The karaoke bus and more

You may remember we mentioned that sometimes when you catch a “bus” in Laos, it turns out to be a vehicle that looks like a ute but with benches to sit on and a roof over the top. Well, on our trip from Vientiane to Pakse in southern Laos, we experienced the polar opposite. We bought tickets for a VIP bus because it wasn’t much more expensive than a public bus and, since it was a 10 hour overnight trip, we wanted to make sure we had a seat we could actually sleep in. Now this bus was crazy. There was full in-flight service, with dinner, water and mints provided in the evening and a damp towel to help us wake up in the morning. The seats reclined way, way back – practically a bed, and there were tasseled curtains. As for the in flight entertainment... Thai karaoke of course! We had cheesy Thai pop songs belted out at us until about 10pm, then they were switched on again for some reason when we stopped somewhere at about 3am, then again at about 6am to wake us up as we approached Pakse – mad!

From Pakse we made our way down to Si Phan Don (The 4000 Islands). This is a place in the very south of Laos where the Mekong River fans out to 14km wide, creating lots (not so sure about the 4000 thing) of islands. There are only a handful that are inhabited and we stayed on one called Don Det. Our bungalow on Don Det was about as ideallic as you can get. For $US2.5 we were perched right out over the river and had a private balcony with hammocks. When you have a balcony like that, you don’t want to leave it much, so we didn’t. We spent all but one of our four days there lazing around drinking fruit shakes and beer – hard life, we know. On our one energetic day we hired bicycles (see first pic) and went exploring our island and another, which was connected by an old railway bridge which is a relic of the days when France had plans to build a railway as a trade route from the Gulf of Thailand or the South China Sea (can't remember which one, maybe both) to China. The bikes were really cute, little old things with baskets on the front that made us feel like we had rode back into the ‘60s.... apart from the rice paddies with buffalo and houses on stilts with pigs wallowing underneath, which made us feel like we were riding in, well, Asia. The ride was beautiful though, there is so little infrastructure on the islands, electricity for only a couple of hours a day and just so quiet and rural. (The third photo is of a petrol station on Don Khon, it is actually typical of most rural petrol stations we've seen, though some aren't as fancy and just have plastic bottles with petrol in them). We also visited some nice waterfalls, where Niels lost his sandal to the mighty Mekong. After a short time of barefoot biking he bought a new pair off an old lady on a bicycle, and no, he didn’t buy the ones she was wearing, she happened to be selling some (and other random stuff) – these island are great!

But, sadly, as our Lao visas came to an end, so to did our island paradise. The day we left Laos, we were headed for Kratie in Cambodia. To get there, we took a tuk tuk (which we had to push start) to the Laos exit place, which had us quite worried for a bit as to get to it we veered off the main road onto a rough dirt track “Where is this guy taking us”. You think after a month in Laos we would have learnt... why put your boarder crossing on a main road when you can put it in the middle of nowhere? After getting our exit stamp we walked a couple of km down a dirt road, then got in a minibus that took us back down the same dirt road (?), back past the Laos border crossing (?), back down the dirt road that has us worried before, then back onto the main road where we turned south towards Cambodia (we hoped). The main road quickly turned to dirt, and after a short time we arrived at the Cambodian border crossing. After all the border crossing business we got back into the minibus and headed south on a lovely sealed road. One of our companions said: “How much better are the roads in Cambodia than in Laos?” He shouldn’t have spoken so quickly cause sure enough, we hit dirt, bad dirt. When we got to Stung Treng, we got out of our bus and into a boat that took us across a river. Then, after lunch, into another minibus that took us to Kratie (yay!!!). So the trip, in summary, went boat, tuk tuk, walk, bus, boat, bus.

Our original plan was to only spend a night in Kratie as its only real attraction was some rare fresh water dolphins, which we decided we could do without seeing. But as soon as we saw our guesthouse room, we decided we’d better see the dolphins. Cost wise, food, transport, and, importantly, beer, are way more expensive in Cambodia than Laos, but when it comes to value for money for accommodation, Cambodia wins hands down! Our trip our to see the dolphins was fun, originally we were going to hire a motorbike, but, unlike Thailand, helmets and insurance are unheard of, so we each jumped on the back of a motorbike taxi instead. This didn’t solve the helmet problem, but at least if there was a crash, our travel insurance would cover us. The dolphins were great too. They looked like dolphins, and swam in the river. We saw lots.