So the sleeper bus was horrible. Instead of seats the bus had bunkbeds and some bright spark had decided it would be a good idea to put two people in each bed. Each of these beds is about the width of a single bed, and a little bit shorter, and the craziness of the driver means you can’t lie on your side – the bus driver hares around corners like a wild beast, you roll over and fall off; we were on the top bunk. Suffice to say neither of us slept a wink.
We arrived in Pakse at 6ish in the morning. We wandered around with Michelle, a South African girl we’d met on the tuk-tuk to the bus, looking for some accommodation. We tried a few hostels, but none of them had a single and a twin rooom, so Michelle ended up in the riverside hostel. Andy and I dashed off to meet Anja and Anna for breakfast at the Indian restaurant next door to their guesthouse before their 7:45 bus to the 4000 islands. Sadly it had no pancakes left. Andy and I ended up checking into the guesthouse the girls had just left – the Saigon Champasak. This was a really nice place with a balcony, television and air conditioning, but was a little more expensive than the riverside hostel Michelle was staying at.
Pakse is not really a happening town. As far as backpackers go, it’s more of a travelling hub – you can get buses or planes from here to just about anywhere in south Laos and beyond. We did find a really nice place to eat though – the local minimart put out some barbeques on the street and made some excellent meals. I only noticed it when walking back from the internet cafe because of the mass of people that were eating there – always a good sign.
After spending most of the first day sleeping, eating and surfing the net, we resolved to go to Wat Phu the following day. Having already made some enquiries about tours and travelling ourselves, and having failed to make any decision about booking a tour, we ended up making our own way there. This involved a tuk-tuk ride to the bus station first of all. The ‘buses’ actually turned out to be sawngthaew – basically extra large tuk-tuks. Andy refused to get on the almost-full sawngthaew we were directed to, citing a bad shoulder, so we were directed to an almost-empty one. The other one left and our’s waited for an hour….
The ride to Champasak on the sawngthaew was a long one and ended with a ferry ride across the Mekong river. Luckily this turned out to be included in the price. From Champasak we paid for the ride, while the Laotians on the bus laughed at how much we were asked to pay, and picked up a tuk-tuk to Wat Phu.
Wat Phu is a large ruined temple, set into the side of a mountain. The site is large, and the guide book compares it to Angkor Wat. Admittedly the comparison is : “Not in the same league as Angkor Wat”, but the fact they mention it in the same sentence is impressive. The temple must once have been incredible, but now, sadly is completely ruined – most of it is just piles of rubble. There are plans to restore it, to do this will apparently cost one million euros, which doesn’t actually sound like very much money. I guess labour in Laos is cheap.
That said, the ruins are still pretty amazing. It was originally a Hindu temple, reordained as a Buddhist temple when that became the dominant religion in Laos. You walk up an avenue of monuments to the Hindu god Shiva. The symbol of the god is a phallic design. It seems the hindus had three main gods, Shiva, Vishnu and Ganesh, who combined. The combined symbol for the three is a shaft with a circular bottom for Ganesh (elephant head), square middle for Shiva (3 or 4 heads) and octagonal top for Vishnu (four arms, can’t remember how many heads). These shafts are sunk into the pillars with Ganesh buried in the pillar – I guess he’s lord of the underworld.
About halfway along the boulevard are the two main standing temples, although they’re so ruined you can’t go in them. These are the North and South temples. Continuing along you go up some ruined steps, then a few more sets of ruined steps (watch your step) to the top, where there’s another temple, part of which you can go into – there’s a Buddha in there. Behind that is a slope, with some more ruined steps going up there and a cliff. Around there is also the elephant rock, which is a big rock with an elephant carved into it, and the crocodile rock, which has the imprint of a crocodile. All around is just rubble, but there was a small set of steps lying around with a couple of snakes carved as if wrapping around the steps. It’s interesting to see obvious bits of building just lying around.
We spent about an hour wandering around and exploring. Some areas are fairly inaccessible, we felt a bit like Lara Croft in Tomb Raider (but without the acrobatics & dinosaurs). After that we wandered back to the tuk-tuk, who took us to the museum, which is where we learnt about Shiva, Vishnu and Ganesh.
Now for the ride back. The tuk-tuk took us back to Champasak. From there we got the ferry across the river (we looked for someone to pay, but couldn’t find them). From the other side of the river there were no tuk-tuks and no more buses back to Pakse. Eventually we had to ask one of the shopkeepers what to do. She flagged down a builders’ pick-up truck who happily gave us a lift back to Pakse. At one point one of the guys in the cab came and sat in the back with us, and we attempted to communicate, but with limited success.
Back in Pakse, we’d previously booked a flight the next day to Siem Reap. Having lost a day in Koh Samui, spent an extra day in Bangkok and an extra couple of days in Vang Vieng, we couldn’t really afford to lose another two days on a bus ride, so the flight it would have to be!
