Welcome to Laos

We were ready at 6am this morning for a minibus to pick us up and take us to the 4000 islands in the south of Laos. I wasn't too fussed about leaving Cambodia. Angkor had been amazing but I was ready for a new adventure. Instead of a minibus a tuk tuk turned up and took us to another hostel where a bus would pick us up. It wasn't until gone half 7 that a minibus came for us and a few others. It became clear that everyone was going to different places, some to Laos too, so we couldn't figure out if we were to all change buses at some point. Our hostel told us it would take 7 hours to get to Si Phan Don (4000 islands). It took a hell of a lot longer but I'll get to that part soon. 

At just gone 12 we were dropped off where another group of people had been waiting for a few hours. These people had been promised a bus at 10am but another bus didn't arrive until 2pm. We all got on and another hour later we reached the border. Some man told us we were too late to walk through visa control alone so he made us pay $45 for a Laos visa. I swear it should only be like $30. All of us complained but in the end it was either pay it or don't go to Laos. For some reason French and German people got to pay $5 less! We had to sit around for another hour at the border where the amount of Mosquitos was ridiculous. Luckily I had sprayed myself earlier but still managed to get bitten on my eye lid which meant my eye swelled up and I looked like an idiot. 

When we were finally in Laos (it took over an hour at the border) a minibus took us a short distance before the driver told us it was too late to get the usual boat across so we had to pay an extra 30,000 kip (around £2.30) for a private boat. Our bus ticket didn't say it included a boat but everyone else's did so they were pretty angry. The bus company is going to get a lot of complaints. We drove another minute or so to a boat and we all precariously got on. You see these boats on documentary programmes about the Amazon and the Mekong river. This was the Mekong river actually. They're long boats with a motor stuck on the back. Not the easiest thing to climb on with a big rucksack but an interesting experience and the view was pretty amazing; the place is called 4000 islands for a reason. The islands are little green fluffy things. 

We'd made it to Don Det, the most popular island to stay on. Of course we'd decided the day before that we wanted to stay somewhere different so had the problem of trying to get to another island and at this point it was getting dark. A man offered to take us across on his boat (another of the same boats) for 30,000 kip. We had no choice really as we'd already booked somewhere to stay. Today has taught us that we should sometimes just turn up to a place and then find somewhere to sleep. Don Det had loads of places and it was quite pretty. But one dark boat ride later and a short walk down a muddy road we found our hostel. It was a little creepy looking from the outside and we're probably the only ones staying here but the rooms are clean and nice (no wifi though). 

It was around half 7 at this point so we walked down the road to a restaurant and had some tea. We were pretty hungry as all we'd eaten today were numerous jam sandwiches (we're a little sick of them now). I chose curry flavoured fried rice which was really tasty and had loads of flavour, something that most Asian cuisine seems to lack. Laotian food is looking promising.