Tha Khet

We decided to get the heck out of Savannahkhet and escaped to Tha Khet.  Tha Khet is a much nicer town! This has meant that we have spent way too much time on buses and with us going to Vientiane it'll be 3 days out of 4 on buses... yuck

Nov 28 – To Tha Khet

This morning we went out in search of an ATM and breakfast. Our low opinion of Savannakhet was not improved by the our morning exploring. What was called romantic with some crumbling french architecture was really just a dump. We quickly found our way to the bus to get a ticket out of there. We purchased a ticket to Tha Khet and Beau zipped off to our hotel to pick up our bags and check out. We spent about 14hrs in Savannahkhet and that was quite enough. Our bus ride to Tha Khet was pretty uneventful although we did stop for an hour at some other bus station so again another slow ride. I think that will be the standard in Laos, buses taking a long time to go relatively short distances. I miss knowing that you it will take you about 2hrs to go 200km. We arrived in at Tha Khet bus station and started looking into getting a tuk tuk. We were talking with some other travellers and got a deal on the ride for all 6 of us. It was a pretty cramped ride. We started looking around for a room, the first two places only had more expensive rooms available but we found one for a reasonable price. We headed to the river front for a snack and got this really delicious pancake/crepe type thing. I don't know what it was made with, the guy used some sort of pastry, looked toffee like, and rolled it out super thin then put it on his grill and cracked an egg into it. Once it was all cooked up he poured condensed milk onto it, YUM! We then went to a restaurant and had a beer while we watched the sun set. While sitting there we saw two guys from the tuk tuk so we went for dinner with them and the other tuk tuk couple. We had a nice dinner together by the river side. We made plans to meet up with them tomorrow morning to discuss going to see some of the caves in the area. We realized when we got back to our hotel our room was right next to a karaoke club. The music was quite loud but some how we were able to sleep, I don't think it was open too late either.

Nov 29 – The Caves around Tha Khet

We met up with the group at the tourist information center, they were interested in going to one cave in particular which is about 7km long and you go through by boat. This cave is also about 200km from Tha Khet and chartering a minibus to go see it was just too big of an expense for us. The other four went ahead with the trip though. After having some noodle soup for breakfast, with not so yummy noodles, we rented a motorbike and decided to check out the caves near the town. The caves we went to were Tham Xang, Tham Pha Pa, Tham Xieng Liap and Tham Nang Aen. We were a little let down by our experiences. The caves we went into were mostly set up as alters and there wasn't much exploring to be had. Near the end of the we went to one which had more facilities but it was also more money to go in and there was the option of renting a boat. We had been let down by the other caves and decided against going in this last one. We just could drum up any enthusiasm to go in. We did go to a lake, Tha Falang, which was very pretty. The water was Caribbean blue, not really sure what made it this colour but it was quite clear. We head back into town and had a much needed shower. The roads were very dusty so we were covered in it. We went to the only restaurant that offered wifi, there were internet cafes though, and got some food and some beers. After eating and catching up on our e-mails and blogs we found the magnificent pancake man again and this time ordered two one with banana and one with egg. We had thought last night there was no way to improve on the deliciousness but the banana proved us wrong. We relaxed by the water front with another beer before heading back to our hotel. Beau and I have rediscovered TV a little but mostly its on the news station. Tomorrow we are going to try to catch an early bus to Vientiane.

Funky looking rock that looked like a face

Inside one of the Caves

Tha Falang, the pretty lake

Don Det to Savannahkhet

Savannakhet was a big let down we are moving on to Tha Khet. Hopefully it will be much better.  The bus ride was super slow with it stopping every few km to pick up people, scooters and even animals... there was a chicken.  The seemingly disorganized bus ride and having to change vehicles numerous times undid the relaxed feeling I had in Don Det.  Lets hope the next day of travel goes a little more smoothly.  Sorry I didn't really take any photos the past few days.

Nov 26 – Hanging in Don Det

Today was to be a quiet day. We went for breakfast then headed more into town to find some internet. We hung out at a nice riverside restaurant for the bulk of the day. We ran into Gregory breifly while there before he and the girl hopped on a boat to the main land. Mostly we just spent the day catching up on computer stuff and relaxing. It was nice. We tried to go to go watch the sunset at one restaurant but we got there a little late and the menu was quite overpriced. We went to the reggae bar for some beers but it was kind of pathetic as far as reggae bars go. There was no reggae music playing actually there was no music playing period. We moved on to find another restaurant for dinner and then head for an early bed. It was nice to have a quiet do nothing catch up day. We did buy a bus ticket today to go to Savannahket tomorrow, suposed to be a kind of pretty and romantic although a little run down.

Nov 27 – To Savannahket

We've been eating at the wrong places the past few nights. The restaurant attached to our guesthouse, which I hadn't really noticed before, had super cheap food. We ate here for breakfast which was a little cheaper than elsewhere but we could have had dinner last night for half the price. Boooo ahhh well you win some you lose some. We waited at the south west ferry terminal for our boat pick up around 11am. We were the only ones waiting there and were a little nervous about the fast but fortunately a boat showed up to take us to the main land. We had our own private boat although we were without shade on it. From the boat we caught a maxi bus to Pakse. This bus was bigger than a mini bus (a 15 seater van) and smaller than a coach bus (a greyhound). It also lacked air-conditioning but the windows opened and the bags were on the roof. From Pakse we transfered to a bus to Savannahkhet. This bus took a long time to get anywhere. We stoped every 500m for the first 10 km picking up passaengers including 3 motorbikes and a chicken. I don't understand why these people could go to the bus station to be picked up! Honestly! So it took forever to go 200km. We were told we`d arrive around 7pm and arrived at 9:30pm. We were dropped off outside of Savannahkhet and directed towards a jumbo, a pickup truck with benches in the back. The jumbo took us about 300m to another van. We were talking with a Lao girl, around my age, trying to figure out where we were. We found out we were dropped 35km outside of the city center. We were supposed to take the van into town but no one really indicated this to us but fortunately the Lao girl helped us figure this out. We were operating off the Lonely Planet and Rough Guides book and asked to be taken to a guesthouse which turned out to be closed. We were driven to another which was good enough for 9:30pm so we checked in. We then went in search of dinner and got some chicken noddle soup for $1. After this we went back to the hotel and for once turned on the tv. Low and behold there was a movie on so we watched Couple's Retreat before going to bed.