Good morning from Thakhek we're currently in Central Lao we've worked our way down a couple of days ago from the
Vientiane the capital of Lao and now we're in Thakhek we're staying in a place called the Inthira
attack which is essentially right in the center of this town this place was high on the list of
recommendations and it's also one of the very very few hotels that Thakhek actually
seems to have but it does come with breakfast I've got some fresh fruits and yogurt which
looks quite fun because the yogurt is on top like a sauce we've got some Breads and we've
got some condensed milk to go right in our delicious coffees which is the perfect way
to start the day and if you walk just down this road for about two minutes maybe even
one minute depending on how fast you are you'll ride by the Mekong River and you can literally
shake hands with the people in Thailand it looks like it's so close so it's quite nice
today is our first day of the Thakhek loop road trip now now you may have seen our last video where we
drove all the way from Vientiane to Tech that was about 350 kilometer drive basically all on
one road loads of potholes not great today we're going on the Thakhek loop which is a 350 kilometer
Loop that goes up north through the countryside of Lao and then back around and then down into Thakhek
again so we spent the whole day yesterday planning this whole Thakhek loop and what happens afterwards if you've watched our
previous videos you know that after this tactic Loop we wanted to head down towards Pakse and then
to 4 000 Islands we have the car our lovely Bertie until we get down to Pakse where we gotta return
the car we found the most adorable little cafe next to the Mekong River where we spent the whole
day yesterday as well as up here on our little balcony bed planning where to stay and what to
see there's a reasonable amount of information online on the take Loop a lot of places to see
loads of places to stay a lot of those places don't seem to be open anymore but we've booked all
of our hotels thankfully for my brain that's super exciting because this last minute stuff gets me
real stressed out so I'm really glad to know that we've got loads of places to stay including one
place tonight that was only nine US dollars for the both of us so that'll be interesting to see
we got a really nice room in this place it came with an outside balcony area and there
was no one else in the room next door so we had it all to ourselves
if you've not met him yet this is Bertie our 1.6 diesel Hyundai creta it's very dirty now yeah
we have and really the road is off-road yeah so the roads down from the vientiane all
350 kilometers of it apart from maybe a couple of miles was this orange dirt road
ready ah yes you might need to go get some diesel just in case it says we
have 446 kilometers in the tank but you never know with these up and down roads
and people have told us to get loads of cash before going as well because there's not that
much ATMs or people can't really take cards so should we try and find an ATM as well yes
full uh okay I need to translate this I don't think the guy working here speaks English or
can read loud I'm trying to translate with my app and he's like okay make it
make it oh yeah unless he's Vietnamese I don't know
got it good someone came to translate stressful I didn't want him to put
something wrong in the car you know I ended up just telling him to put 200
000 Kip worth of diesel in not to full I don't think they would have understood but we have
got an extra 150 kilometers in the tank now so I think we'll be good for this trip all the way
to paxa we've got 639 kilometers in the tank so I think it should be now we can go let's go
was just insane like maybe 10 minutes out of Thahkek and you've got all these Limestone
Cliffs it's very beautiful so far all the drive here and actually I wasn't sure I wasn't sure
when we arrived whether we were in the right place but I could actually see a sign now cave that's
what she's trying to pronounce I never know about the X's whether they're shh Or css okay so this is
the if there was no upkeep for this I'd be feeling scared but this looks
feels pretty sturdy hopefully won't fall through it looks like there's
um would you call that thing where people climb like zipline and like these things like
like treehouse room accommodation but I just want to see the cave yeah are we in
the right place for the cave from the photos online it did look like you could do all the
zip lining and stuff but not sure if you could actually go into the cave otherwise so it's a 10
000 Kip each to walk to this cave she had a little piece of paper where she'd drawn a
little person and said equals ten thousand so it was ten thousand per person and it
said cave fee on it so we're definitely heading towards a cave we put it this way
so they also do zip lines evidently and I think the canopy walks or the
cat those things that we don't know what they're called but obviously the cave is
this way because we're heading towards the rock formations yeah I think we found the cave it's
so peaceful and then someone starts going on a zipline you have to jump or go down no don't
not the best day for wearing white trousers
it's very slippery
yeah don't come in flip flop I don't think we could go in don't even go any further than
where we are right now but the 10 000 Kip that's pretty good first stop of the tour then there's
many many more to go we've literally driven about 10 minutes out of the Thakhek yes let's go to
as we're leaving the first cave and heading to the next destination on the first part
of this Loop it is just so beautiful outside literally we are surrounded by these Cliffs
they look like the Limestone Cliffs of halong bay sort of the rock formations
around there it also reminds us a lot of crabby when you're first sort of driving in
it is very beautiful they do say though don't they it's about the journey not the destination like
this journey is awesome to look at it's really nice two tickets two tickets oh yeah just two of us
all right so there is a sign just outside you can visit the cave you can also zipline here and you
can take a boat ride we're just here it's another cave yes but this one from online it seems to be
that you can actually enter inside and it's sort of lit up with various colors it's supposed to be
quite Grand and even somewhere online it said that you should spend about two hours in this cave yeah
can go very deep into the cave they say to be honest I've not really ever been a cave
person so I'm not sure if I'm ready to go seven kilometers deep into a cave seven kilometers yeah
some something crazy yeah I'm also not a cave person sounds claustrophobic it sounds scary
ice coffee
2. we've been addicted to these iced coffee since we've come to Lao something about them
they're like sweet and very strong a little bit like a Vietnamese coffee but see what this one
is like before I say anything oh yeah that's good perfect way to cool down before we head
up into this cave this cave looks a bit more legit the steps that lead up to it there's a waterfall
coming out yes cheers oh that is good these two together were 40 whereas the entrance was 30 each
so the entrance was more than these iced coffees so this cake better be good because this is
fantastic it's definitely much cooler here next to this cave a lot cooler I was just saying that it's
kind of cold yeah it's windy I don't understand how it's windy because it's the entrance of a cave
maybe there's like a wind tunnel in the cave and it's just like flowing out because that windmill
well this is pretty Grand uh now this I mean I'm not a cave person but this is more like this is
more cavey than the other cave the other cave was also a cave but this is like look at this a cave
this cave has staircases everything it's bizarre it's quite windy in here it's actually pretty cool
what they've done with the place so I can imagine the cave would be pitch black without any lights
but they've got these lights here they've got these colorful lights on the roof but
we just spoke to someone and the boat is over here somewhere ah yeah this actually looks kind of nice
but also kind of like super creepy maybe because it's in a cave it feels very much like there's
going to be people in the water trying to like lure you in you know what I mean like it's creepy
creepy storyline it is very beautiful though I don't tend to love caves because I can get
a little bit claustrophobic they're usually small and dark in this sense this cave is actually quite
large and sort of breezy Airy it's completely litter it's got staircases all over the place huh
so it feels less scary and more kind of just epic I have to say this cave
is worth the 30k more than 10K that we paid earlier definitely because we can
actually come in here I don't think if we even touched the sides or how big this is
you know what it feels like because all of these staircases are coming well there's I
guess they're carved out of no they're not they're probably made out of cement either
way they're not made out of wood but it looks like one of those paintings I don't know if
you're gonna know this reference now though going with the steps go up and down no yes let's go up
and down there's people upside down it's like doors and windows and it's all over the place
it feels like that obviously we're not upside down luckily yet but it's it's actually really
cool it's a little bit like Hogwarts yeah I feel like Hogwarts but the steps of the stairs aren't
moving we've come to the end of where we can actually walk to In This cave I think if you
were on a boat go all the way around that corner there it's like an amusement park
when you're finally exiting the ride and it's like oh yeah nice survived copy your head here
so far obviously we've only done two stops along the Thakhek Loop the first one if you're not really
into caves I wouldn't necessarily say I'll be doing the zipline oh if you're doing this applied
then you can also do that here either way this cave totally worth it like definitely if you're
thinking about coming here come to this cave super cool like really cool actually I don't even like
caves you know it would be really annoying now if we had to go sit on a motorbike for an hour
we get to go sit in a lovely air conditioned car Bertie tell them the story about when you
got your driver's license and what happened so I got my driver's license quite late actually
I didn't learn to start driving I didn't have a car in the family Growing Up So at 23 I was like
I'm getting a driver's license did a course got my driver's license straight away passed it straight
away I was actually quite good in that car then I bought a car luckily I was insured straight
away from the day that I bought it bought the car crashed it the night that I picked it up managed
to repair it fine no problems and then I parked it up somewhere sold it have not driven since
it scared the schnitzels out of me that's why I'm driving even though she does have a license
Google Maps says that there's somewhere that we can have some food here but not sure if it's open
but should we take a look yeah let's try to figure it out it's like there's people here
go down there look smell the food okay
there's loads of people eating so there's definitely food here on the menu but it's
all in Lao so we're gonna have to translate. managed to order two fried rice turns out that's the
same in Lao and Thai not sure if it's going to come with vegetables or Meats but we ordered some food okay
so they were blasting very loud music we could not get it worded to each other as soon as we ordered
she was like turn the music up yeah crank it we got some ice creams to finish off and actually
quite nice meal yeah we managed to order fried rice that's basically the only thing that we thought
they were probably would have I came with prawns so it came with prawns yes and some other Seafood
in there so that was really good two waters two fried rice two ice lollies for 76 000 Kip is very
affordable and the food was good yeah the food was really good and there was loads of fish around in
the water so so some of the prawn heads and stuff throw it in there and they all went crazy that was
quite fun one thing that we have kind of noticed traveling through Lao or getting out of the really
big cities in Lao is that it's a little bit more difficult to communicate it's also difficult in
some areas in Thailand but I feel like it's more easily accessible to try to get your point across
there's a lot of hand gestures there's a lot of meeting you halfway we've come across a lot of
people here so far that haven't really either understood that we're trying to get something
across we were trying to say we want fried rice or do you what can we eat and she said coffee
um so I think it's our fault for not speaking Lao obviously but we don't really expect anyone
to speak English yeah it's just a little bit of a little bit of a food yes or no you know it's
tougher but anyway we figured out yeah and we got ice cream so I'm happy cheers on to the next one
it got very different very beautiful very quickly it was as soon as we started sort of climbing
into the mountains basically it went from being mountainous to just being Green Jungle a lot of
water we're actually going over bridge right now a lot of traffic which is primarily cows
and about seven year olds on scooters and goats and a lot of dogs tell us somebody but I think
Posey that sign oh yeah we have booked this by the way we did a bit of booking last night so
Phosy talang this one no that's that's a bit no oh okay oh there's science for sub ID as well
we booked Phosy Garden yeah we didn't book we couldn't find the booking for Phosy time but
we think it's the same place should be the same place right there's only one we need to find out
it wasn't much like there's anyone else here this place doesn't even look finished this Phosy Garden
okay so it's not that place all right it's another Jose well it definitely exists then
if she's saying it's on the main road oh that's why we missed it oh look how small the reception
look at that that's the reception tonight we booked on a Dylan Evans wow look at this
place right on the water that's how we missed it because they're down into the Riverside
yes yes
we'll do the room tour here from the door because it's quite small so I can basically
point at everything really nice big big bed I wasn't expecting that I also was not expecting
a private bathroom so I'm very pleased this place was nine US dollars for the both of us they have
Wi-Fi this is great some bottles of water but we already have like 500 of those we've been
collecting them all day oh the bathroom's really big mirror another mirror some storage loads of
bags so we're gonna need that storage and what seems like in a mosquito net so probably a fair
amount of bugs here tonight yeah right by the water this is such a beautiful sight from the door
is really nice the time really got to us on that road trip it's like coming up to Sunset now that
was just a really nice Road Trip the roads were actually perfect not really any potholes compared
to the the road from Vientiane to Thakhek and the road here which is spectacular to look at but
now I think we're just gonna relax unwind we've got more road tripping tomorrow where
we head further up north and we'll obviously take you along the way so don't miss that one
wow