Pakse to Kingfisher Ecolodge - The Wrong Way!

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Another day dawned and we were refeshed from yesterdays travels, no extra mozzie bites overnight and no side effects from the consumed chilli flakes.

A couple of jobs to do before heading south, Cash and a long sleeved shirt for Rick from the Market. The ATM's here do work but only allow 1 Million Kip per tarnsaction - sounds a lot but it's around 12,000 to the pound, unfortunately the family in front of us had decided to buy a car (for cash) today and were using both ATM's and several different Credit and Debit cards. After 20 minutes we left with 2 Million Kip on the hip!

We visited a nearby monastry for 20 minutes or so and Lee and Rick had a chat with three novice monks.

To the market, Shirt for Rick - 125,000 kip and Dawn bought an assortment of fruit to ensure that we get all get our 5-a-day.

So, the theory is that we have a pickup booked and the drivers knows where he's going. We head off but instead of taking National Highway 13 south we cross the Mekong and take the road that runs parallel heading south, BUT, on the other side of the Mekong. (Note : the Mekong is up to a mile wide in this area of Asia)

So we head south for around an hour, then the driver stops and looks at us as if to say we are here - think again little man, not only are we not here we are on the wrong side of one of the biggest rivers in the world. Things got a liitle heated at this point and the price to get to where we wanted to be started to inflate like Zimbabwe. 100,000 to cross the river, then another 300,000 etc etc

It appears that this was actually an honest mistake and we actually ended up going back Pakse and starting again, we paid a bit more for 'his' mistake, but we arrived completely orange from the dusty roads!

It had been a long morning, but after a shower and lunch at Kingfisher we could relax.

We had a relaxed evening looking at the wildlife and Sparrow sized mozzies.

Dawn later discovered a Gecko a foot long in the Bathroom - it must have been eating those mozzies - High Protein stuff.

We are up at 6am to go birdwatching in the jungle! - Pictures to follow - when we have a decent interent speed

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