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.

Local money is Lao kip, 1 euro is 10.400 kips. So 60.000 kips are around 6€.

Restaurants are average and, as the hotels, are accumulated in the beggining of the 13 Road. Near to the bridge, 2 Kilometers where the songthaews coming from Thai border would drop you off, and 8 Kilometers from the main Southern bus station; becoming a hassle place for tuk-tuk drivers.

The only restaurant a little bit different to the rest was an Indian named Jamin. Anyways, prices were high, portions small and quality average. Much worse than any others we tried in Thailand, Malaysia or Singapore.

In the river side we found one small stand with tables close to the Mekong, and great and huge fruit shakes. The cost was affordable, just 5.000 kips.

But, really, in Pakse there is not much more to do than eating, sleeping and taking buses, bouts or songthaews. You could visit one of the temples (called Wats) in the city and talk with a few monks, take a look to the only museum in the city (not of our interest), walk close to the Mekong and see the sunset; may be try the gym in Champasak Palace Hotel or (our recommendation) get a few Lao beers.