champasak. laos. january 26th – 28th. 2009

Early Dawn. Locals ferrying in to the boat landing. Pakse before its day begins. Waiting. We leave today for Champasak. Which boat is ours? The lack of infrastructure refreshing and disconcerting at the same time. The boatman introduces himself, he is waiting for a different boat, there are others joining us. Andreas (our friend from the plateau) and Klaus, sitting in single file, our journey is quite serene as we each silently contemplate the Mekong during the 2 hours that follow. It is a morning I still think of often, am grateful to have experienced it as I did and with the four others that shared that journey. It is among the highlights of the times spent journeying from one destination to the next. I realize now in hindsight, that some of the most rewarding parts of our travels were some of these journeys; another, being the people we met. We arrive in Champasak, it is small and simple, and we keep in pace with our environment. As always, food and slow wanderings, getting a sense of this place. Much lovely conversation with Klaus, with the local man (buy!) at tourist office, a long sweaty, meandering bike ride, a full afternoon spent slowly taking in Wat Phu, a chance encounter with Naomi, veering off the ‘main’ road to the ‘2nd’ road, the dark of night interspersed with a snippet of passing conversations, the warning bark of a dog. It is at this point the foreigners become fewer and as you travel further south through Laos to the Cambodian boarder, many of those people are part of that path. It is with a few now familiar faces that we take the morning ferry back to the mainland to continue our journey south to Don Khong.

our champasak photos on flickr

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