Heading to 4000 thousand islands (Si Phan Don)

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The plan was to sleep in in the morning as Candice and Duncan had crappy sleeps the night before, so we woke up around 9:00am. We left for breakky around 10:15am and planned to catch the 11:00am bus to the town with the pier. We arrived with about 5 minutes to spare at the Southern bus station. George and Lauren took a bus a few days before to the pier so we wanted to do the same. The only way to get there though was by songthaew as the only bus is at 8:30 am. We ended up missing the 11:00 and had to wait for an hour. The songthaew looked like it was starting to fill up so we jumped on at about half past. By the time we left there were 23 people in the back of the truck. Rice bags layed in the aisles, bags were under our feet and limbs everywhere. Lao ladies were eating formented eggs which made us want to gag. The baby chick had already started to develop and you could see hair sticking out of the eggs and these Lao ladies were just chowing down. It was disgusting! About 30 minutes into the ride they all bought these turnip radish looking things as well. The girl sitting in the middle aisle by me was peeling hers and throwing the peel all over my legs rather the on the floor. Then later they all bought bbq'd full chickens, feet and all! We started chatting with a girl from Singapore and she told us a bunch of useful information about Singapore and travelling to South America. We also met a couple from England who are really nice. They are actually staying at the same place we are now. Anyway, after the packed songthaew trip we finally made it. We went to the pier and a guy started arguing that he didn't want to pay 15,000 kip, and that he was only going to pay 5000 kip. We didn't want to argue as we read online, as well as in our guide books that it was 15,000 kip. The guy never ended up coming on the boat... we are curious as to what he ended up doing. We got across and met George and Lauren at the guest house. They said they looked at almost all the accomodation here and this is by far the nicest. Its one of the few places that actually has a bathroom in the room. We settled in, had a shower as we were covered in dirt from the drive here then grabbed a bite to eat. We sat there for a few hours chit chatting with everyone, and the couple from England came over and joined us too. They are travelling for a year doing a similar trip to us. After we went to a Indian Malaysia resteraunt that served delicious food. Tomorrow we plan on renting a couple peddle bikes and exploring around. Its all flat so it shoudn't be to hard!

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Photos

People come running up to sell food
Meat, bugs, fruit, drinks etc

A lady on the 'bus'
I have no idea how people sleep on this thing