We went by bus from Don Khone to Stung Treng, in Cambodia. First we had to take a boat to inland and then a bus. When we arrived to the Cambodian border, we had to buy our visas. We changed dollars the exact amount of the visa, which was about 23 dollars. But what we didn't know was that they charged you also for a stamp which was 1 dollar, when leaving Laos, but also when arriving to Cambodia. We tried to not pay but in the end they wouldn't give our passports back, so we didn't have a choice. Also there was a health check point where they took your temperature and charged you for 1 dollar! I started to get really angry because it was just another way to have money from you. So we said that we won't pay because we have our own health check done before we left our countries, (we showed our certificate of vaccination). They guy wasn't happy but let us go without paying.

After all the checking and stamps, we finally got our visas. But we had to wait almost 2 hours on the border because we were waiting more people to come to the bus.

We had booked our tickets to Stung Treng, but in the bus the guy who worked for the company said that there is a bus going to another village(where we were planning to go after) Banlung, so if we wanted, we could book our ticket with him and they would drop us in the place where the bus goes. He said that it would be only 1 hour waiting. David didn't want to book with him because we didn't even know how much in dollars you pay normally a bus ticket. But I insisted that we take the bus so I paid the guy.

So they dropped us in a junction near Stung Treng with some other tourists from the bus.We were supposed to wait in a restaurant so I asked a guy in a restaurant what time the bus will come, just to make sure. And he said that it would arrive at 6 pm! SO we should wait 5 hours! So the guy in the bus lied to us and just wanted to sell his tickets.

We didn't have a choice so we just waited in the restaurant. There was a man who I heard spoke English so I asked him if he could help us to find out what time the bus was really coming. He was being very helpful and he called the bus company and they said that the bus would come around 4 pm. It was already better than 6 pm! But after one hour the bus company called the restaurant and they wanted to talk with me, because the bus was late, they had had a flat tire so it would be around 6 pm anyway that they would come!

So we decided to try hitchhiking and it worked almost right away, there were 2 Vietnamese men who were going to Banlung also, so we left with them.

It was good that we left with a jeep because the road was a dirt road and in a really bad condition. In 3 hours we were in Banlung and we started to be in a better mood because people were so nice and helpful.

Banlung

Banlung is a small town in the North -East of Cambodia, not far from the Vietnamese border. There isn't much to do in Banlung but people do treks and rent motorbikes to visit the villages nearby. We haven't done any treks on our trip because it's rather expensive and I don't see myself hiking up and down the hills, or in the jungle, sleeping outside, etc… Many people like it but it's just not for me! So we just rented a motorbike and went to discover the villages nearby.The roads were covered in red sand and time to time we had to stop so I got out of the bike and David continued. Many villages are just near the road and we couldn't help wondering how it is possible that people can live in that dust! After we had finished our tour, we were covered in red sand, nose, ears, eyes…

From Banlung we went to Kratie where we stayed only one night and the next morning continued to Phnom Penh, the capital of Laos.