Hoi An is a lovely town, and one of these days I hope to return when it is not raining! After two days of incessant rain, and with a forecast of days of the same to come, I finally gave up and returned north to Hue.
In Hue it was raining also, though not as much. I managed to squeeze in a short visit to a couple of the famous imperial tombs nearby (which were actually quite atmospheric in the drizzle!) before boarding the night-train to Hanoi.
Tiring of the sleepy Si Phan Don islands, I travelled north to the regional capital of Pakse, arriving on Friday, December 29. I was running short of cash, and anxious to find a bank that would cash my traveller’s cheques (such facilities being very few and far between in Laos). To my horror, I discovered that the banks in Pakse had all decided to close one day early for no obvious reason, leaving me to eke out the next four days on my last $100US. This is a quite a bit of money in Laos… so long as you don’t want to actually do anything touristy, which obviously I did.
Undeterred, I found a nice, but affordable hotel, and spent a pleasant few days in Pakse which is quite a nice town. From Pakse I hired a motorcycle, a new, and rather brave experience for me since I had never ridden before in my life! I discovered that I rather enjoyed it.
On the first day I rode down to Wat Phu Champasak, the Laos answer to Ankor Wat, though rather pale by comparison. The most memorable part of the day would have to be the journey there which involved loading my motorcycle onto a jury-rigged “catamaran” composed of two canoes lashed together to cross a lake.
