Monday, March 24, 2014
The roads in Laos are getting better and faster as we head North. Less potholes, less cattle wandering around aimlessly and less villages on the main highway. This is a good thing, as today was a driving day.
We got to Thakhek for a late lunch to discover it is a smaller version of Savannakhet. Our first choice of hotel was fully booked! Now that hadn’t happened in a while. So onto the second best thing, The Riveria Hotel, which as it turned out, was probably the flashiest hotel in town.
During our late afternoon stroll around town we watched the sun set in magnificent fashion over the Mekong river. Then we ate and drank.
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Today was Cave day. We got up early to check out the local caves. The mountains to the east are very beautiful and very similar to the limestone karsts and mountains we saw near Ipoh, Malaysia, and Phang Nga in Thailand. But these are better. We got a sketch map of the area noting where the caves were, as they were not on our GPS map. Turns out that the New Zealand tourist office had been very busy putting up tourist signs everywhere, so we ended up just following those. The caves we visited were Tham Xang (Elephant Cave), Buddha Cave, Xieng Lieb Cave, Tha Falang Lake, Tham Pha Inh Cave and Tham Nang Aen Cave. They were all a little different and special in there own way. And the entire area is just magnificent, a little like Avatar.
After the day spent day driving around and visiting these caves we had to decide if we continue east for the next 2 days along the dusty and bumpy back-road system known by tourists as “The Loop” or if we head back to Thakhek to the luxury of town, hotels and bars. We headed back.
Our first choice hotel was available this time: Inthira Thakhek.
