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So we got in the pickup taxi because the driver said there was no other bus. We rode that for about two and a half hours. The girl sitting next to me fell asleep on me, there was a chicken that escaped off the roof, and the ducks on the floor bit my pants twice. Very eventful. It took us aobut two hours to cover the 120km to Pakse where we were to connect with the bus to Savannaket. We got there and found the bus which was leaving at 11:30. We bought our tickets, and I set off to buy eyeball fruit and dragonfruit for the ride. So we got on the bus at 11:30 and in the first hour and a half we didn't leave the city. We stopped about 800 times. We had gotten on the local bus. At one of the stops the guys working on the bus picked up like 20 enormous bags of rice- I think they were running an illegal rice trade - and lay them down in the aisles. There were people sitting on the rice bags in the aisles when the bus was full. My other thought for all the men out there, and specifically the one that was sitting next to me: just because he was a man and (most likely) has a penis does not mean that he can spread his legs out and take up half of my leg room as well as his own. It was the most ridiculous seven hour trip of my life. We got there and I just checked into the same hotel as the Australian couple. We were going to try to get a taxi to Vientiane so we didn't have to ride the bus again. We asked the hotel about a taxi and they said it would cost $190. We said we can pay $100 max. We went out to dinner and had sukiyaki - cooked stuff ourself in a pot in the middle of the table - and laughed about our ridiculous day. When we got back they told us we could take the taxi for $100 so we were excited.
The next morning I got up, had breakfast in the hotel around 7 and then went for a walk before we were supposed to meet the taxi driver at 8. I was getting my stuff together at 7:55 when Adam came to my door and said that they had just called him and that the boss had left with the car for Vientiane very early. We would have gone no matter how early! And why they didn't tell us when they saw any of us that morning is beyond me. So we went to the bus station. The only VIP bus was leaving at 9:30 that night and got in at about 2am. None of us were too keen on that idea so we got on the 8:40 local bus. It was miserable, and combined with the bus from the day before was just too much to handle.




previous travel blog entry
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