Thakhek, Laos is a border town with Thailand next to the Mekong river. It's the starting point for the famous Thakhek Loop. This is a difficult post to make because I only have one photo from this town. I'll just get it out of the way and post it.
That's Thailand on the other side of the river. It looks close enough to swim to!
Thakhek was a long 6-hour bus ride from Vientiane. I learned a lesson about pre-booking rooms here. I had a room pre-booked and when we all got off the bus, I realized that my hotel was way on the outside of town, in the middle of nowhere.
It's always a risk to not pre-book because you don't want to end up sleeping on the street if you can't find anything. And it's not fun to be tired from a long bus ride and not have a room ready for you to check in to. But it kind of sucks to book a room and find out that it's not close to anything that you want to see.
The hotel that I stayed in seemed strange. It was big and had a lot of rooms, but it looked like I was the only one staying there. Lots of Laos looked like it had been built up for Tourists in the 70's and 80's, but the tourists either never arrived, or they had stopped coming.
One of the people who worked at the hotel offered to take me into town to get some dinner. I hopped onto the back of his scooter and he took me to a decent place. It was a fun excursion.
I already had plans for Thakhek, so after that first night I checked out of the hotel and went into town to rent a scooter. I found a place with good prices and rented the bike. They gave me a map and let me leave my main backpack there. I was hesitant to leave my bag unsecured in a room with a bunch of other bags, but I did it anyways. I only took a small bag with some shirts, shorts, underwear, toiletries, charging cables, and snacks.
This is the Thakhek Loop. I can't remember if I took 5 or 6 nights to complete it.
Getting out on the road felt awesome! I loved spending hours on the scooter, slowly making my way to my first destination. As I was leaving town, 2 French tourists were walking one of their scooters back to Thakhek. It had broken down within the first hour or two of riding. The bike that I had was nice and seemed strong.
I'm only going to post a few photos of this first day's ride. Tomorrow's post will be about the ride and the first overnight stop.
These kinds of billboards were pretty common in Laos. Vietnam has similar billboards, but I think Vietnam has better artists for theirs. I'll be posting a lot of Vietnamese billboards and posters soon.
The first day's ride was about 100 KM. I would try to keep all of my trips around the 100 KM mark all through Laos and Vietnam. I don't like riding when my body and eyes start getting tired. Plus I like feeling like I have a ton of time and can stop for breaks or photos whenever I want.
I'll be posting about the entire loop in the next few days. But after the loop, I returned to Thakhek and found a hotel that was actually in town. I took a bus to Pakse for another loop.
On the bus, we stopped and these vendor came by the windows to sell snacks. It was the first time I've ever seen someone selling eggs on sticks before.
Meat, eggs, and water seemed to be the most popular things that were being sold to travelers.
Laos was also the first place where I saw these strange kind of tractors. Maybe they're popular all over South East Asia, but I only ever noticed them in Laos. The photo isn't very clear, but the tractors on the right are 2-wheeled things with very long handlebars. They're used in the rice paddies and I think they're basically mechanical water buffaloes. They can also be hooked up to wagons and driven. I'll post a photo of one on the road in a day or two.
Speaking of water buffalo, it's a common item on the menus in Laos. I tried some and it was good. I never saw it in Vietnam, and asked a Vietnamese person about it. He told me that the buffalo are too valuable to eat in Vietnam. Maybe they're eaten in some regions there? I know dog is popular in some regions, but not in others.
Anyways, that's my post about Thakhek. It's a cool, tourist friendly town on a big river. The Loop that it's attached to is awesome and I plan on proving that in my upcoming posts. I hope you'll join me on my journey!