Not feeling well, it was a struggle to hoist my backpack on and clamber aboard a narrow, unstable boat, back to the mainland, followed by the bus and another boat to reach Champasak. Chris, the gentleman he is, looked after me and carried my bag so I could concentrate on not being sick and keeping hydrated.
Seeing it was just over 1km to the beginning of the accommodation in Champasak, we decided to walk. We asked and looked in several guesthouses, before settling on Vongpaseud, about 3km from where we had started, but it was cheap, clean, had hot water, and was right next to the Mekong.
By this time is was mid afternoon, so we ordered some food and sat in our guesthouse restaurant for the afternoon, enjoying the peacefulness and stillness of the Mekong river.
There really isn't much to Champasak itself, we were here to visit Wat Phu, the Angkor of Laos. So for dinner we ended up at another guesthouse further down the river, with a nicer atmosphere, but not such nice food.

As I mentioned, we had stopped off here to visit Wat Phu. So we hired some bicycles and cycled the 10km in the scorching heat to the ruins. Wat Phu is a ruined Khmer Hindu temple complex, located at the base of mount Phu Kao, with surviving structures dating back to the 11th century. The temple has a unique structure, with some very quirky steps and beautiful Dok Champa trees caressing the walkway, leading to a shrine, where a linga dedicated to Lord Shiva was bathed in water from a mountain spring. The water drips down from the cave around the linga, and is sacred water. We watched some very inconsiderate tourists start to wash their faces, then one of them dunked his head under the water. We were appalled and Chris said to him about it being sacred water, to which he looked a little embarrassed. We spent nearly 2 hours walking around and climbing the different levels.
The temple was nice to see, much more interesting than My Son in Vietnam, and more impressive than some of the many temples we visited in Seam Reap.
We cycled the 10km back towards the town, stopping off at a river side restaurant for a fresh orange juice. We ended up back at our guesthouse for a late lunch and remainder of the afternoon.
Having asked the owner for the past two lunch times if he had any fish steamed in a banana leaf, (one of the options on the menu), he finally got some in, so we couldn't resist for dinner. It was extremely tasty and went well scooped up with sticky rice.

At 6.45am we were hurried onto a local "bus", aka a tuk tuk with a trailer, along with the locals (we were filled to the brim). I don't think Asian countries understanding the meaning of 'full', as there is always room for one more! We were sandwiched in like sardines for the 45 minute journey to Pakse.
Unfortunately we were stuck back in Pakse for the whole day, until our night bus for Vientiane departed at 8.30pm.
With time to kill, we walked from the local market, our drop off point, to the bus station, around 2km the other side of town. We booked our ticket and crossed the road for some local chicken noodle soup. We spotted a bench along the side the river, so bought some drinks and plonked ourselves there for the morning.
As time ticked by, the sun became stronger, so it was time to move inside. We headed to the main road, found a restaurant, and literally sat there, eating and drinking for 8 hours!!
We boarded our night bus to Vientiane.