Champasak and Wat Phu (14th March 2011)

Wat Phu

Champasak is a very small village on the other side of the Mekong which is a perfect stop over for visiting Wat Phou. We shared a boat over the river (not a great experience for me as you know!) with some others and then a tuk tuk into the village centre which was as good as deserted. The tuk tuk driver dropped us off at a GH but learning from my mistake in Pakse and taking Lauren and Hadleighs lead we decided to check out all the GH in the village before deciding on which one was best, which of course ended up being the one we had been dropped off at first!

Our visit to Wat Phu was very hot going right in the middle of the day and we were joined by three Canadians and an American. It was a nice site and one of the most important archaeological sites in Laos with general thinking that it might have been the blue print to Angkor Wat. Even with all of that it didn’t really take any of us that long to see it all and on getting back to the village it was a bit late for lunch and perhaps a bit early for beer but that didn’t stop us and we did both very enjoyably. ;-)

Wat Phu

In the evening as we headed out to see what Champasak nightlife had to offer (!) we heard some really loud music coming from somewhere down the street which wouldn’t have been out of place in the liveliest of areas. So there it was that we found ourselves looking into the grounds of the village Wat at a very lively, very boozy party! It took just a couple of seconds before the participants noticed us and invited us in and for the next hour we were celebrities, we joined in the dancing while they plied us with warm flat beer, wanting pictures taken with all of us and inviting us into their Wat to pray to Buddha, it turns out that they were celebrating the completion of building the Wat which had taken three years. It was a fabulous unexpected party which then finished with us all being a little squithy near enough dead on the dot of 8pm!

The party!

Our dinner companion

Tomorrow we have two more boat rides to take us down to Si Phan Don, 4000 islands. Perhaps not the ideal place for someone who really doesn’t like boats but hey............!