Pakse

What to say about this town apart from eww! This is a stop over for most buses, but we had to stop here as it is the nearest to Tadlo and the Wat Phu ruins, we stayed 2 nights in Pakse!!!

First of all we hired a bike for the day and went to Angkor ruins near Champasak called the Wat Phu ruins. The ruins are very nice and a good climb to the top of the hill. Unfortunately for us it started raining really heavy by the time we got half way up the hill and we had to stand under a tree with our plastic ponchos on, but we still got wet! We did get some nice pictures however with the rain coming down. It took us another 2 hours to get back to Pakse in the rain. The river ferry is amazing. They strapped a couple of bamboo trees together and that was the ferry we had to put the bike on. When we got back to our hotel/guesthouse/hostel we heard someone in our room. I could not get the keys out quick enough so I banged on the door. To our surprise the receptionist opened the door. His excuse was that he had to come and look at the bathroom because there was a leak. We never said there was a leak. He was very startled and surprised to see us. We kicked him out and made sure that all our stuff was still there. The passports we had earlier locked in a drawer had been moved to a unlocked different drawer and our laptop had also been moved. Needless to say we booked out of there the next day and left for Tadlo.

We hired a moped again (road trip) and drove the 60km to Tadlo, this was a beautiful drive through the Bolaven Plateau which is famous for coffee, rubber, bananas, rain when your on a bike with no rain jacket and of course a lot of waterfalls. Sadly this was also one of the most heavily bombed areas during the war.When we got to Tadlo we wanted to stay at Tadlo Lodge but that was way to expensive but really nice. The restaurant looked out onto the river and waterfall all with an open plan design. We finally decided to stay on the other side of the river in a very nice cabin. We then had dinner at the lodge and this is also when my flip flops ripped. I did a very nice split on the wet cement but managed to recover myself without to much damage. From the deck we could even see the elephant being washed and Christina got really exited about this and ran down the stairs to get some pictures. In the morning we ate breakfast at a guesthouse on the river next to the Tadlo Bridge then back up for our elephant ride through the jungle. It was amazing experience. We posed for some pictures and then got on the elephant. He is very slow and likes to eat every 5 seconds. We were very high up on the elephant and the route we walked was almost nonexistent with very steep climbs and high drop offs next to the river and waterfall. The final part of the walk the elephant walked through a local village. All the wooden houses were on stilts and some even had satellite dishes next to them in a village with no electricity. The area in Tadlo is really beautiful and so very laid back. Nobody is in a huge hurry. Sadly we had to leave here and make our way back to Pakse to get a bus to Vientiane. On the way back to Pakse I was trying not to put any fuel in and had a look how far we could go. About 10km from Pakse the red light came ON and I started to panic a little. Luckily by the time we got closer to town there were plenty of petrol stations but we managed to make it all the way to the shop. I think there were only fumes left in the tank.