After a relaxing stay on Don Det we headed for mainland Laos to see what it had to offer. We got a boat across the Mekong and then a VIP mini-bus (just a normal mini bus but if they put 'VIP' in front they get more money out of us!) to Pakse. It was only a couple of hours travelling but it seemed so different to the place we'd just left.
Pakse (pronounced Packsay) was a run of the mill town and we didn't do a great deal there, in fact all we remember doing there was eating! We had a lovely lasagna each which must have been cooked fresh because it took 2 hours from ordering to eating! After a walk around town and a laze in our lovely creaky guest house we went out for dinner at an Indian restaurant. Yum!!
The next day we had breakfast (food again) and got a jumbo (a bigger version of a tuk tuk) to the local bus station in the hope we could get a ride to Savannakhet. We got a local bus alright; we were sharing the back of the bus (the locals sensibly took all other available seats at the front) with a huge amount of cabbages and galangal (just like ginger) and everyone’s luggage, as the roof rack was covered in, yep you guessed it, cabbages and galangal!! It was hilarious and the smell was a little ripe but once the bus picked up some speed it soon dispersed. The journey took six hours, largely because the driver stopped at every food vendor hang out to let them on the bus and try and sell us stuff. We were offered whole chickens on a stick, fish on a stick, crickets on a stick and big beetles on a stick... Laos must have a fascination with stick food. We were also offered litre bottles of honey, when we looked with surprise at the man he made a 'glugging' motion... apparently they drink honey here, or at least that’s what they tell tourists!
When we finally arrived in Savannakhet we refused to pay the inflated tuk tuk price and started to walk out of protest... luckily a tuk tuk appeared after about 400m because we were miles away from the town centre! We got it cheaper though. Savannakhet was a lovely crumbly old French colonial town, it's definitely seen better days but that's part of its charm. We only spent a night there but really liked the place. The people were ridiculously friendly, everyone was saying 'Saibadee' ('hello') to us as we passed, on one street we were stopped by two different people just to have a chat! What an amazing place, you certainly wouldn't get that in Norfolk! The next morning before leaving for Tha Khek we went for breakfast near our guest house, the guy that served us couldn't have cared less about us, which was odd for this town, but the coffee was absolutely amazing! Laos coffee is now Phil's tipple but he's yet to find one as good as the one in Savan. After breakfast we walked to the Dinosaur Museum, Laos' only one! We had to go and have a look because it seemed so unlikely. The building was small and the exhibition even smaller, but the curator who showed us around was so enthusiastic, it was great fun! We got to touch real bones and teeth - awesome! The size of one of the femurs was the same height as us, yikes! Did you know that Laos found the 63rd species of dinosaur and it has only ever been found in Laos? Fact.
After a fun morning we headed to the bus station in a pick-up truck. We got a local mini-bus (no 'VIP' sign taped on it this time so it was cheaper!) to Tha Khek. Luckily we got the two front seats near the driver because the locals were packed in like sardines in the back, we were half expecting to get passed children at one point as they were going from lap to lap to create space for more adults! Great fun, you don't get that on the VIP's!
Once in Tha Khek we got thoroughly bored. It was Saturday and everything seemed to be closed. Everything except our guest house and the hotel across the road that did gorgeous food. We ate all our meals there and tried lots of lovely Laos dishes including fish mouse in banana leaf parcels. Dee-lish! Our evening meal was shared with some extremely loud and pissed scousers who were watching the Liverpool derby on the big screen. It made us embarrassed to be British but by the end of it they had the Laos men at the bar singing the football chants with them. Sion pittied them and so didn't want to point out that the little men on the TV couldn't hear their colourful well-wishes. We only stopped in Tha Khek as the journey between Vientiane and Savan would have been a mammoth one. It served its purpose of a stopover town at least. Next stop is Vientiane, the countries capital...