Day 6 - After another restless night for both of us tackling the mosquito net we quickly got up to try to get to the bus station. A little wander around and then a supposed taxi and a tuk tuk turned up at the same time. The tuk tuk was charging too much for what we thought was a 5 minute journey And the taxi didn't really look legit. A good call from Alice to return to the hotel to order a taxi. One duly arrived and in we hopped for the short journey to the bus station, at least we thought it was short. This town / city sprang another surprise and the journey went on and on out of town for approximately 20 minutes, lucky we didn't get a tuk tuk or we'd still be going!
Arriving at the bus station a lady beckoned us in quite good English to enquire where we were going and showed us the correct ticket booth. 200THB each for the bus from Ubon to Pakse in Laos, not too bad at all for an air conditioned coach, not that it would be road legal in the UK.
Fairly uneventful journey except for a few Thai police checkpoints. We reached the border in good time and jumped off and easily stamped out of Thailand. This is where the fun started! Coming out if the Thai departure building we went through a concrete tunnel and into Laos which felt like we were 'escaping to victory'! We stopped at a little hut to be told the Laos entrance was 150metres down the road so no idea who owns the land in the middle and the good stalls on this stretch. Wandering off we were always looking back to see if our fellow travellers were behind us which after a few looks back we we're relieve to see some of them. We both handed in our passports and Laos entry cards and looking on the board, a UK resident would be $35. After a couple of minutes, the guy behind the tinted window wrote in a bit if paper $70 which was all good but then he started to write some more random amounts. I think it was $2. We only had $70 to hand so whilst undressing to find more, the guy wrote 800THB on a bit of paper so I handed over 1000THB expecting some small change.......A hand signal stretched out of the window for us to go around the corner and quite a queue had built up behind us. We waited at the next window with 20 or so other people who were obviously waiting to get their passports back so it wasn't going to be a quick process. After about 20 minutes a hand reached out grasping Alice's passport so she grabbed it. A bit of a wait for my passport to arrive but no change. It did seem like some of the guys waiting before us had been scammed out of more money.
Baht successfully changed to Kip, a friendly Laos fellow passenger waved at us from the bus so we jumped on hoping it was our bus. Our guidebook was still in the seat pocket so all good. Onward to Pakse, I offered our plain original crisps to the couple opposite to which he retorted with seaweed crisps, only one winner there! Arriving at the VIP bus station in Pakse, trust me it sounds much more glamorous than it is, one tin shack and space for one bus at a time! We jumped off the bus to be met by the awaiting fans, I mean tuk tuk drivers, hoards if them. We picked one chap who also took an Austrain couple a German guy as well. The Austrian couple had come over for a wedding in Bangkok and we're travelling around a bit, the German guy just seemed to be a random and want to be everyone's friend! We managed to communicate that we wanted to go to the Pakse Hotel and luckily 15 minutes later we were there. The driver tried to charge us in THB but we said we'd like to pay in Lao Kip and I think we got a little fleeced but no dramas as was still only £4.
The hotel owner, Jerome met us at the front desk and said he was happy to see us as we had e-mailed him the day before about the typhoon and whether we should come to Pakse. All checked in, we ventured around the corner for a bit of lunch and a taste of our first beerlao, something we had waited 2 years for and it still tasted as good as ever.
We went for a wander around town and down to the river front which we remembered from 2011 and unfortunately there are a couple of large new hotels being built which is not what this place is about. On our way back around to the hotel we stopped at a coffee shop for a bit if cake just in time to watch the rain start coming down. The rain didn't last long so we went back to the hotel to shower and change for dinner.
We had a quick walk around the local market before heading for the Panorama, the rooftop restaurant at our hotel. Beautiful views, amazing food, beerlao, what more could we ask for! Think we spent a couple of hours on the roof just taking in the views and general scope of what Pakse had to offer and it didn't fail to disappoint which can sometimes happen on a second visit.
Saw Jerome in the way out of the restaurant and he asked whether we'd managed to get a table and seemed genuinely happy when we said we had and had a great meal. Failed to mention they had mucked our bill up and left off a couple off beers! Makes up for the tuk tuk driver over charging us!