Bed bus to sardine bus, Vang Vieng-Vientiene-Pakse and then Cambodia.

With a couple of full days resting and recuperation behind us we decided it was time to move on from Vang Vieng. We wanted to get down to the south of Laos and then press on to Cambodia again, the plan was to kayak to Laos sleepy capital Vientiene and then sort the rest out from there so that’s just what we did… Beats a bus ride any day!

To be honest the actual amount of kayaking was minimal and the rest of the journey was done in a minivan but we had fun bobbing down river, over some easy rapids and a BBQ on the riverside. We arrived down in capital city in the early afternoon and bumped straight into some people we had been tubing with, I think we were all still feeling the bike trip because none of us could really be arsed to do any thing so we got a couple of beers and watched a movie in our room. We stayed in Vientiene for only one night, long enough to get plenty of Dollars changed up for any border shenanigans and a good massage. As we were checking out of our room Georgie had a shower and somehow managed to break the door lock, trapping herself in the bathroom – Toby and I tried to open it but to no avail so we had to call for some staff, two fellas went at the door with a screwdriver and hammer while Toby and I sat and watched and I think they thought it was their lucky day when a half naked Georgie emerged a good twenty minutes later…

We had a bed bus booked to take us all the way to the south of Laos to a town called Pakse, thirteen hours but with fully flat beds – Georgie was literally thrilled by the idea and for once couldn’t wait to get on the bus.

Once again we bumped into a fellow tuber and apart from the bus staff trying to get Toby to spoon up and share a bed with a strange man (hilarious!) it went off without a hitch… Almost half of the entire country just passed by as we slept and we hardly noticed… A stark contrast to the journey we had been on just a few days earlier.

From Pakse to four thousand Islands was a short minibus and boat ride, apparently there are about four thousand Islands in that stretch of the Mekong, ranging in size and all dotted at the far south of Laos pressed against the Cambodian border. A very quiet and rural place dotted with a few simple bars and bungalows we planned to stay a couple of nights but after a short spot of exploration on a bicycle we turned up nothing… Despite it’s nice quiet, rural charm it was pretty boring so we decided to move on the next day. But not before we sampled the night-life!

We met up with our tubing friend Emma and all went down to the hottest spot on the Island – the Reggae Bar, got some buckets and played some cards in the vain hope we warmed up our gamble muscles ready for the Cambodia casinos. We ended up having probably more than our fair share of Laos whiskey and on our way home in mid conversation Emma managed to stagger clean off the side of a small bridge and disappeared into a ditch, a guy happened to be walking past with a head-torch (the generators and  lights go off at around 10pm) and shed some light on Emma so we could pull her out and hit the hay.

7am alarm… Regret whiskey buckets, claw our shit together and stomp down to the boat. We wound in some strong coffees then hit the water. We had a nice minivan ride down to the Laos – Cambodia border and the formalities went pretty well, they tried to screw us out of a few Dollars each but I got tipped off by an honest official and we soon sorted that out… That’s where the fun started, two mini buses were sat waiting and one was already half full of people, nobody seemed to know what time they were leaving or even which one we were supposed to go in. The people already there had been there for two hours already and were getting a little irate but we knew better and just sat in some shade until decisions were made. At first they attempted to put an extra seven people into an already over full bus but we made a stand and got Emma and Georgie to charm them into using both buses. A little hot and sweaty we were finally on the road and only two hours of waiting for what seemed like nothing.

That first leg was about three hours, to a town called Kratie. Our bus was full of a good bunch of people who were all up for a laugh so the time passed quickly but from Kratie to Phnom Penh was a different story… Six hours crammed into the bus with our bags inside too, and nobody actually had a whole seat to themselves – in a word… Gruelling. I couldn’t help but wish we just had our own motorbike… But we didn’t and don’t my arse know it!!!

By the time we got to Phnom Penh all the people in the bus were intimate friends so we dragged them along to our favourite place to stay – The Okay guest house and then on to the nearby casino… A few of them had never been into a casino before or played roulette but the free beer flowed and in no time everyone was having a ball. Maybe because there was a big group of us guzzling beer like it was going out of fashion or maybe because we were all up but they stopped serving us beer, I called the floor manager over and politely said no beer – no play, he didn’t seem to particularly care so we cashed up and found a Cambodian night club along the river front to go and drink away our winnings… All $5 of them.