| | Home | | PAKSE TO CHAMPASSAK AND WAT PHU We had been told that a boat to Champassak would leave around 7am. It was a short walk to the edge of the river and helpful people pointed to a little low boat which slowly filled up with people, mainly families, and their belongings. All the passengers sat on bags of rice. Luckily the weather was cloudy, as it was very hot. Three hours later the engine started and after turning back 3 times for more passengers it was on its way down the Mekong.
There were very few boats on this beautiful river, which was huge and swollen with so much rain. We passed a few small villages on the banks, among the trees. In one place small canoes were out in the shelter of a bend, collecting wood which was drifting down the river. When the boat stopped to let people off it was surrounded by canoes full of women selling food - little bags of sticky rice and tiny dried fish and bits of chicken and little birds' eggs threaded on sticks.
After two hours we arrived at a muddy landing slope near a road where there were a couple of tuk tuks waiting (motorbike taxis). We hired one to take us the 8km to Wat Phou. This was a drive through very beautiful countryside and small villages.
Half way there a bridge was broken. It had no wooden planks on top. Luckily an enterprising boat owner had tied two canoes together and put planks across, to make a small ferry. Our tuk tuk was too heavy to carry onto this but there was a smaller, lighter tuk tuk, like a motorbike rickshaw, which our driver arranged for us to use for the rest of the journey. This was lifted onto the ferry and we were paddled across the little river. It started raining. Laos rain is torrential, but keeps you cool when it is hot.
Wat Phou is one of the places in Laos that I will always remember. It is in a stunning setting with the ruins rising out of lush vegetation at the foot of tree covered hills. We explored the temple and a huge stone staircase that climbed up the hillside to a sacrifice stone. It was a very still, quiet and sacred place. It did not seem as if very many people go there.
On the way back we had to walk across the broken bridge, which meant balancing along the girders, as there were no planks on top, just a gap to the river below.
The larger tuk tuk was waiting for us and left us at a different part of the river bank, but a boat for Pakse did not come. We sat on a fallen tree and drank Coke from a plastic bag. Eventually a ferry came across the Mekong and we got a lift back to the other side, where we found a four wheeled tuk tuk. This took us the 60km back to Pakse quite quickly and was not very expensive.
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