Day 671 - Will the bus ever get there?

The market was beckoning us the minute we woke up today as we needed some supplies for a long bus trip south before we head into the islands of the Mekong where there is no power (well some generators) and very few shops.

With supplies in hand we reluctantly picked up our packs and headed out for the 30-45minute walk to the bus station, but the heat of the day got the better of us and we conceded to an ok tuk tuk price.

Being lazy turned out in our favour as we managed to catch the first bus headed to Pakse, even better was the fact that we got real seats and not plastic ones in the aisle.

The day was long and slow, we expect this in Laos but its still frustrating when a long bus trip is made even longer by too many pointless stops that seem to never end, we stopped 3 times in 10km!

We eventually made it to the bus station about 7km out of town where they tried to unload us, however, we had seen all the other passengers pay a little extra to be taken all the way into town, which meant the price was a good deal. The conductor totally ignored us even though we would have happily paid the money also. Why would he do this ... well he has friends who drive tuk tuks and they love to take falang (foreigners) for 'rides'. In the end we just refused to get off the bus so off it went, when we were near our destination we just stood up and had the bus stop got our packs out and that was that! In fact the conductor never even thought to ask us for extra money!

The rest of what was left of our day was spent on finding a place to stay for a night or two, locating some food, and heading to the internet before we are at the power free islands.

Adlibing it to town for FREE.