Our first day of being here without screaming school kids at 7am and we had to get up at that time anyways, typical!
The minibus was at 7.45 and we had to be downstairs before half passed to pay the bill.
We had a little minivan, as we thought; we were all chucked in the back of the minibus, crammed up like sardines so that all the locals could jump on. I think they all play a game of how many people can we fit in a 10 seater minibus! The most to date is 17!
The journey didn't take too long, the roads aren't great further up north to Stung Treng; majority of the way the roads were dirt tracks in the process of being made but the dust was incredible, a few times along the way the driver couldn't see absolutely anything out of the windscreen because the lorry in front was bringing so much dirt and dust up it was impossible, we only managed to spot an oncoming lorry when it was right up close. (It was on the other side of the road) we got dropped off at Stung Treng at the riverside with a few patio chairs and tables out on the pavement and a couple of houses on the other side. A Cambodian man who spoke really good English just laughed and said 'why are you here, there is nothing here to do, your better going to Kratie.' Yeah okay, we have googled this stuff and the mekong discovery trail says that there are things to do here boyo.
The more he kept talking the more he made sense, at first we were a little weary like why is he pushing us out of the town but then if a local who works for tourism is saying there's nothing here your better off going straight to Ban Lung which has more going on. We discussed - there really can't be that much going on if the minute we get here they are pushing us out of town.
So we agreed to get the next minivan to Ban Lung which was at 12pm, so we waited on the deck chairs all starving because we were planning to have breakfast at the guesthouse when we arrived but that's out the window now.

So he got a local girl over and translated for us, we had bread rolls with 'beef' in and salad with a drink which cost $1.50 each. The beef wasn't beef, it was red meat but fatty. I did manage to eat some parts that wasn't fatty but the bits I looked at and didn't have a good feeling about I lobbed behind me over the bank into the river before the man that was translating for us could see me doing it.

Finally the bus arrived at 12.30, mine and Scott's bags were pushed in the foot area of the middle seats so he sat there. We didn't really leave Stung treng until gone 1pm because they were picking parcels and people up.
They managed to fit 16 people in the bus, we hadn't gone far and the girl that was sat facing back wards on her dad's lap felt sick, couldn't hold it in any longer before they opened the door and she spewed over my bag. Lovely! Scott was going mad saying it was his bag and bla bla bla. I told him to shut up it's my bag, as soon as he heard me say that he was all fine like 'aww that's okay then' cheers mate!
They did use water to wash it off and it was only on the bottom bit but still, apologies! Yuk-a-vee!

The journey was a little easier with the roads being better and it was a little under two hours long.
They dropped us off at a hotel, we weren't going to stop there though we had another one in mind so they directed us in the right direction, we walked for a little until we decided we didn't know where it was and tried to phone the accommodation, although trying to find someone who spoke English was proven to be difficult, a few young men who were moped taxis managed to phone someone who spoke English, although every time I said the hotel name to him he kept asking me to say the hotel name over and over so I just gave the phone back and a tuk tuk driver arrived, we asked him to take us to the hotel he wanted $2, we weren't in the tuk tuk 30 seconds, we had just missed the turning for it so he was only getting $1!

It's a really fancy hotel, and we are only paying $10 a night between us for comfy bed shot shower and television!

We went to the backpacker pad for food where we originally thought of going, the rooms didn't look great, they just had a metal roof with dividing walls. The food was good though and the tours to the national park look good so we may do one of those aswell.