Posted on:
April 24, 2012
Peace at Vietnam
Posted on:
March 30, 2012
Mar
29
One month in Laos
Laos is a landlocked country in South East Asia, bordered by China, Myanmar, Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia. The oficial name of the country is Lao P.D.R, officially meaning Lao People’s Democratic Republic; but after one month in this place we agree to define it as Lao Please Don’t Rush.
Lao people, and life in Laos, takes time for any activity they have to realice. If you go to a shop to buy some cookies, to one restaurant to order sticky rice with veggies or to one guesthouse to ask for rooms, you will always get to wait for a while. Having a plate in a restaurant will take you half an hour easily.
Most of them have a basic subsistence economy and for them has no sense our hurry. It’s their way of life, and after a couple of weeks you get used to and you forget too the Western standards
Posted on:
February 8, 2012
Posted on:
January 26, 2012
Posted on:
January 18, 2012
Posted on:
January 16, 2012
Jan
15
Champasak, one step from Wat Phou
Champasak town is settled in the center of the Champasak region, but not the capital. That right is for the boring transit city of Pakse. This town is extended through several kilometeres on the side of the Mekong river.
It’s just a small fisher and farm city, with boats and farm animals all around. But has become more touristically important recently because of the proximity with Wat Phou; this is the reason for the increase of guesthouses on all the main road, all of them with a small familiar restaurant attached. There you can rent or bicycles for riding to Wat Phou in the morning.
The main income, far from the subsistence farm economy, it’s the money arrival from tourists. Anyways, due to usually any guesthouse is full, you can easily bargain to 25.000 kips per night.
Jan
08
What to do in Pakse?
Pakse is the capital of the Chapasak region and is the main transit city of the South of Laos. Due to his location close to the Thai border, and not far from some crossing points with Cambodia and Vietnam, Pakse has become an important center of transport for anybody trying to go in any direction.
Unfortunately, the touristic attractive doesn’t match, int his case, with the necessity of stopping there. Pakse is a boring city with overpriced restaurant and guesthouses, but you cannot do anything.
The worst guesthouses ask for 50.000 kips, but for 60.000 kips you will be able to find rooms with hot water and wifi. In our case we crashed in Lankham hotel, but there are others with similar price and quality.
Jan
06
Crossing the border to Laos
Finally we crossed the border between Thailand and Laos. It was just a while walking, 2 hours and a half hours and 2 shared local songthaews (kindda pick-ups prepared for transporting people). On the first ride we went from Ubon Ratchathani to Phibun for 35 baths/person; and from there to Chong Mek, a small market town on the border, for 40 baths.
After a quick view to the market, we crossed the Thai border without any waiting time and we got inside Laos after paying an extra 50 baths fee. I had read there were not way to avoid it, even after getting our VISA in advance in Bangkok, so I didn’t got too pissed off about that.
Once in Laos we just start to refuse all offers and hassling from the van drivers, until we arrived to a further songthaews parking. There we got one ride to Pakse for 50 baths. So, in the end, our trip took us 4 hours and 3 songthaews.
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