Champasak

Back in Laos... finally...
The journey from Stung Treng was as uncomplicated as it could be. We just had to hop on a minibus which brought us to the border. On the other side another bus waited to pick us up. The border is in the middle of nowhere. A few shacks where the passport controls are carried out, and some more shacks and houses where the people, who work there, live and probably are bored, because it's really the middle of nowhere...

I then stayed two days in Champasak, a very small town in southern Laos, on the western side of the Mekong. It's described as a "lazy one-street town", and that's what it basically is... a scenic ferry crossing, and then houses lined up several kilometers along the only street. Close to Champasak is Wat Phu, some Khmer ruins, they are the reason why most people make a short stopover here. The ruins are quite nice, on a hill overlooking the region, and the view is truly fantastic. I have to add that the Champasak region has been declared a "world heritage site", and this not only because of Wat Phu.
The best thing one can do is to rent a bicycle (almost all guesthouses offer it) and take off into the countryside. There are a lot of water canals and along these canals some fairly decent dirt tracks, where one can drive on bicycles for endless kilometers, at least in the dry season. Now, after the first rainfalls, the fields were full of people working there. The rice already had been or just was being planted, and many paddies shone in this very special green which only rice plants have to offer. I went out there either early in the morning or late afternoon, because the rest of the day it was incredibly hot. Especially the afternoon sun made the fields appear in such a stunning and beautiful light that it is almost impossible to describe.
It was one of the most scenic regions I came through on this journey, one of the true highlights. Nothing spectacular, but of a quiet and intense beauty. Most people miss this, because they just visit the ruins and then leave again.
Fortunately I also ended up in a great guest house, with a terrace overlooking the Mekong. I really enjoyed being out there early in the morning, "listening" to the silence, watching a few fishermen on their tiny boats. The same in the evening... it's hard to imagine this silence, but as I explained, one has to cross the Mekong to get here, and after nightfall there is nothing which could be called "traffic"... it's human voices, birds, cidadas and nothing else...