Thakhek - base for trekking
Trip Start
Oct 16, 2009
1
6
15
Trip End
Nov 15, 2009
Where I stayed
Thakhek Travel Lodge (recommended!)
Thakhek, Khammouan, Lao Peoples Dem Rep
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
I took a 5 hour bus ride from Vientiane to Thakhek (Tha Khaek). This time I made sure I had a good seat. It was a comfortable, enjoyable ride.
Click here for some random scenery videos that I shot from the bus, mind the lovely kitsch music and video clip:
Video 1
Video 2
I consider bus and train rides as one of the 'attactions' of travelling. This was sort of like a 5 hour documentary!
At certain parts we drove alongside the Mekong river. We came past various towns and small settlements, elaborate temples, swamps, rice fields with people working on them (wearing their chraracteristic straw hats), and after 3 p.m. as always loads of kids in school uniforms, returning home after school.
Thakhek seems like a bleak and widespread town. There are not a lot of people out on the streets and most of its buildings (some of them French colonial) are in poor shape. I seemed to be the only one walking; all other people move from A to B in cars or on mopeds / motorbikes.
I am here because it is a good base for trekking in the Phu Hin Bun national park which is supposed to be full of caves, waterfalls, limestone karst mountains rising straight up into the sky and valleys inbetween. I am hoping that at least one other person is going to book tomorrow's 2 day trek, otherwise it will be very expensive on my own. It would involve a homestay in a small village which should be fun.
Later I discovered that Thakhek becomes much more lively after dark.
I'm staying in a lovely Lodge... the Thakhek Travel Lodge.
