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Published: June 10th 2008
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Today we left Kratie to head North into Laos. We knew it would be an interesting journey but what occurred was very fun. Early morning start at 6.30 am to be downstairs for the bus which would pick us up at 7.30. By 8.10 we started to wonder but a pick up truck did arrive and Mark and I threw our bags into the back and hopped in. One minute later we stopped and were shown out of the truck and into another little minibus. With our bags on the roof we piled into some tiny seats and within 30 minutes were off. We thought that the bus was full but how wrong we were. After stopping a few times to collect people, petrol and many massive bags of rambutans there were eventually 26 people inside the bus and 4 sitting on the roof! Hilarious, until you stop and the AC/wind also stops. I think we know hold the record for the amount of people you can fit into a 12 seater minibus. Even the driver had someone crouched on him.
After a few hours of this we stopped in a place called Stung Trung for a quick minibus change
and some food. How naive of us to think this would be the way it happened. After ages waiting around and still no minibus we pilled 5 large men into a car, and a driver of course, and set of for the hours ride to the border. I became very good friends with the man beside by immediately fallling into a deep sleep and snuggling even closer to him with the very real and very worrying possibility of drooling all over him. Luckily we arrived at the border just before this possibility became a reality and set about getting through.
The border consisted of a wooden hut with two men inside who demanded a dollar for administration before stamping us out of Cambodia. 100 yards down the road we reached the Laotian border and the man in his little wooden hut decided he could squeeze 2 dollars out of us before allowing us to enter.
After the border we piled back into the car and drove for another 20 minutes before stopping next to another minibus and transferring everything into that for the remainder of the journey. Another 40 minutes down some very bumpy roads sitting on some
very broken seats and we arrived at the ferry point/fishing village. From here we all transferred to a small fishing boat for a ride across the mighty Mekong river before arriving at our final destination of Don Det. After walking around for a while to find some accomodation we settled into our riverside hut and noticed the entire journey had only taken us 10 hours, not bad really!
Don Det is a tiny little island with power between the hours of 6 and 10 in the evening, no Banks, No post offices, no problems. After changing some dollars for the local currency, Kip we headed out for a little walk around, which didn't take long and then settled down for some serious hammock time. After sitting like a dead weight in the bottom of my bag my hammock I bought in India was screaming to be used so i strung it up and got re-acquainted with it. I maintain that it was a worthwhile purchase!!!
In the evening we ate at a restaurant nearby, the meal was interesting. It was as if we were on a tv show, We ordered fish, 20 minutes later they come out of
the kitchen and inform us that there is no fish, in a fishing village! After this we went through a steady succession of items they did not have, including beef, pork, garlic and a certain type of vegetables. This all took about an hour to unfold and by this time we were pretty hungry, after establishing what they did have we ordered again and when the food came it was fantastic. ALthough the Chicken curry had four pieces of chicken in so maybe they were running out of that as well. Taking all this into our stride we headed to the liveliest bar in town, with over two tables occupied and met up with someone we had met in Sihanoukville. Over a beer we discussed what there was to do the next day and then headed off to bed. With no AC the room was stifling and that evening there was an almighty storm which pounded the roof of our little hut. Constant lightning and the sound of rain on a tin roof kept us awake for most of the night.
So there you have it, our first day in Laos.
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