008
Pakse,
Lao Peoples Dem Rep
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
This blog won't have very much about Pakse (there's not much to write about this place!) so I'll use this entry to give an update of our last few days since leaving Siem Reap.
The journey from Siem Reap was a little uncomfortable. We booked a bus ticket from our guesthouse from Siem Reap to the Thai border at Aranyapraphet. It was not the most modern bus we'd ever been on and didn't have proper compartments for stowing our rucksacks. It was about half full when we got on and the driver was piling luggage on the first few seats of the bus. As we went round more and more guesthouses collecting more people the luggage situation was getting trickier with each pickup. By the time the bus was full, it was really really full! The seats were now all occupied by people, with everyone's luggage piled along the aisle. It was also a pretty hot day and there was no air conditioning, and we had our small rucksacks piled on our laps, so you can imagine how uncomfortable it was. After about an hour, the girl sitting behind us needed the toilet so the message was passed to the driver that we needed to stop asap. Rather than clambering over all the luggage in the aisle, the easiest way to exit the bus was through the window, and about half the people on the bus lept out at this point! The roads in Cambodia are really dreadful. No tarmac, not even concrete, they are rubble/mud roads and very bumpy, which means we travelled very slowly indeed. It took about 5 hours to get to the border and it was probably the most uncomfortable journey we've ever had!
Once we got over the border, we wanted to get as far north-east as we could, to get as close as possible with the Thailand-Laos border that day. So we found the bus station, and another 4-hour bus journey later we were in the town of Buri Ram. We knew beforehand that it wasn't the most exciting town. We had hoped to get as far as Surin (30km further east) or even Ubon Ratchathani but it was too late in the day to get another bus. We picked a hotel from our guidebook, which it reckoned was cheap but OK. The book was right on one part, it was pretty cheap, but inside, it was the most horrible hotel we've ever seen (looked ok from the outside unfortunately - otherwise we wouldn't have gone in!).
The next morning we got a train to Ubon Ratchathani which was simple enough. Once at Ubon we found the bus station and got on a bus bound for Pakse in Laos.
Fortunately the border crossing into Laos was infinitely better than our crossing into Cambodia (for those ardent blog-readers who remember that entry). We filled out the forms, paid the fee and got our 30-day visas for Laos and got back on the bus. About 10 minutes further along things got interesting. The bus was stopped by a mobile checkpoint and Laos security officials got on the bus and started searching around with torches, under seats, in the luggage rack. They were also opening the luggage compartments underneath and pulling things out from there. They seemed most interested in all the vegetables that some of the Thai/Lao people seemed to be taking through the border. I don't know whether this is allowed or not, but they certainly didn't like it. Thankfully they were ignoring the 4 westerners on the bus (us and two German guys), which was just as well considering the fact that Roz's rucksack is filled with about 1500 tablets! (I have to add that this is 6 months worth of prescribed medication and she has a letter from the hospital, but I'm not sure what view Lao border-security officials would take!)
We were on our way again after a while and arrived in Pakse. We searched for a guesthouse with the two German guys, and after finding several to be full we found one with rooms available. So here we are!
Pakse is the quietest town we've come across so far. The streets are almost empty, and the locals just leave you alone, unlike the "you want tuk-tuk?" and "where you going" and "you buy some things sir!" we've been getting lately. Laos really has quite a French feel to it. They have baguettes and pastries, proper coffee (that they grow on the plateau near to here), even some of the buildings look French. A lot of the people still speak French too so we've even had a chance to practice a little French (which is actually much easier than trying to get them to understand in English, or using the few Lao phrases we'd tried so hard to learn from our guidebook but clearly aren't pronouncing correctly!). It seems noticably cooler here too, probably only about 25 degrees here right now which is a bit of a relief ;-) The currency here is called the "kip" and you get lots of them - our guesthouse is costing us 60,000 of them per night (just over $6)! There really isn't much to do here though. We're getting a bus south tomorrow to an area called 4000 islands which should prove more interesting.
So I think you are just about up to date now.
Oh, we did want to say thank you to all the comments and messages that people have left on the blog. It is really nice to get comments, and I'm sorry we've not had much chance to reply to them but they are much appreciated so keep them coming!
P.S - to anyone wondering, a wat is a buddhist temple-type-thing. The ones at Angkor, and also many in Thailand were built by various kings so that people will remember and worship them forever. For more info you can look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wat
Ros:
PPS: Do you remember my comment early on in our visit to Cambodia about the three currencies on the go? Well they have the same thing here in Laos - the Kip, the US Dollar and the Thai Baht. Except that everyone keeps an eye on the exchange rate, which seems to change quite a bit. So at dinner last night we were told that it was no longer roughly 10,000 kip to the dollar but 9,600, so we had to put down a little more. At breakfast this morning they reckoned it was 9,000 to the dollar. We have no idea if they were correct or trying to get more money from us. So not only are bills written in three currencies, but the relation of each currency to each other changes daily - and possibly between establishments! Oh my goodness, I'm so confused! Thankfully everything is very cheap, so even if they are trying to diddle us we'll only lose a few pence each meal...
Where we stayed in Pakse
Ponsavanh Guesthouse
But we wouldn't recommend it! It's ok, but I wouldn't go as far as calling it nice. It doesn't have rats in the walls or cockroaches, which is one up on the place in Buriram. We had asked the tuk-tuk driver to take us (and the German guys) to Sedone Riverside. We pulled up at Sedone, which was full - as were a number of other guesthouses nearby. However we later discovered (looking at a better map of Pakse) that there are two Sedones - the riverside one is to the north of the city. Doh. If we stay in Pakse again on our way up north we'll definitely head for there.
Places for veggies to eat
We ate dinner, and breakfast, at Delta Cafe - near-ish to our guesthouse. Pakse is so quiet that it was pretty much the only restaurant we found that had people in it (both white and Lao). The food is Italian and Thai/Lao and they understood when we said we were vegetarian. Don't try the wine (tastes like gone-off ribena). Do try the coffee.
