Day 7 - An early wake up due to the local wildlife's morning mating calls!! Excellent breakfast at the lodge and then it was the ride back down the 'road of doom' to get to the main road to head off to the famous Wat Phou ruins. Luckily this time we were in a minivan which we had hired for the day.
We arrived at the 'ferry port' to cross the Mekong, but please do not think this resembled Dover! A short walk along the river bank we found a chap willing to take us across on his......raft powered by no more than a lawnmower engine.
Once on the other side, we had an interesting journey (approx 10km) to Wat Phou. We found a tuk tuk which switched us to a minivan half way and then back to his brothers tuk tuk about 2km's out. All in all it took about an hour. I must mention the road from Champasak to Wat Phou which was very similar to yesterday's 'experience', very very bumpy and not at all pleasant! It felt like D-Day at times, it was so loud and we were being shook all over the place!
Wat Phou is the ruins of a Khmer temple dating back to the 6th century. On arrival, we got our entrance ticket and then were dropped near the ruins. Past some large manmade lakes it was then between the two symmetrical 'palaces' and onto the foot of the climb upto the top. The path starts slightly uphill and then you reach the bottom of the sandstone steps which were steep but not very wide. After a couple of stops on the way up, there were some monks to greet you and a woman selling drinks! At the top is the final set of ruins which included two large rocks, one with an elephant carved into it and the other, a crocodile. At the top the views across the land, including the Mekong were amazing. Then came the tricky part, the climb down on the narrow steps which achieved with no blood being spilt somehow!
The tuk tuk driver had waited for us at the gate and we set off on the bumpy road to Champasak and the boat crossing. We found a guy willing to take us back across the river but no price was set before setting off. At the other side, I handed the guy a 20,000 kip note (about £1.60) and started to walk off. The guy then looked at Alice for some money but Alice didn't notice so off we went, paying half the price it cost to get across in the first place!
Our minivan was waiting for us as we had hired it for the day but the driver was nowhere to be seen. A couple of other guys approached us and said, "kingfisher lodge, you go". I tried to ask where the original driver had gone but he kept pointing at the van and then himself so with thoughts of horror movies running through our heads we got in. We weren't sure it was even the same van until we noticed the bright blue furry carpet on the dashboard. Turning off the main, tarmac road, we again turned onto what I have nickname 'Thorpe Park Road' as it was
such a roller coaster ride all the time an we were paying for such fun! 5 minutes onto TP Rd, we heard 3 loud hisses. The driver stopped and sure enough, we had a blow out! Some interesting techniques were uses to jack the car up but we stood well back as we didn't want to witness one of the fellas get wedged under the car as the bit of wood he used snapped. Luckily no such thing happened and back to the lodge we went. I asked to quickly jump out at the information centre in Kiet Ngong, but again an info centre with no info or english speakers! The only english one chap knew was, "I no understand" with a shake of the head.
A quick shower and chill out before dinner again in the lodge restaurant. A small amount of rain started to fall as I quoted, "knowing our luck it will rain all day for our trek tomorrow..........."