Tuesday 25 December 2007

Tahkaek, Laos



After a long flight to Ventiane(capital of Laos) via Louang Prabang, we headed for a bit of luxury in the form of a Novotel on the edge of the city. Showers, TV and smoked salmon, (courtesy of room service) and we nearly got lulled into a false sense of security...shall we stay just one more night????....nooooh! push on to Thakaek a sleepy little village on the main route 13 to the south of the country. So off we go to the main bus station(nearly got dropped at the airport...tricky thing this language lark!!!) to catch the air-con v.i.p. bus to Thakaek, having 'sort of' reserved our room at the Thakaek travel lodge(no relation to UK travel lodge chain).
1.00am in the morning is never a good time to arrive anywhere, especially in a foreign country whose language you don't speak and whose inhabitants don't recognise the english alphabet!
However, with a little help from our tuk-tuk driver(hired when we arrived at the bus station in Thakaek) we managed to rouse the clerk on duty and were shown to our room a spacious affair with air-con, shower(which sometimes works) and double bed. The Gheckos were put to flight and there followed a very comfortable night's(or what was left of it) sleep.
The following day was spent cycling around the village (10 mins) and navigating the little lanes in the area.
The scenery is stunning (limestone karst) and we hired a guide to take us the next day on a cave local cave tour, visiting 6 caves in all, one of them with an extensive network of underground water caverns which were partially explored by basic wooden canoe.
We both agreed that Christmas Day had been quite a surreal affair having chatted to our guide and his two students in english for most of the day(not sure how much they understood, but their english was much better than our Lao!!). Christmas dinner being a selection of dried, smoked fish, meats and strange looking vegetables complete with 'sticky rice'.
We had been looking forward to the next day for several weeks as we had planned to meet Andy and Jo at the Travel Lodge and they arrived at around 9.00am having taken the ferry from Thailand. How lovely it is to see them!! We chatted for some time before strolling down to the local bank to withdraw some more Kip(1,000,000) each should keep us going for several days(inflation being rampant here) 10,000 kip = 50p!!!
The kids retired to sleep for a couple of hours having been up most of the night travelling

2 comments:

Che Guevara said...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAM
HAVE SOME RICE ON US !!
CHE & JUANITA

Phreerunner said...

Hello Both
Hope you continue to enjoy Laos and the rest of your trip, and we look forward to tasting your culinary masterpieces in due course.
Happy (belatedly) New Year.
M&S