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Some of you may ask what the name of Thakek means. 
Taken it apart, "Tha" means 
the port like a ferry port and "Kek" means the guests.
 Put it together, Thakek means 
the port where the guests come and go.  I guess they
call the town Thakek is because
this town is only a transit point to Vietnam and
Nakhon Phanom.  By the way, 
Nakhon Phanom covered both sides of the Mekong River. 
Sometimes, the seat of 
power was located at the right side of the river _
that was the present day Thakek.  
It wasn't clear when Van Wuffstoff visited Laos in the
middle of the 17th century
(during the glorious reign of Chao Souriyavongsa) that
he stopped by to see 
Nakhon Phanom of the right side of Mekong River or the
left one.  From that account,
 Nakhon Phanom - a Lao town was flourishing and the
pride of the middle LanXang.
From Thakek, there was only a short distance to the
South Sea.  Also, there was only
the Mekong River separating Thakek from Nakhon Phanom.
 In case you don't know, 
Nakhon Phaom is the site of That Phanom - a sacred
place for the devout Buddhist 
across the Mekong River.  For those who liked to
listen to Lao songs, they would 
know that Thakek was immortalized in Siravong's song
entitled "Neun Nai Ana" 
(#1 in the land).  Roughly said, the song talked about
Thakek natural beauty namely 
the mountains which encircled the town as if they were
the fortress.  Even those of 
us who took refuge in the Napho refugee camp could
witness that beauty if they had 
a chance to step out of the camp and watched Thakek
from Nakhon Phanom shore. 

Now, let me talk about Thakek as a town in the late
1960s.  In the planning of the town,
Thakek was structured very much like Savannakhet.  The
difference was only in
scale.  The government buildings were concentrated in
almost one area.  There,
you found the post office, the hospital, the bank, the
city hall, etc… What was
interesting about Thakek was the large concentration
of school buildings in one
area:  Ecole Charite (charity in English) - my school,
a couple of public schools,
and a middle school (College Thakek).  Imagine how
crowded the road passing
these 4-5 schools when the schools ended each day
(each session).  In Laos,
schools started at 8 am and ended at 12 pm for the
morning session.  Then, it
resumed at 1pm until 5 pm for the afternoon session. 
Again, when I visited Thakek
in 1998, I witnessed students crowding the road for no
less than 10 minutes.  
What a sight indeed to see rows and rows of students
either walking home or 
riding bikes home.  They still dressed up in the same
uniform: blue pants/shorts/Sinh
and white shirts/blouses.  It was not much different
today as 30 years ago.

(to be continued)
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