A broken down bus with leaking windows, a truck with benches or a white van with a door that doesn't close, lots of wires going on, an engine that doesn't work and of course...some tourists on the roof...How would you like to travel?!

The title is pretty much explanatory of our trip to the islands-dodgy transport after dodgy transport...so many a time I thought to myself we should have just walked! anyways it was so bad it was just amusing so neither of us got stressed about the whole thing. Infact you always feel comfort that your expectations have been forfilled when you do break down!!! DonDet is an island in the Mekong which sits as pretty as far south in Loas as you can get- it was a nice stop off point...we left with a complete insight into Loas island life. Alot of guest houses and cafes for the handful of tourists that were on the island(it is low season in asia now). Accomdation was a shack similar to that experienced on the perhentian islands but these came with hammocs over-looking the river ob not the south china sea! It was a very relaxing time- on our one full day we hired bikes and went to see the only attraction the islands relly premoted-the waterfall. It showed the Mekong at it most furious with swirling rapids but the water was still brown and there wasn't a particularly large drop so I'm sure I will see waterfalls that are more immpressive in my life time. Still with barely any electricity night fall was about seven and bed time not long after that! After catching up on some sleep we were well ready to head to civilisation...so we agreed with "mr Mo"(obviously this man is one that canbe relied upon after all his "mini bus goes ALL THE WAY to phenom penh) to pay him seven dollars (which is a lot of money for the people out here) to take us safely to the nearest town after the boarder in cambodia after hearing from other travellers that the border crossing is sketchy to say the least!We crossed the river and jumped out the boat to look behind to find the driver motoring back across the river!..he merely pointed away from the shore when he acknowledged our stares. We Walked where he seemed to instruct and I thought that may be the end of Mr Mo. But I guiltily withdrew my cynicism when we piled ourselves into...dare I say it..a "luxurious" minibus!ABsorbed in our good luck and Mr Mo's promises we hastily agreed to pay the full eighteen dollars to travel to PHnom Penh in comfort and style...oh dear...having crossed the boarder we were swiftly takin from the minibus and packed into cars with some more random guys obviously associates of the drivers before hand. The boarder crossing was smooth as we payed our 'extra fee' to the pockets of the  "officials" at the boarder. We another river crossing to do and here is where we agreed to the longer journey(after all the cars and the mini bus were plush and more than comfortable) stupidly BEFORE we saw the next minibus(we were told that it was the same as the previous...oh how we were lied to!)It was seriously the biggest clapped out heap I have witnessed on a road in my entire life!and this was to seat twelve not seven people even though it was no bigger! They grabbed some more random tourists(we all join the scams- tourist translates into "mugs" in this part of the world) and we were all stuffed in as our six hour paradise drive turned into our eleven hour drive in the nightmare van to hell! We changed vans several times-each time into one equally as tragic- we got out and pushed many time through the mud and for comfort a couple of british lads offered to go on the roof and hold on for dear life and this is exactly what they did! Still we were helpless in the situation so we just got on with it, found the humour of the whole situation and thought constantly about a nice soft bed-shower and electricity. A journey I will never forget.