Tha Kek

My next stop was the Tha Kek, capital of its province.The bus was going the next big town past Tha Kek. The road the whole way was smooth. We made a stop where I got some yogurt, peanuts and canned cold coffee for breakfast.The sky cleared up and the sun came out. The bus was just a local bus but it was comfortable enough and not full. After almost 5 hours I arrived in Tha Kek. I took a tuk tuk to my first guesthouse of choice but they had no cheap rooms with a private shower and I wasn't about the pay almost double the price just to get my own bathroom. I walked to Phoukanna guesthouse and found a room for a good price. It was large with 2 beds and private bath. It had a nice desk with mirror, large dresser and more outlets than I've ever had in one room. More outlets the better for me. I hate the super cheap rooms where they don't even have one outlet. I need to charge my ipod, camera batteries and headlamp batteries and have an outlet to plug in my external ipod speaker. I can do all that at the same time in this room!

I went to the tourist office which was just down the road from Phoukanna.It was very informative and the staff spoke good english. They had their 4 major treks published on the wall in color with a description. Even though their most popular trek was only 2 days, it did offer the most trekking and took in caves and lakes and was the one I wanted to do. First though I wanted to explore some of the area east of here on Route 12. I relaxed in my room till the evening and then walked for 15 minutes to get into the main area of town along the Mekong river. Thailand was on the other side of the wide and calm river.I ate bbq chicken, sticky rice and a beer for $2.50. I wrote online for a while and then crashed.