In our last post we talked about our stop off in Kratie and forgot to include a few pics so we’ve slipped them in at the end of this one. Also, here is a few things we learned from our tour around Cambodia…
1. Transport can be quite crowded. When they pack 21 people into a 14 seater minibus (including luggage) it can be a bit too close for comfort.
2. Although the food is delicious, you might feel the need to dissect it once in a while. Bugs aren’t meant to be an ingredient.
3. They will do anything for $1. You can even get a dollar BJ.
4. The majority of males drive a Tuk Tuk. Every second step along the street you will be asked ‘Tuk Tuk Sir?’
5. Some women have no shame. Crouching for a wee, pants down, in the middle of a roundabout, while people walk past, is by our standards, quite unacceptable.
6. Always carry a torch. The sun might go down quicker than expected and you may get stranded miles from home with no streetlights to lead the way.
7. Transport companies love a scam and there’s nothing you can do about it. Three times is surely too much for a 3 week trip.
From Kratie, we decided to head North and move onto our fourth country, Laos. Booking with a professional bus company, we had no fear that anything was going to go wrong, we were told we had paid everything, apart from our visa fee of $35, to get to our destination of Pakse. Little did we know that we were being subject to yet another transport scam! We got into a mini bus then transferred to a big coach in Stung Treng, as we approached the Cambodian/Laos border we were told by the rep on the bus that we had to pay $40 for them to go and get our visa, which was $5 more than it actually costs. When everyone on the bus said we would go and get it ourselves, we were told that if we did this then they would refund us for our forwarding transport from the other side and we would have to make our own way to our destination in Laos, knowing full well we were in the middle of nowhere and it would probably end up costing more than $5 each. Even though you know you are being ripped off, there’s nothing you can actually do about it, so we just gave in and handed over our passports with the extra money. Then, they have the cheek to say ‘make sure you have small change for bribing the border officials’… WTF??? They say you have to give the border official on each side $2 as a bribe to stamp your passport and if you don’t pay, then you won’t get a stamp. Stupidly, they stamped all passports, then sent over a runabout to collect the money, but before he had the chance, Alan had swiped our passports, cueing everyone else to do the same, then we walked straight over the border without paying, ha! One word for the lot of them… CORRUPT!
Arriving into Pakse about midday, we did a bit of research and decided there wasn’t much that interested us in Southern Laos, so we lazed around in cafe’s, drank coffee and ate crap until 7pm, then got on board a luxury sleeper bus to the capital of Laos, Vientiane. One of the places between the 2 stops is Kong Lo Cave, according to Lonely Planet, this is the second biggest highlight of Laos, we decided to give this one a miss, as the main attraction inside is the FIST SIZED SPIDERS. No. Thank. You.
Vientiane has to be the most laid-back capital ever. It doesn’t seem to get busy, you don’t get hassled and everyone is uber friendly. Although there isn’t a great deal to do you can still have fun in the city. We started off the day in the amazing JoMa Bakery, they have iced coffees and bagels to die for. Vic got very excited as they had wholegrain bread, the first time we’ve seen it in 6 weeks. We had a brief visit to Wat Si Saket, which is the oldest temple in Vientiane and houses over 300 buddha ornaments of varying size, age and material. Then crossed the road to Haw Pha Kaew, now a national museum of religious art that was originally built to house the famed Emerald Buddha. True to form, Vic had her knees and upper legs on display, so as her dress was deemed inappropriate, she was given a floor-length wrap skirt to wear in both places. Being a bit out of sync with our meal times, we decided to skip lunch and have a huge dinner. So, to fill the gap we stopped off at Swensen’s ice cream parlour for a chocolate sundae which was delicious. After a few games of bowling, we went for a super size pizza, had a look round the night market, tried out the free outdoor gym, then headed home for an early night. Oh, not before having a local beer with a wooden cowboy (don’t ask).
Before moving on to the fun-filled town of Vang Vieng, we hired bicycles for the morning and went to see a few more sights. Heading to Patuxai to see the Victory Monument, which is supposedly a replica of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, was quite disappointing compared to the original, but still nice to look at. The golden Pha That Luang is the most important national monument in Laos and is worth a quick look round, it’s 45m high and legend has it that a stupa was built here to enclose a piece of Buddha’s breastbone. Wierdos!
Next stop Vang Vieng for a bit of tubing, bring it on :)
We nearly there yet? 
Sleeper bus looks a lot better than the last one ha ha
xox