Moving on to Pakse, the place to go if you're after a new kitchen or bathroom i guess, if not then.....!!!

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Well time to pack up and leave again, i get up fairly early so i can make the most of the last morning before our journey to Pakse, so i get in a quick yoga sess, swim, breakfast then it's off to the beach to get the boat over to the name of the place I don't even know, but we go on from there by bus to Pakse.....

Karen has been up all night with the food poisoning from the night before and so isn't feeling too great, but luckily she still manages what turns into a pretty nightmareish journey.....

First off none of the boats want to accept our tickets we bought, eventually one does after first refusing it, we then have nearly rocked the boat over getting us and our luggage on, eek!! Yup, i'd been warned about this happening from other people so was kinda prepared with my ipod and camera in tubing pouch! Still not funny tho!!! But we get going and the boat seems ok :-) We then have stress the other side as yet again no bus wants to take us despite our tickets, turns out we're on a coach that is parked up and nicely waited for us around the corner, but why people couldnt have told us that instead of pointing to numerous wrong buses i've no idea :-/ The rest of the bus went without hitches until we arrive in Pakse and with clear directions to our hotel (map and addy!) the tuk tuk driver still manages to drop us at the WRONG one, but luckily the nice girl in reception at the wrong one hails us down another one and explains where we want to go! It seems even with maps there seem to be a problem when it comes to finding our hotels and guest houses sometimes!

Well it all seemed worth it when we arrived as our poshest place to date, i just chilled by the pool for the rest of the day which was backing on to the Mekong so also got another amazing view of the sunset :-) While Karen recuperated from the previous evening's meal.....

I then notice we finally have a bathroom with a plug so get up to date on the washing, only now our posh room now resembles a laundry,ha!! It's times like this i don't understand why lonely planet and other guides advise all this shit about only taking a couple of pairs of shorts, about 3 pairs of undies and a couple of t-shirts as i'd have been fcuked if i'd gone by their advice! So all the extra luggage is worth lugging around, even though our boat earlier did near 'capsize' with the weight, ha!!!

It's only when i decide to go out for a bite to eat i realise that Pakse is definitely the worst place we've stayed so far... Albeit our only reasoning is because it's near the aiport for our flight on sunday to Cambodia..... The hotel is probably the equivalent to the Marriott back home, although slightly posher, but in that it seems to be in an industrial area, with the shops mainly selling bathroom tiles, kitchens and spare car parts!!!! With all our luggage we def havn't got room for anything like that to bother looking at, ha :-P There is also hardly anywhere to buy food, so i settle for a food stall selling what looks like a sausage but after one bite i decide i don't want to end up like Karen with food poisoning - the taste was so dire i won't even give you the grim details, so i settled for rice for dinner and some yummy cake from the hotel!!!

We'd debated doing a trek the next day as heard there's some good trekking to be had in Pakse, and from what we've seen so far it's probably the only thing good to be had there unless you're after a new bathroom, car parts or a kitchen!! But with the pool being so nice and Karen not 100% still we opted for a lazy day chilling on the saturday, i spent the rest of the evening finally catching up on the internet and having a lush bubble bath - had to make the most of the luxury here, ha.......

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