An early morning departure meant we didn't sleep great. We were up at 6.30am which is not a time you want cold showers. Well to be fair I don't want anything at 6.30am, except to go back to sleep. We packed our bags & headed for our final awesome meal. We had time to eat, settle the bill & have lunch made for our trip. We were sad to say our goodbyes to Lutz & Mrs Lutz (still didn't learn her name, that's bad) then boarded our boat to head back to the mainland. Don Dhet was as beautiful & relaxing as we had hoped, we just hoped for a better bathroom. But in the end even that added to the whole experience really. We could have stayed closer to town but the hospitality of Lutz & the cooking of his wife, plus the views, made this a place that will stick in our minds for a long time. But it was now on to the task at hand, getting to our final country. When we arrived at the mainland we were taken to fill out the paperwork for our Cambodian visas & spend the last of our Laos Kip. Then after 30 mins everyone walked up to the buses. We were on another VIP bus & luckily we got seats right up the front. The departure time was 9.30am so of course we left at 10.15am. Arrival time was meant to be 7.30pm but will of course be 11pm. We only went 20 km's before arriving at the border. We had to get off the bus & crossed from Laos into Cambodia by foot. We then waited about an hour as the bus company organised stamping of our visas before we were on our way again. So we know now why the trip takes so long, the roads in Cambodia are horrendous. They just degrade from asphalt to dirt to mud, all filled with these huge potholes. The driver had no choice but to slow down & do his best to dodge everything, which generally seemed to involve being on the other side of the road. As the day went on the roads didn't get any better, then as night fell the buses lights were hopeless so we went even slower. Eventually we arrived in Phnom Penh at 10pm & walked the short distance to our guesthouse. We were knackered but headed back out for a feed before returning to the room for our first clean, warm shower in 5 days. Then the exhaustive sleep that comes from a 14 hour travel day. We loved Laos & the Laos people. It is a place to go for one of the last authentic SE Asia countries that hasn't been taken over by tourism. We have seen everything we could have hoped there. We feel like we did the country right & can happily move on to Cambodia.