Sekong

Entering Sekong from Tha Teng or Attapeu, you'll find yourself on the main road at the north of town, with most of the rest of the town situated to the south, coming to an end at the northern bank of the Sekong River. None of the roads have names and many are unpaved. Nearly all the restaurants, services, and places to stay are in a rectangular area bordered by the market to the east, the Sekong River to the south, a large, conspicuous white stupa to the west, and the main road to the north.

The post office (T: (038) 211 057) is located on a parallel road a block north of the Woman Fever and Souk Samlane guesthouses. Open weekdays 07:30 to 11:30 and 13:00 to 16:00. Right next door is the telecommunications office, (T: (038) 211 005) with 2,000 kip per minute overseas phone calls and faxing services: Open weekdays 08:00 to 4:30. Further down the same road, closer to the market, is the Lao Development Bank, where you can exchange currency and cash travellers' cheques -- credit card advances are not available. Open weekdays 08:30 to 15:30.

There's a small book exchange with some English language, but mostly Scandanavian-language books, at the Phanthip Restaurant.

Motorbikes can be rented from Phanthip Restaurant.

There is no publicly-available internet anywhere in Sekong at present. There is, however, a tourist information office. But it is, we discovered when we visited, an office dedicated to collecting information about tourism in Sekong Province, and isn't actually involved in dispensing information to tourists themselves. The only treks and activities they had information on where thinks available in other parts of Laos. We did learn, however, that 7,111 tourists had visited Sekong province in 2006 -- sounds inflated to us.