Today was our first day of travel for a while! We were down at reception at 7.15 and had a quick breakfast before a tuk tuk picked us up around 7.45 and took us to the bus company's office. Here the guy gave us a talk about what to expect with the Laos border crossing, which was nice to feel a bit prepared! Then we got into one of two buses leaving for Laos. About 15 minutes in the driver and the other Cambodian sat up front had stopped and seemed to be discussing the right way to go before taking a right hand turn down a sand road just big enough for the minibus. Not very far down this road it started getting very narrow and like most of us had already realised they seemed to decide we had gone the wrong way and did a multiple point turn to get facing the right way!
They didn't really seem to know where they were going for most of the five hour journey to the restaurant they were stopping at for a lunch break. However, we still made it here at the time they had said and left on time an hour later. It was another hour and a half bus to the border and then we went on foot through passport control and to get our visas.
This part was pretty painless and worked out really well for us! We wanted to break up some of the $100 bills we had so Shane paid for his visa first and received his change, but when I went to pay for mine the guy asked for smaller bills. Shane gave me some out of his change and realised that he had ended up with the right change for his $100 but also the $100 he paid with! Normally I am quite an honest person but we had already moved to the next window to receive our stamped passports and that money will go a long way for us!
We headed to the other side of the border and got on the bus waiting for us there. We were sat there for an hour waiting for others to arrive and get on, but when I think of our Cambodian border bus it makes this seem perfectly fine!
The concerning thing was sitting and waiting whilst watching our driver drink at least 3 beers. Needless to say it was a pretty scary drive but at least it wasn't that long. Finally we reached the river and after more waiting we were put on a boat and headed to Don Det!
This was he first time we had travelled and not had somewhere already booked for when we arrived. We started by following the road and taking the right hand turn along the sunset side of the island. The first place we came to had fairly cheap fan rooms overlooking a make shift football pitch. We decided to continue looking as I quite liked the idea of a room with a balcony on the river. However, we didn't last long before heading back to the first place. It was starting to get dark and we just wanted a decent room to ditch our stuff and get some rest!
After we had sorted out room, booking it for two nights, we headed out for some food. We had walked past a bar on our way which I assumed was one Ben and Hana had told us about. They have a TV which shows continuous episodes of friends! All the comfy chairs had been taken so we just grabbed some food and a drink, watched a couple of episodes and headed off. If we get there in time to get a table with cushions for seats I think I could see us losing a lot of time there! We decided to go for one more drink and find some wifi, but it is really quite cold in the evenings! Starting to regret sending my hoodie home! This meant it wasn't long until we headed back to our room for a good nights sleep to recover from today's long journey!