Waking up hot
I woke in the darkness, and I was very hot and sweaty, not what I wanted when I woke up. As I was waking up, I realised the air con wasn’t on, and we weren’t moving, we had stopped. When I sat up, there was hardly anyone around, the bus was almost empty. I spoke to Mat, and he informed me that we’d been broken down for 4 or 5 hours! To be fair, it doesn’t surprise me too much. The buses may look fancy, but I bet they get used like absolute work horses. At least we won’t get to Thakhek too early.
I went outside the bus, and it was a hive of activity. There were people running backwards and forwards, with luggage, bags of rice, and other random items. I walked to the back of the bus, there were no street lights as we were on a country road. It was absolute pitch black, in front and behind us. I took this opportunity to look up at the sky, and it was lit up with stars like I’d never seen it before. There wasn’t a single peep of light pollution to drown the sight of the stars out. It truly was magnificent, and it’s above our heads 24/7. Eventually, all the passengers from our bus had got on board the second bus. I wanted to go in the double bed next to Mat, but there was an old Asian lady refusing to let me next to her. In the end I had to go back and sleep next to some dude, similar to me. At least he didn’t moan!
Tip!
During this leg of the trip, the risk of Malaria was rated as high. The website I used for seeing malaria maps was Fit for Travel. In fact, this is a great website for everything health-wise for your travels. My pharmacist looked through these maps with me to determine if and when I’d need antimalarials. We had to take our tablets 1 per day: the 3 days before entering the high risk zone, 1 per day inside the zone, and then 1 per day for 7 days after we had left. Make sure to check this out, or it will ruin your trip!
Our stop
After about an hour on the new bus, we reached Thakhek, and we disembarked the bus. Once we had got our bearings, we decided to hire a tuk tuk into town, as we were on the outskirts. We’d seen a hostel on a website, so we went to check it out. However, after about 15 minutes of wandering around the place, and not seeing a single person, we abandoned this place. Fortunately just up the road, practically next door, was another hostel, called the Bike & Bed Hostel. It seemed pretty nice, and the garden area was wicked. There was a sort of tree house, room for loads of people to chill out.
As there wasn’t too much to do in Thakhek, pretty much only a motorbike loop, we decided not to stay the night. It turned out the sleeper bus to Pakse (our next destination south) was at 1am, so no point sleeping here. Thankfully, this hostel happened to have a deal where you pay a couple of pounds, and you can stay at the hostel (not a room), use the showers and other facilities. This was exactly what we needed, so we took advantage of this right away.
Friendly advice
Whilst we were chilling in the lounge area, we got speaking to a Canadian traveller, called Yen/Jen. He had come from the route that we were going to be doing (been to Cambodia, then Pakse in Laos, now in Thakhek). So we were able to exchange valuable advice to each other. He told us of the ‘Pakse loop’, a route that is commonly done on a motor bike that begins and ends in Pakse. Luckily, he was also able to tell us about different things to do in Cambodia, and pointed them out on a map for us. This would turn out to be super useful, and help us on our way in Cambodia.
Mat, Mischa, and I went out for some dinner, quite close by. It was very nice as always. The heat was quite unforgiving; it was absolutely baking whilst walking the streets of Thakhek. We were walking along the river front, and Mischa said she’d explore on her own. Mat and I sat down in the shade for a bit, before walking onwards. We were sort of low on passport photos, so to be safe, we tried to procure some more. As we walked the streets, we kept an eye out for printing shops, and they were able to point us to the right place. They took our photos, uploaded to their PC, and then used Photoshop to crop our heads and print them out. Hey, if it works, why change it?
Killing time
We returned to the hostel and just chilled her for a while. I did some reading and research for the journey ahead. The 3 of us also talked for a while and played some cards games. Just as the Sun was setting, we headed out to the river front, which is a sunset viewpoint. On the other side of the river is Thailand, and the Sun went down right in front of us. It’s always a beautiful sight to behold. After watching the sunset for a while, we went out for tea. Someone recommended this small place to us that was basically in someone’s garden. It was nice food, but we had to wait for a while!
We returned to the hostel for the final time, after having a small dog go insane at us, and waited for the bus. At around 1:15am, the tuk tuk arrived to take us to the bus. It was one hell of a tight squeeze. I think perhaps 6 people would have been comfy, I think we managed at least 10, plus everyone’s person sized luggage. When we got to the sleeper bus, it was almost full, so we just had to pick a partner to sleep next to and deal with it. As it had been a long day in Thakhek, sleep quickly ensued.
