Ruins and ride from hell

We knew it wouldn't be completely easy but we didn't expect it to be that hard. When we first saw our bus we thought that finally we would have a normal pleasant ride. But no, we are still in Laos and the transport is painful, so if you are not in the mood for another rant about buses in Laos, please skip the following paragraphs. The trip from Savannakhet to Champasak turned out to be yet another memorable trip, easily one of the worst here.

During the first hour of the ride we didn't go further than maybe 10 or 15 km, stopping for everybody, I mean EVERYBODY. The concept of bus stops is entirely unknown to rural Laos so the bus will stop anywhere, if there is somebody waiting. What does it matter that we have just picked up somebody else 20 metres before that? It went on and on and everytime the stop took a little longer somebody from the bus would get out to stretch their legs and/or the bus would get taken over by food vendors with their chicken and other weird-looking meat on the stick, so even more time got wasted. And this way we spent six hours to cover the distance of a little more than 200 km, in a bus without any aircon or fan or at least windows that would open. Correction, there was air-conditioning alright but the driver must have hated it because he kept turning it off. We were seriously considering killing him (I already had a plan...), the only thing that saved him was that all of a sudden he stopped in the middle of nowhere, made all the foreigners get off the bus and drove away immediately. Before we realized what happened, a bunch of tuk tuk drivers started shouting and fighting over us.

We were not in Champasak yet and we thought that it was too late to catch the onward bus, but decided to try our luck and trust one of the drivers who kept saying we were still on time. He took us just 200m further where the jumbo taxis were parked and one of them indeed drove us to Champasak! We were so incredibly proud of ourselves that the previous horribe ride was (almost) forgotten. We definitely did better than a German guy who believed 'his' tuk tuk driver who told him there was no way to get to Champasak that afternoon and that he could drive him there for the extortionate price of 28 euros. We only paid 2!

So what is so special about Champasak that we wanted so desperately to get there? We were told that not much. But for us it had everything we were looking for and didn't find in Savannakhet. It is a smal town, in fact it is a little more than one very very long street, but it has gorgeous views of Mekong, old French villas and pretty wooden houses on stilts, it is quiet, people play badminton and petanque in the streets, we fell in love fast!

Mekong never gets  old

Well, in fact we went to Champasak to see the ruins of the ancient Khmer temple of Wat Phu. UNESCO World Heritage Site, this temple is one of the most important Khmer structures built outside the present Cambodia and was created before the famous Angkor Wat. To those who already saw the temples of Angkor, Champasak might seem small and disappointing. But since we haven't seen Angkor Wat yet, we really liked this place and the views from the terraces were gorgeous.

The ruins of Wat Phu

The views from the upper terrace with the ruins below

The 10km bicycle ride back to town proved to be more difficult than we'd imagined - D broke the chain on his bike and after several futile attempts by a man from the local repair shop to fix it, we were forced to walk the remaining two kilometers with the sun burning like crazy.

He tried hard...

... but it didn't work

With a light heatstroke, we went to bed early since we had plans for the following morning - to see the alms giving. Each morning the monks in Laos get up early and walk the streets in the vicinity of their temples in order to receive food offerings from the people who live there. Monks are not allowed to cook food and for many this is their only meal. In exchange for sticky rice, fruit and some sweets they then sing a chant to bless the household. It became popular among tourists and Luang Prabang is the place where pretty much everybody goes to see it. We heard that it is so crowded and touristy now that it stripped the ceremony of its initial beauty. That's why we wanted to experience it in some place smaller and more normal than Luang Prabang and Champasak was perfect. To see the monks at sunrise going from house to house receiving food from the kneeling people was really something else and unforgettable.

And as we were approaching the border, there was still one more stop before crossing to Cambodia - Si Phan Don, the 4000 Islands.