Dodgy border crossing

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Well... We left Phnom Penh (the second time) on a bus bound for stung treng, a city in Cambodia from which we could reach the border crossing to Laos. Our Guesthouse owner assured us that the bus ride was five hours, but it turned out to be ten. As we neared stung treng we resigned ourselves to spending the night there and hitting the border the next day.
When we got off the bus we were given an offer and assurance that we could make it to the border so we said " fuck it! Lets do it!" and hoped in to a mini van with seven other forgeiners. This unoffical border closes at 6pm. We arrived at 6:30. We were invited into a bamboo hut by some very unoffical, topless, border officals who offered us a seat, took our passports then summarily informed us that the border was closed, and left. After five minutes of talking with his buddies he came out (now wearing a shirt and anounced " The border is closed, but maybe there is something we can do... do you agree?" While I'm wondering what kind of astronomical sum of money he is going to ask for or what sexual favours he's going to request he says, very slowly and deliberately, " You must pay five american dollars each." For Jessie and I who were expecting worse this was no problem, however a swedish couple really wanted to negotiate. I thought this was silly as the officals don't care if we sleep on the lawn and they would charge us two dollars the next morning. Or five just to prove a point. As Jessie was the first to pay he was a little snotty when we got across... we gave him 20 minutes and that was enough waiting for us. HE also started to mention talking to someone in Phnom Penh untilhe was stepped on by a fellow traveller. I think he was trying not to cross the border.
THere was an African guy named JAmes with us who asked to pay ten dollars because of his Nigerian Passport. HE flatly refused and was stamped after much humming and hawing. HE said it was probably becausehe was black and I had to agree.
On the laos side there was little fan fair. The Swedish guy said," let's take sometime to negotiate the price this time." but When the offical told us two dollars I was the first to hand over my money.
After recieving our stamps we took another minibus down a pitch black dirt road for about an hour until we arrived at boat lauch. The boat was a lowriding long tail with a roof and no lights that we were to take across the Mekong to Don Det. It was so dark I have no idea how we arrived in one peice.
After finding a guesthouse we went for dinner at a little restuarant that boasted a "happy menu" where you could not only by joints and "happy" birthday cakes, heoffered to make all of his dishes and hot beverages "happy'. For the cakes you had to specifiy "a little happy, happy, or very happy". I had some fried noodles "miserable". We retired early and spent the next day exploring the island on bicycles.
Today we're on our way to Ventiane, the capital of Laos. We took a sawngtheaw, (a glorified truck bed with a roof) packed to the tits with foreigners, to Pakse where we will catch a bus at 8:30 tonight... Now, we've just got to find a way to kill the rest of this day...

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