20 December 2017. Back to Pakse with visit to Market and Buddha

I left Champasak with mixed feelings. I liked the town but the place I was staying didn't quite gel with me. I think I'd anyway generally had sufficient time contemplating the Mekong and walking/cycling in the lovely countryside and I was ready to get back to a town. The dog at my guesthouse was a character and having a dream in the sun after breakfast.

So, off I set saying farewell to Champasak


Pakse is - to me - a really nice place that I'd happily spend a few days in - as long as Ipaid attentionto where I was walking
After settling in and having some lunch, I decided to walk to the Buddha that overlooks the City from across the river.
The walk took me past the market which is an amazing sprawl selling everything from fish to ironmongery.



 Having had a look round, I carried on to the bridge over the Megong. At its entrance is an interesting, very French building whose identity I failed to discover
The bridge itself must be getting on for a mile long - it certainly took me a good fifteen minutes to walk across at a reasonable pace. I crossed it under the watchful eye of the Buddha.
Once on the other side, I had to find the way up to the Buddha. I made a false start, climbing over a hundred steps to find these two.
Carrying on down the road a bit I found the grand entrance.
The route up had some very steep steps but was relatively easily done. On the way, there is another Buddha which looked great in the late afternoon sun
After a bit of toiling, the main Buddha came into site.
The reward of the views from the top certainly made it all worth while.





My visit coincided with that of a Japanese tour party who were keen photographers.
One of them kindly offered to photograph me in front of the Buddha - a much better result than the selfie I took - and deleted.

The site is pretty extensive and behind the main Buddha are a veritable army of much smaller ones
All in all, a satisfying walk and one that was rewarded with a well-deserved beer and meal at the Pakse hotel whose Panorama restaurant was sadly untenable in the high and quite chilly winds.

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