We were all awake pronto by 06:30 as we HAD to board the bus at 07:00am. As we were all going to Pakse, we all made sure each other was awake, if there were any no shows by 6:50 we would knock on their room door, but, thankfully everyone was just about awake and ready to hit the road. As the bus began to set off, it continually beeped its horn as it passed through the village, i'm guessing it's a last calling for any passengers but i wouldn't appreciate that noise so early in the morning. The route we had to take was the first bus to Ban Khoun Kham and then another bus to Pakse which we had no clue where to get it from or anything so we had to wing it. Julius was staying on the bus back to Vientienne so he needn't worry with us. We managed to have a nap before reaching the town where we had to quickly get off, say bye to Julius and run to the other bus across the road to pakse. Now, i don't know if it was sheer luck that the local bus was there at that moment with just enough seats for us all, or if it was arranged. We each had to pay 50,000kip to pakse which was annoying as we already paid 50,000 to get to the small town, nonetheless we paid it and piled on with the locals.

When i first stepped on i doubted there were enough seats for us falangs but lucky enough i found two seats together at the back, only downside being that there were bags of rice stacked on top of each other where your feet are meant to go so me and Dan had to sit with our knees to our chin. It was incredible how much was rammed onto one bus, behind us were massive bags of god knows what and in the aisle were stools stacked onto of each other on the floor. Thankfully, after around 40 minutes, we got off to change busses for a more spacious bus. Luckily for me i bought some sweet buns from the locals on the previous bus, unlucky for Dan he ate one and left his other three on the old bus!

Our group were the only Falangs on the bus but the locals didn't seem too fazed by it as they're probably used to seeing whites dragging their backpacks along with them. I managed to sleep on this bus and it wasn't so long until we reached Pakse when the young boy working for the bus (who had really long red painted nails) shouted PAKSE PAKSE to which we all scrambled off the bus and said goodbye to Walter and Elodie. We were met by a tuktuk driver who wanted 50,000kip to take us to the town centre- another scam of course, i was pissed off to the max about this, why couldn't the bus driver just drop us off earlier than taking us further so we have to get a tuktuk back? So annoying! But we all put in 10,000 and shared a tuktuk 5 minutes back down the road to where the cafes and hostels were. We got off and began walking together down the side street. The first hostel we went in was fully booked but the boy at the desk directed us a little further down where we found "Nilay guesthouse". They had three rooms available for us so we took them and set our bags down. Me and dan were given a funny room right by reception with tinted windows and a curtain, it made us look like we were specimens in a human study or something, however, the room was pleasant as it had two double beds as well as a private bathroom.

Once we settled in we rolled a joint to smoke out front with Bob. We met Abbey and Sam as well who spotted a small grey kitten on a chair in reception. Can you imagine. It was the smallest, cutest, fluffiest little thing ever and soooo friendly! The kitten kept us busy for a good 20 minutes before Abbey and Sam went to grab an indian and forgot to wait for bob so the three of us had a smoke and then went to find them at the indian. We had no idea which restaurant they were in but we passed a decent looking indian on the way so decided to just eat there. We all ordered chicken tikka masala, rice and a nan, bob also had a plate of chips too the greedy b******. I stuck to a shake instead of beer that night. We discussed all sorts at the table, about how Abbey speaks to Sam and that he's too much of a soft touch, of war and conspiracies; which always seems to happen anyway. After our plates were clean we headed back to the guesthouse for a bed time smoke and to play with the kitten. The others had already booked to go to the 4,000 islands tomorrow but Dan and i decided to go ahead and do the tree top experience except they didn't have space to do it the next day so we booked for the day after and decided to have a very chilled day tomorrow.