Savannakhet a Good Old Fashion Laotian Ghost Town

This morning around 6 am Tom and I arrived in Savannakhet via the VIP "King of Buses".  This was easily the nicest night bus that I had taken so far (the two prior were from LP to Vientiane VTE).  The seats almost completely reclined, the ac worked, there were no vomiting passengers and no blasting Lao music not to mention the fact that we had about an extra 8 inches of leg room.  Easy and short or at least it felt that way because I slept through a good portion of it.  We shared a tuk tuk in from the bus station with the 3 other falang on the bus and then walked to our guest house the Leena Lodge.  The weather here was cold, jacket and jeans worthy, and the city seems as thought it is completely deserted.  We dropped of our stuff in the room which is cozy with 2 beds, ac, and tv, and set out for an adventure.  Walking around there was barely a shop open or a soul on the streets.  We saw zero other falang and walked most of the city.  The streets are wide open and the comparison we kept drawing was that of a good Midwest town if the movie Red Dawn had actually been real.  Red Dawn is a film where the Cubans and Russians invade the US and a high school football team in Colorado fights a guerrilla war against them.  Quality film if not just a hilarious premise.  The buildings had that traditional style of soviet control and there were few business open.  We kept expecting a tumble weed to roll by.  We walked by the post office and there were cows grazing in the front yard.  At this point we werent sure if people actually lived here.  We walked along the mekong river which is a popular spot for tourists in LP and VTE but here there was almost nothing built on it.  Across the river is Thailand which looked like a mecca of industry with its large buildings.  We had to keep in mind the fact that it was only 9 am on a Sunday so obviously everyone in town was at the one Catholic church......this was obviously not the case.  With the weather surprisingly cold the only thing that sounded like a good idea was sitting down and watching a movie which is what happened next and might fill a lot of our downtime not spent at the stadium.  On the bus ride in we saw the stadium and it looked giant in comparison to the one we had been training at in LP and bigger than the one I posted of VTE.  I think that tomorrow we will have practice and I will be sure to post some photos.  I think we get our coaches badges then also.