Laos forum

This is cut & paste from a previous post:

You can take songthiews and regular buses to the river landing across from Champasak. You can take a ferry across. We rented motorbikes in Pakse for a day trip and found the Champasak area to be very pleasant. There are a few nice looking guest houses. The big attraction is Wat Phu: We saw some travellers riding rental bikes to the ruins from Champasak.

Within a range of 50 kilomters,getting around by motorbike is the way to go. Especially liked Don Khong... very quiet and slow paced. Muang Khong's restaurants delivered meal after meal of fresh ingredients and some distinctive twists on Lao/Thai standards.

About Don Khong and the southern islands: We decided to take a minivan to Hat Sai Khun and take a boat across to Muang Khong, the biggest settlement on Don Khong. The air conditioned minivan service arranged by Lane Xang travel (next to the Lankham Hotel in Pakse) was a dissappointment... the van did not possess sufficient a/c to keep the passengers cool and was filthy. A gentle protest among the youngish British passengers caused that driver and his buddy/assistant from persisting with overfilling the van at the Champasak stop. Fortunately, there is at least one ready alternative: Pakse Travel also arranges minivan service between Pakse and points south all the way to the Cambodian border... That van was is new, cool and I wish I'd booked with them.

Southern Laos was searingly hot [We were there May 23-June 3]... much hotter than I'd expected. Next time I'll bring more sunscreen, a good idea if you're fair skinned anyway, and especially if you're taking doxacycline as malaria profalaxis. (The stuff causes greater sun sensitivity.)