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Pakse to Champassak
Pakse to Don Khong Island
Don Khong Island
Phapheng and Li Phi Falls
Travel Information
PAKSE TO CHAMPASSAK
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.
We arrived at Pakse bus station at 7am in the pouring rain and eventually managed to determine which one of the four trucks in the bus station was going south. Very few people in Laos speak any English or French at all and our attempts at Lao always produced a lot of smiles. This bus was to take us south on a five hour bumpy drive.
The rain continued but after an hour the truck came to a halt, as the road was flooded. The ticket collector was put out to wade in front and the bus followed slowly. When the water reached above his waist the driver decided to reverse out of the water.
We were given very pleasant hospitality by an old lady who invited us to join here beneath her wooden house beside the flood. The houses in Laos are raised up on wooden stilts. We sat and drank tea surrounded by ducks, chickens and pigs, and watched logs and trees float by. Children were swimming in the road and some ladies with umbrellas waded from their houses to the bus, the water came up to their chests.
There was a new section of surfaced road which had been built here but no traffic was allowed on it as it was not yet finished.
We returned to Pakse and tried again the next day. Pakse bus station was a sea of mud (as was most of Pakse) and this time we got an old Chinese bus instead of a truck. This vehicle was not so good as the truck in the mud and knocked down the hut at the gate of the bus station as it departed. Our confidence was not too high at this point but the driver went very slowly and carefully. Nobody could say when the bus would arrive. The seats were like wet sponges and all the inside of the bus was very wet.
Five and a half hours later we arrived at the jetty opposite Muang Khong on Don Khong island. A small boat with a large engine took us across.
DON KHONG ISLAND
This island is one of the most peaceful and friendly places we have ever visited. We found
a very nice large and airy room in Villa Kang-Kong, which is a Chinese house with lovely
carved wooden furniture and a pleasant verandah. There is a good eating place overlooking
the river - Souksan restaurant.
The next day we hired bicycles and wobbled round the island for 8 hours. People were so friendly, everyone we passed waved and said sawadee, which means hello. It is a really lovely place, rice fields, buffaloes, small wooden houses belonging to farmers and fishermen, no cars and the river all round. We talked a little French and Lao with old friendly rice farmers and were invited to help plant rice. At a stop Graham surprised a small brown snake. We saw lots of snakes on this holiday, including some swimming in the river.
TRIP TO KHONG PHAPHENG FALLS AND LI PHI FALLS
The village gong awoke us at 6am. After breakfast of Chinese donuts and honey we set off to meet the little boat which we had hired for the day.
We traveled down river for about an hour to a village on the other side, where our boatman was unsuccessful in finding the motorbikes and their drivers, which were to take us to the falls. He took us further on to Ban Nakasong, which is the last village before Cambodia, where he found them.
We set off on the back of the motorbikes. Graham's driver promptly turned back to go and buy a Pepsi bottle full of petrol. My bike kept going and I was slightly worried as I didn't know where they had gone. Graham was even more worried as his bike kept breaking down and then going even faster to try and catch up with mine.
We rode on the back of these motorbikes for nearly an hour. It was quite hair raising as the track was very full of pot holes and mud and it was raining. My driver was very careful. There was no other traffic, there is hardly any in Laos, and we did not see any people or houses.
The Phapheng Falls are the biggest cascades in South East Asia and with the flood water it was very impressive and well worth seeing. This is the point where the Mekong is 14km wide and the area is known as 4000 islands as the river splits over such a large area.
After returning to the boat we set off to Li Phi Falls which are near the edge of Cambodia. The scenery on the way was lovely. The river was enormous and powerful, but quite silent. There were countless tiny islands, many with a few people living on them, with their animals. Everyone came out to wave. There were also the tops of trees sticking up out of the water where islands had been submerged. Our boatman must have been very skilled and have known the area very well to be able to find his way safely.
We were dropped on an island. The owner of our guest house had drawn a small map which showed the paths to take. A monsoon started, with thunder, and we sheltered by a Wat in the middle of jungle-like vegetation. A woman joined us, and wanted to show us the way. We walked a long way down small jungle paths, crossing wobbly little bridges and planks. There were a lot of termites eating the wood here, but no leeches or mosquitoes. The cascades are where the fresh water dolphins come, but not in August. We ate our packed lunch of sticky rice and omelet at the falls. It took much longer to get back because it was against the current of the river.
We left the island the following day and remember the journey back to Pakse because of the frogs. People living near the road were catching frogs in the flooded ditches and popping them into sacks. As the lorry approached they would tie up the sacks and load them on. The whole lorry was full of bags of frogs. We had two piled under our feet and worried about them getting damaged them all the way back to Pakse.
VISAS,TRANSPORT etc (July/August 1997)
Visas
These were arranged very easily through the Ban Tamilla River View Guest House (very
pleasant) in Chiang Khong. I forget the price but it was what we expected and included
transport over the river to Huay Xai. We arrived in Chiang Khong on Monday afternoon and
crossed the following morning.
When we arrived at Luang Prabang by slow boat from Pak Beng we should have got our visa stamped where we landed. They would not stamp it in the town but insisted that we went back to the pier immigration. This took time as there are lots of landing stages and we did not know which one.
We could not extend our visas in Luang Prabang. They said we had to go to Vientiane.
Money
Could be changed at the boat landing stage/immigration in Laos.
We found that the prices seemed much higher if we paid with dollars. We took a lot of baht and changed most to kips, but sometimes it was cheaper to pay for rooms in baht. We needed a calculator to keep track, especially as exchange rates changed rapidly. We could not change kips back to baht or dollars in Pakse.
The problem with kips is that they come in big bundles, in fact the bank may give you a carrier bag to put them in. We found nowhere to change money or travelers cheques south of Pakse.
At Pak Beng there was only electricity for a very short while in the evening.
Transport
We had no problem getting seats on the flight from Luang Prabang to Vientiane one day
before travelling. But there were very few tourists in Laos (July and August).
Vientiane to Savannakhet - Senesabay autobus service - telephone 218052. This was a good bus with a very helpful manger who accompanied us on the journey and pointed out the highlights. This is a new tourist bus service, although most of the passengers were Lao. It left at 7am, which was earlier than the time we were told when we phoned to book.
Savannakhet - we stayed in the Mekong guest house. We had to get to the bus station for 5am and explained this the night before when we paid our bill. However the next morning the gates were locked and we had to climb over a very high fence to get out. There were no tuk tuks so we started to walk. Lots of dogs started barking at us as we went past but they did not come close. We found tuk tuks at the market where people were arranging their vegetables in the dark.
The bus for Pakse left at 5am prompt. 8 hours, quite bad road which is not yet tarred.
Pakse back to Thailand - We made the mistake of going over on the free car ferry, so we had to walk a lot to find transport. We should have got a small boat which would have landed where there were taxis. We got a taxi to the border post. The taxis at the border wanted an enormous fee to take us to Ubon so we did not go there. We waited at the border and at 4.00pm a comfortable bus arrived which took us straight to Bangkok.
Mosquitoes
We only saw a couple - on Don Khong island. Perhaps it was too wet for them.
Bags
We were glad we did not take much with us as we sometimes had to carry it quite a long
way.
Boats
It really was wet and muddy and slippery on river banks. Also boats are boarded by walking
along a thin plank of wood, we needed shoes with a good grip..
Books
We used both Lonely Planet Laos(1997) and Laos Handbook (Footprint) which we found more
useful for some places. Lonely Planet Lao Phrasebook was also useful.
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