The journey to Thakhek

Just a quick blog to say today was spent on a bus. We wanted to get to Thakhek, originally to complete 'The Loop', a three day motorbike trip, but realised after we booked the bus that it's going to rain and storm for the next three days meaning the roads will be impossible. Instead we're going to try and see a big cave. 

First, we got in a long boat with a sweet old man who spoke no English and zoomed along to the mainland. I'm starting to like these boats. We then got on a bus for a couple of hours before getting another bus. This bus was meant to reach Thakhek at half 9 at night (we set off from Don Khone at 11am) but we didn't get there till 2am as the bus kept stopping for some reason. I think the engine was having problems. We bought some weird snacks (bread and things that looked like yum yums but were hard and some cherry flavoured jelly sandwiches) and survived the journey. When in Thakhek we got a tuk tuk to our hotel only to find it was locked up and we couldn't get in. The tuk tuk driver tried to rip us off and get more money so I left Matt to deal with that whilst I tried to find somewhere to sleep. A hotel a couple of doors down was open so I woke the receptionists and got us a room for a fiver each (they spoke no English so it was an achievement). Unfortunately, we'd already paid a fiver for the original room but not everything goes the way you plan.