Savannakhet

 By virtue of its position at the crossroads for North,South Laos and East,West Thailand to Vietnam,and despite it being the second largest town in Laos,Savannakhet is curiously unexciting.Unless you count the proprietary and meanest street dogs in all of Asia that find sport in western passers by,but it is nice to see that the cats treat the dogs with the total contempt that felines the world over are noted for.But back to Savannakhet also called Savan and now renamed after a dead politician,it has some surviving French Indo Chinese architecture,a few tourist friendly restaurants and guesthouses within a small old city precinct and that is about it for the town itself.There are places of interest within reach but since most transport is the long distance bus to Cambodia or Vietnam arranging intermediate travel is not the easiest here.There were two local buses daily for Pakse,the next  largest  town  south, at 7am and 5pm,after one day in Savvanakhet I was on the former.

Vietnamese Temple.

St Theresa Catholic Church.

Old Villa.

Loved the Orchids here.