We took an overnight bus Friday night at 8:30pm to Pakse arriving Saturday morning at 6am. It was a sleeper bus where each person buys a ticket to share half a single bed with another person. I was told by someone who I respect and admire that buying 2 tickets is a waste of money... so, I bought only one ticket intending to get myself ready (mentally) to share a bed close quarters with a stranger. Well, needless to say, this blog entry is not about the incident of the sleeper bus, but I will not share a single bed with a stranger again (mostly because I just can't sleep in a small cramped bed with a stranger).
But this blog entry IS about Pakse, the city in southern Laos where I will be teaching for the next year. This trip is the first time to see the place and exactly what I got myself into with teaching in Laos. A few words and numbers about Pakse; Pakse is considered the second largest city in Laos with about 70,000 inhabitants. It is in the Champasak province along the Mekong river. A short distance away from the downtown area are magnificent waterfalls that are some of the most beautiful in Southeast Asia. There is a bridge over the Mekong in Pakse that connects the city to the Thailand border and the Thai city of Ubon Ratchathani just a couple hours away.
We stayed at the Pakse Hotel in the downtown area. A nice hotel with 6 stories and a restaurant on the top with a fabulous view of the city and the river. Here is a sampling of pictures from Pakse. Click on one of the, to see the full set on google's picasa web.
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