Our bus arrived in Thukhek four hours later than we were told (this is Asia!) so it was midnight and freezing when we arrived and, like I often do on my travels, we hadn't booked anywhere to stay. The only other tourists on the bus (and in the town at that time it seemed) were a French couple so we searched with them for ages in the chilly night air for somewhere to sleep. We couldn't find a hostel or a three person room (Rachel had left at this point as her time was more limited) so we decided to squeeze into a double 'bed' that felt more like sleeping on a creaky, collapsed plank of wood. We'd mainly stopped off in Thukhek to break up the twenty hour bus journey to the capital of Laos (actually, twenty hours seems like nothing to me now!) and there wasn't much to do in the town so we spent our time there walking around and having breakfast by the river.
After our night of sleeping like sardines we decided a massage was in order. We walked into a massage parlour, were given a 'menu' and then immediately told that everything on it was unavailable to us except for one option - traditional Laos massage. We thought this was strange but the weirdness didn't stop there. We were led to the back of the building, up some stairs and past a row of dimly lit private rooms to a bigger room at the back where three women dressed in tiny, revealing outfits were waiting for us. Yep, it was a brothel. We felt awkward for the next hour as they gave us a normal, albeit rather unenthusiastic, traditional massage whilst babbling amongst themselves in Lao. On our way out we saw a sheepish looking man being led into a private room...at least we can tick 'massage from a prostitute' off of our bucket lists?!
We made our way to the bus station to get an overnight bus to Vientiane however we weren't sure what time the bus was so we had several hours to kill once we were there. After travelling for so long I'm able to kill time like an absolute ninja! We rocked up to a bus station cafe and the women there didn't speak any English plus there weren't any menus so we gestured with our hands that we wanted to eat and waited for the mystery meal to arrive: sticky rice, marinated chicken, veg and omelette was delivered to our table - I like this food lottery game (minus the rat incident, but let's not talk about that....). Once again the cold night time was rearing its ugly head and with all the denim shorts and sarongs in my backpack I was ill prepared for chilly weather; funnily enough we seemed to be in a bus station that doubled as the world's biggest sweater emporium so we went on the hunt for jumpers. Eventually it was time to board our 'sleeper bus' which had bunk beds instead of seats and we made our way to the capital.
It's a very common sight in Laos to see young monks in the street with their pristine, bright-orange robes.
I ate Laos noodles as it was in the breakfast menu, many Asians eat noodles in the morning which can feel strange sometimes, especially if they're spicy.
After our night of sleeping like sardines we decided a massage was in order. We walked into a massage parlour, were given a 'menu' and then immediately told that everything on it was unavailable to us except for one option - traditional Laos massage. We thought this was strange but the weirdness didn't stop there. We were led to the back of the building, up some stairs and past a row of dimly lit private rooms to a bigger room at the back where three women dressed in tiny, revealing outfits were waiting for us. Yep, it was a brothel. We felt awkward for the next hour as they gave us a normal, albeit rather unenthusiastic, traditional massage whilst babbling amongst themselves in Lao. On our way out we saw a sheepish looking man being led into a private room...at least we can tick 'massage from a prostitute' off of our bucket lists?!
An 'advert' for communism - they were everywhere in Laos.
We made our way to the bus station to get an overnight bus to Vientiane however we weren't sure what time the bus was so we had several hours to kill once we were there. After travelling for so long I'm able to kill time like an absolute ninja! We rocked up to a bus station cafe and the women there didn't speak any English plus there weren't any menus so we gestured with our hands that we wanted to eat and waited for the mystery meal to arrive: sticky rice, marinated chicken, veg and omelette was delivered to our table - I like this food lottery game (minus the rat incident, but let's not talk about that....). Once again the cold night time was rearing its ugly head and with all the denim shorts and sarongs in my backpack I was ill prepared for chilly weather; funnily enough we seemed to be in a bus station that doubled as the world's biggest sweater emporium so we went on the hunt for jumpers. Eventually it was time to board our 'sleeper bus' which had bunk beds instead of seats and we made our way to the capital.
Entertaining ourselves at the bus station for four hours.
After a misunderstanding about the price of the food the lady in the cafe burst into fits of laughter and then demanded a photo.
p.s. check out the new jumpers.
The hotel on wheels was surprisingly comfortable despite the arctic air-con and the initial worry that a local man was going to share the bed
with us.
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