Thursday 1st November - Monday 5th November - Pakse & Don Kho Homestay

After another lengthy bus journey, this one made longer because although the departure time was planned for 11am, the bus wasn't deemed to be full enough to leave until 12.30pm, we stopped unexpectedly and again in what appeared to be the middle of nowhere; our bags were hoisted off the roof in more heavy rain, and we followed them blindly to a much smaller, (and thankfully more water resistant) minibus for the rest of the journey to Pakse.

Pakse turned out to be smaller and much quieter than we'd thought, (although this goes for Laos as a whole), and not the traveller's mecca that we were expecting. After a quick meal of chicken noodle soup and after doing most of our laundry in the bathroom, we fell asleep to random Thai TV.

The next morning we got a tuktuk to the airport to arrange our $70 tickets to Siem Reap for the following Tuesday morning... whilst this might seem extravagant, we had come to the decision to fly because of the number of horror stories we'd heard about those who had ventured south to Cambodia by bus. The two day trip was apparently full of delays, last minute 'price increases', awkward negotiations with border officials and no choice about staying in a designated dodgy guesthouse overnight during the trip... we worked out that we could either go through all that and it cost us $35 each plus food and accommodation; or spend twice as much but do the whole journey in an hour.... sold!

Dinner that evening was the first time we've dared to try curry again since India - it went down well, the proprietor was very friendly, and we enjoyed our return to the land of curried cheese and lentils, even if only for an hour or so!

We'd read about the possibility of staying in the home of one of the Laos families on an island about 15km out of town - it's an eco initiative that's aimed at providing a sustainable living for suitably trained islanders, as well as an educational experience for visitors. There's no way of booking in advance, so the plan was to just turn up and see what happened... we were nervous, but once we'd got on the tuktuk there was no going back!

We arrived at the river crossing, where there was supposed to be an english speaking tourist office to arrange things for us... there wasn't, but the tuktuk driver, after a fair bit of us pointing, miming, and drawing numbers in the dirt on the floor, negotiated with a boatman, who in turn used his brick of a mobile to call the village chief on the other side of the river. Ten minutes later we were negotiating our way up a muddy hill after a wobbly boat ride (more on the boats later!), to be met by an enthusiastic chap in a sarong. More pointing, miming and rictus grinning later, we were introduced to a lady in a pointy hat who asked us if we liked papaya salad and then led us about 500m through a ricefield to a house on stilts, which it turned out was to be our new home for 24 hours.

A family of about 6 people greeted us, although they all returned to the rice fields pretty quickly, and we were looked after by their 24 year old daughter, who was learning to be an eco-guide. Her english was pretty basic, but we went on a tour of the small island, taking in the sights of "crazy man", "school", "old house" and "village chief", and were joined by her 5 year old nephew, Aan-Nii, who danced around singing "jingaw bew, jingaw bew, jingaw all the beww!" (jingle bells, we think). After a meal of cold chicken claw soup and sticky rice (complete with necks and whiskers); we played with Aan-Nii and his 1 year old, wide eyed brother, Beng for the rest of the day until hot chicken claw and rice soup for tea. We gave Aan-Nii a book called Bangkok Bob, about a monkey, that we'd bought in Luamprabang, and showed around photos of our family and friends, which broke the ice with the rest of the family.

Bed was at 9pm, outside on the floor under a mosquito net, and we woke up at the same time as the (huge) pet turkeys at 5.30am (they were very loud). Everyone was already working when we got up, but they all came in for breakfast, which was fish soup and sticky rice... the fish was brought in from the market live and still flapping! After another walk around the island with Aan-Nii, we waved goodbye at 11am, and went down to our waiting boat, as arranged by the chief for us. Fully laden, we would have to climb over 2 other boats to get to ours, all about the same size as our small canoe...

.... Dave got one leg in the first boat... and the boat moved away, very, very slowly... Dave; bag, camera, passport and all, went for a dip in the Mekong!! Everything seems to have survived, apart from Dave's dignity - most of the monks in the temple overlooking the river had a good laugh, as did the boatman, the tuktuk driver and the 30 or so people hanging about in one the other side of the river, as we arrived, Dave dripping. Whilst Dave wasn't hurt, we were both worried about his passport and camera - although we slapped grins on our faces (in my case, not too much of a struggle!), in order to save face and waited until we were safely on the tuktuk back into to Pakse to inspect the damage. No harm done, we both spent the journey drying things off in the breeze and reflecting on our time in the homestay.

Sunday was spent relaxing, catching up on the meals that we had missed and doing laundry, and Monday was an exciting day of posting things home and wandering about the town - although we were lucky enough to see our first and only Laos traffic jam - a queue for a one lane bridge. The lights stay on red for about 5 minutes, so by the time they change, everyone (from three different directions, and mostly on scooters), races to get on it first, creating a small bottleneck. And seriously, that's the busiest traffic we've seen in three weeks.

Off to Cambodia on a tiny propellor plane tomorrow - country number four!