Last day in Cambo - Lao crossing

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My last day in Cambodia was largely spent in an internet cafe and relaxing, I priced some bus tickets to Laos and then decided to go ahead with my plans to go there, I skipped some destinations in the South of Cambodia to allow some down time but as I liked the country so much I toyed with the idea of skipping Laos in favour of S Cambodia where I would also be closer to Kuala Lumpur. The flight prices were only 20 apart so cost wasn’t as big a factor as time or desire to go there, however everyone I met that visited Laos said it was a highlight of their trip so I decided to stick to my original plan and check it out. I had lunch in a restaurant while I organised my flight to KL from Vientiane hoping to save some money. Air Asia seem to raise prices daily, when I first priced flights 2 weeks earlier it only $ 30, now still with a weeks’ notice the price had risen 3 fold.
While I was booking my flight and having lunch I started talking to two English girls that had arrived the previous day and were having no luck haggling with Tuk-Tuk drivers. I told them how much I paid and they were stunned, I offered to help them later on and I would show them a good restaurant that offered me permanent happy hour because id eaten there a few times. The girls went off to meet friend at the airport and I walked around for a little while and for fun I spoke to a few Tuk-Tuk drivers when I negotiated a price for the girls, I told the driver to be at the restaurant at 8. I met the girls and their friend, took them to the restaurant and told them about the driver id arranged for them to meet, if they were happy the guys the price was agreed. They were delighted. We went for cocktails. It was 1am when we got back to the hostel, I packed and cut my hair and squeezed in an hour sleep before having and shower and heading for the travel agents office and leaving Cambodia on a 26 hour journey beginning at 4.30. Firstly there was a 4hr minibus bus trip to another province, we then made a stop and changed to a coach which took us to the border, after 10hrs on the coach watching a Chinese TV serial which was broken up by Chinese Karaoke videos I thanked god for MP3 technology I may have changed vehicle 3 times on the trip but there were no fun stops just swapping bags from one hold to the next. We only made one rest stop which included lunch (where i picked up a nasty stomach buig), as far as dinner was concerned we weren’t stopping, thankfully I always show up on a bustrip with bread and nuts and plenty of drinks. After reaching Pakse we changed to the third and last bus, were rushed and I mean rushed, military style grab your shit, take a seat we’re moving out rushed onto the sleeper bus so there was no time for dinner, the next 12 hrs on the sleeper were cramped, I was at the back with 4 other people, every bump we hit I was thrown into the window. I’d heard threes nothing in the capital and on arrival I decided to get the first bus out, 3 hours later I was on the 4hr trip to Vang Vien.

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