At the moment Eric and I do not have a Lonely Planet guidebook for Laos. Although some people complain about Lonely Planet ("doesn't it just take all the fun out of travel?", "there is no mystery left with Lonely Planet"), we have found that a Lonely Planet is truly convenient, but not necessarily necessary. I searched Pakse on Google and found that most people said there is nothing much to do here, that there is no "tourist infrastructure" (what does that even mean?), and that Pakse is a better transit stop than a long stop. But, we have found that Pakse has been quite delightful and it is fun that we get to discover it all on our own without a
guidebook. The best way to do this is to put comfy shoes on and walk around aimlessly as long as possible. We have stumbled on many interesting things like people living on the banks of the Mekong River, pigs trotting along the sidewalk, mysterious food stalls, and a few markets. One of my favorite parts about SE Asia are the markets. Luckily for me, one of the first places we found was a huge market. We roamed up and down the little stalls looking at the heaping mounds of chilis that make your brow break a sweat just looking at them, neon colored fruits, bags of fresh green vegetables, meats, three foot long cat fish, piles of frogs still alive tied together with red ribbons, eels, pink fish paste, sacks of loose tobacco, and much more. One of the most odd things we saw at the market were the iguanas (pictured above). They were all alive and like the frogs, tied together with bits of red ribbons. I assume that these iguanas are for eating.
At the moment Eric and I do not have a Lonely Planet guidebook for Laos. Although some people complain about Lonely Planet ("doesn't it just take all the fun out of travel?", "there is no mystery left with Lonely Planet"), we have found that a Lonely Planet is truly convenient, but not necessarily necessary. I searched Pakse on Google and found that most people said there is nothing much to do here, that there is no "tourist infrastructure" (what does that even mean?), and that Pakse is a better transit stop than a long stop. But, we have found that Pakse has been quite delightful and it is fun that we get to discover it all on our own without a
guidebook. The best way to do this is to put comfy shoes on and walk around aimlessly as long as possible. We have stumbled on many interesting things like people living on the banks of the Mekong River, pigs trotting along the sidewalk, mysterious food stalls, and a few markets. One of my favorite parts about SE Asia are the markets. Luckily for me, one of the first places we found was a huge market. We roamed up and down the little stalls looking at the heaping mounds of chilis that make your brow break a sweat just looking at them, neon colored fruits, bags of fresh green vegetables, meats, three foot long cat fish, piles of frogs still alive tied together with red ribbons, eels, pink fish paste, sacks of loose tobacco, and much more. One of the most odd things we saw at the market were the iguanas (pictured above). They were all alive and like the frogs, tied together with bits of red ribbons. I assume that these iguanas are for eating.
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