February 7, 2011 Savannakhet, Laos

Bus got to town at the ridiculous time of approximately 5 AM.  Walked all over town looking for a place to stay, which sucked.  Sunrise was so amazingly beautiful, though.  Found a lovely place set away from the main street. They had cable so I had the Super Bowl!

Checked out Savannakhet, a dusty small town on the Mekong.  It feels like a town on the downside.  Lots of buildings look like they were once beautiful but now are dirty and falling apart.

The town has a few interesting things to see.  One is a dinosaur museum, Laos style.  It's a small room with displays lining the walls and one in the middle.  Laos has some amazing dinosaur discoveries - who knew.  I got to hold a T-rex bone that was 10 million years old!!  I nearly cried it was so amazing to be touching something like that.  We couldn't take a photo of that, though, since they're still studying the bone.  Best I could do is squeal with excitement once outside.

There's a nice temple there.  In the temple grounds there's a Buddha statue factory, which was interesting to look at.  Took out a bit of the magic of the statues that I like to think just appeared.