Just go, C!
I'm Charity, a proud auntie, wine lover, semi-nerd, and dreamer who can't stay in one place for too long.
Thailand and I recently celebrated our three-month anniversary. To honor this milestone, I took a lovely weekend trip to Laos. Sorry, Thailand. I'll make it up to you. Savannakhet, Laos I had to go to Savannakhet to obtain a Non-B Immigrant visa so I can legally work in Thailand. The process is complicated, but fortunately I work with agents who handle most of the paperwork process so I didn't have to. The timing kind of sucked, though, since I had just finished my first week of school, but hey, call it a forced vacation. There is a double-decker bus that runs from Tak directly to Mukdahan, which is the Thai town on the border of Laos. (Mukdahan and Savannakhet are divided by the Mekong River.) I had no idea what to expect from the bus, since I've heard all kinds of weird and wonderful things about buses in Southeast Asia, but I was pleasantly surprised that it was actually fairly comfortable and uneventful, despite the fact that it was 12 hours long. (Sincerest apologies to my bum.) Even though Savannakhet is much like a typical Thai town in several aspects, the first thing that screamed at me was the architecture. Laos was colonized by the French between the late 19th and early-mid 20th century. The French Colonial architecture is a trademark of the city, even though it's been (understandably) slow to be embraced by the locals as a tourist attraction. Savannakhet also has a large Chinese population, as well as Vietnamese. The number of Chinese and Vietnamese restaurants (and temples) is indicative of the diverse population of the city. There are also several restaurants featuring French-inspired cuisine. I was able to visit a few of the temples, the most memorable being Wat Xayaphoum. This temple was built in 1542, making it one of the oldest (if not THE oldest) temple in the Savannakhet province. The picture at the top of this blog post and the one below are from the "gate of temples" surrounding the actual temple. Some of them look pretty rough, but I actually appreciate being able to see the age. It's rainy season in Southeast Asia, which is great when it means you are the only person in a 4-bed dorm in a cute hostel. It's not so great, however, when a huge storm rolls in and knocks out the power for a couple hours and turns said hostel into a sauna. Good for the pores, I guess? Overall, I had a lot of fun in Savannakhet and best of all, I was able to get my visa without a hitch. Mae Sot, Thailand Just yesterday, one of my fellow English teacher friends and I went to Mae Sot, which is on the border next to Myanmar. The trip from Tak to Mae Sot takes about 1.5 hours through beautiful mountains and forests. It was a winding road with a lot of construction and virtually no guardrails which can make things even more interesting. The town was bigger than I expected, and despite it raining all morning, was buzzing with activity. The best part of the town are the markets. They seem to sort of blend into each other, and sell pretty much everything you could ever imagine, from flowers to frogs. Yeah, you read that right. There's another market along the river called Rim Moei which sells cheap cigarettes, whiskey, gin, and even knock-off Viagra. We walked through there and Rebecca (my teacher friend) got some booze. I managed to stay away from the Viagra. The eels, frogs, tortoises, insects, etc. were not on my personal menu for the day, but we did sample some delicious curries from a local while we were in the area.
We visited the Wat Don Chai temple, because you can never get enough of temples! (Let's see if I'm still saying that a year from now.) We relaxed in a cute coffee shop, did plenty of walking around, and were exhausted when we left. Not a bad day trip, if I do say. The great thing about Tak is that it's a hub for buses, and it's within a few hours of some really fun and amazing towns. I can't wait to explore them all! Until next time, I leave you with some photos of Wat Don Chai:
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AuthorHi! I'm Charity. I'm from Omaha, Nebraska, USA. I quit my job in October 2016 to travel the world. Archives
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