Khong Chiam is a small village located next to the point where the Mekong meets the Moon River. It is very touristic but mainly for Thai who come in organised tours. There are only two Guesthouses, a few expensive resorts and around 5 big restaurants set up to cater for the groups of tourists....luckily they had 2 menus with an English translation and at least one of the waiters spoke a few words in English. We were the only westerners in town and that was great to explore a region being only with Thai people. In the morning we walked along the Mekong, a very large river, very impressive, so famous that it felt special to be so close to it. On the other side we could see the forested hills of Laos, a country that we will discover in a few weeks. We went to the viewpoint where you can see the two rivers meet, it is called the two colours river as the two rivers are said to have different colors...we did not notice a clear difference, however the view was very nice. In the afternoon we wanted to visit the Pha Taem National Park located 20km North of Khong Chiam. Both guesthouses rent motorbikes for Bh200 a day. We got a deal with our guesthouse at Bh150 as we took the bike only for the afternoon. It was the same price for automatic and manual motorbikes! It took us 30min to get to the National Park entrance via very quiet roads and it was very easy to follow the signs along the way. The entrance fee for the park is quite expensive, Bh200 per person, but worth it as the site is really beautiful! Pha Taem, located 2km after the park entrance, are very high cliffs that offer stunning views on the Mekong and on the forests of Laos. There are also very well preserved prehistoric paintings that can be seen by following a 4km track that goes along the cliffs. We really had a great time in this special place. On the way back, a kilometer before the entrance of the park, we stopped at Sao Cha Liang to have a look at those very impressive rock formations. Close to the road there are big limestone pillars looking like mushrooms and a little bit further there is a massive rock separated by a deep fracture. Back in Khong Chiam we had a relaxing evening and once again having dinner was an "interesting" experience as the young waiters and waitresses seemed to have a lot of fun when serving us!!!
