Pakse

We made it to Pakse via a couple of protected areas (no pics—sorry) and found a Spanish woman (Thio) and a Canadian woman (Amanda) willing to drive the tuktuk back to Vientiane. Only Thio could drive a manual and she had several manual vehicles in Spain so we hoped they’d be ok. We did warn them that the tuktuk was a pretty tricky vehicle and to be really careful on corners and going down hill. Willy was worried and wouldn’t leave anything that mattered in the tuktuk. We thought we’d better charge a deposit and not just hand the vehicle over to complete strangers entirely on trust.



To our amazement an ex-colleague from Vieng Thong, Phoxai, was staying in the next room. He had been a tourism intern at Nam Et Phou Louey but he had a new job and was training some nurses in Pakse. We arranged to visit his village with him back in Vientiane for Pii Mai (Indian waiter took photo—3rd attempt—finally it flashed!).

We also met Denise again (remember from Ban Na Hin) who was down working on a project and had had a typically frustrating field trip for development work. We worked out that Thio could drop the tuktuk off at Gavin and Denise’s place if she gets to Vientiane before they leave for the Gibbon Experience at Pii Mai.