Pakxe
Right, we survived the night bus from Vientiane to Pakxe! It was actually a surprisingly comfortable journey - a proper big double decker bus and the road was great too, no trouble with a quick stop about half way through the journey.
After all the stories you hear about travel in Laos, we had braced ourselves for a rough night, especially after our trip from Ayutthaya to Chiang Mai in Thailand. But, it all went super smooth! Got picked up from our guest house by a truck, then driven down to the bus station, shuffled onto our VIP Bus and off we went.
We all got given ice cold water, some rice and chicken and sweeties. We also had a telly which showed the DVD of Live8 in Hyde Park. It was very enjoyable! My seat was not broken, the toilet was not broken and the air con was working but I could turn it off - perfect.
Arrived in Pakxe and then made our way to find somewhere to stay. It was fine, but we got there so early in the morning, we had to hang around for a few hours until we could check in to our room. That was exhausting. But after a quick nap, we were ready to explore the city.
Hooray! We found a post office, a couple of banks, the 'shopping centre' and the bus stop. Yeah, well and that was it. That's the excitement of Pakxe... it's a transport hub really so not much is going on. There is no night life. At all.
Lao people get up really really early but this also means that they are knackered by the time it gets to 7pm. So it's no surprise Pakxe is not rocking. But we sorted ourselves out and we are off to the 4000 islands tomorrow.
By the way, had a Korean BBQ for dinner which was yum!
After all the stories you hear about travel in Laos, we had braced ourselves for a rough night, especially after our trip from Ayutthaya to Chiang Mai in Thailand. But, it all went super smooth! Got picked up from our guest house by a truck, then driven down to the bus station, shuffled onto our VIP Bus and off we went.
We all got given ice cold water, some rice and chicken and sweeties. We also had a telly which showed the DVD of Live8 in Hyde Park. It was very enjoyable! My seat was not broken, the toilet was not broken and the air con was working but I could turn it off - perfect.
Arrived in Pakxe and then made our way to find somewhere to stay. It was fine, but we got there so early in the morning, we had to hang around for a few hours until we could check in to our room. That was exhausting. But after a quick nap, we were ready to explore the city.
Hooray! We found a post office, a couple of banks, the 'shopping centre' and the bus stop. Yeah, well and that was it. That's the excitement of Pakxe... it's a transport hub really so not much is going on. There is no night life. At all.
Lao people get up really really early but this also means that they are knackered by the time it gets to 7pm. So it's no surprise Pakxe is not rocking. But we sorted ourselves out and we are off to the 4000 islands tomorrow.
By the way, had a Korean BBQ for dinner which was yum!
posted by Phil and Tanja @ 3:15 AM
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