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Published: January 7th 2013
Road food 3
or how about some spiders? Great snacks We had booked the Phnom Penh – Siphandon (4,000 islands) bus, which left at 6:45. We got on and had been assigned the seats at the front, which was great (no one reclining on top of us) and the air-con was working and there was even a bathroom on board. We were thrilled!
Three hours in we stopped for a short food-and-toilet break, and we were making great time. An hour further down the road, however, a moped came out of nowhere into the middle of the highway and the driver had to drive straight into a huge bank of gravel to avoid him. The tyre had been ripped bare, and the brakes were shot. We stopped and eventually they gave up trying to fix things and we had to wait for a new bus. An hour or so later, on our new bus, its driver (not the same one) tried to make up lost time, and blew a tire. The bus «guide» (there is always one, even on local buses, to get people on and off and manage seating and pretty much anything else) somehow found a scooter and drove off and came back later and an hour later
First breakdown
It was a pretty serious one, but if we only knew what we had coming for us... we had yet another new bus. The first thing everyone said to the (again new) driver was to not try and make up lost time and drive slowly. 30 minutes later we were by the roadside again with a flat. They were about to change the tyre, when they realized the spare tyre was also flat.
By this time of course everyone was getting pretty grumpy, especially as the boarder had already closed, which probably meant more waiting and bribing and god-knows-what.
Our guide somehow got the people at the boarder to send us two minibuses, and we (finally) got to Trung Seng, the boarder crossing into Laos (this is a remote boarder, only recently opened to foreigners). We had already agreed to pay the «fee» of 5USD to the guide, since unlike the Vietnam-Cambodia boarder they DO leave you there and since we had no way of crossing the boarder on our own after it was closed. It was already 9:30 pm (we had thought that if everything went wrong, we would still make it to Laos before 9), and our guide asked everyone to contribute an extra dollar in order to bribe the guy at the
Sadies crossing
Sadie crossing the boarder to Laos, by foot.. hardly the most common way to do it boarder so he would open the crossing and stamp us in. Past the point of discussion (and with this request actually seeming reasonable) we ponied up, but of course some people raised a stink. This rarely seemed like the time to start a big conflict over 1 dollar, and to be honest, the way the guide had been driving around, organizing, calling and arranging things the whole day, he had earned his 5 bucks if you ask me.
After over an hour he came back with our passports, and we got all our stuff and walked under the barrages, and crossed the boarder in silence and in the dark, which felt illegal and clandestine. At the other side, two minivans were waiting for us. This is when things got tricky for us. We wanted to go to Don Khong, but everyone else going to Siphandon (4,000 islands) was going to Don Det, the backpacker-party island. The ferry to Don Khong had long stopped running, and we had to choose a minivan based on destination. As the ferry town was further north than Don Det, we chose to get in the minivan going to Pakse and Vientiane (those people still
Waiting
At least the two mini buses got us to the boarder, but not across - so more drinks and food, and waiting. This time in the dark, and with a full moon had 10 hours of travel left, and were going to have to sleep at the bus station in Pakse). We were lucky enough to befriend a local man who also spoke English, and asked him to call our guesthouse on Don Khong to ask them if they had a boat to get us accross (by this time it was almost 11pm, extremely late at night in these parts). He finally got a hold of them but they said they didn't have a boat, but would cancel our room for the night and we should try and get a room in neighboring Nagasak, and take the boat in the morning.
We settled for this new plan until I realized we had been driving for what seemed to be too long, and it turned out we had driven right by Nagasak. The driver said the guide (who had gotten off at the boarder, exhausted and ready to never see any of us again) had never told him to stop there. He had, however, told him to stop at the ferry crossing.
We got to the ferry dock, and it was dark and empty. The driver got out and managed to
What we came for
We know what we had coming our way, so in our dreams something like this is all we could see... find a guy he could wake up (assumedly by going right into his house and waking him from his bed) who would get us accross. We tried calling the guesthouse but got no answer. We decided to go for it, even though the possibility of this being a boat to nowhere was there, but we chose to trust our boatman and hope that, should we find no one on the other side, he would help us.
As we boarded the boat in the moonlight, it was quiet and peaceful all around. But, as we rounded an island, we heard loud music, and the boatman assured us it came from our destination. This, surely, if not a good sign of how quiet the island was, would be our saviour. Once ashore, we gave our driver the price he had asked for, 50 USD (which was very steep, but he refused to bargain, and we really had no leverage), and he laughed and gave it right back to us. He wanted 50 (thousand)KIP (about 8USD)! We all laughed and exhaled, relieved to finally be in Laos.
The noise-makers turned out to be some local youngsters, who were wrapping up as
Øyvind on the other side
Even Øyvind made it under the gate with his back pack on. No point taking any chances and wander of into the terrain. Who knows what might be out there we got there. As we had hoped, our driver helped us and got one of the kids to call the owner of the guesthouse (probably his relative), who told her how to unlock the front door, and found us a room upstairs.
Safe and sound, and extremely grateful to all the locals who had helped us get so, we fell into bed and looked forward to our stay in this kind, quiet, and welcoming country.
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mom
non-member comment
what a bus adventure!...suspenseful...a bit...scary?
the word, btw, is 'border'...as in crossing the border... a 'boarder' is someone who rents a room. sorry, i just can't stop being an english teacher, can i?