Laos

We couldn't quite figure out how our bus driver was going to cover the 400km or so to Pakse in 7 hours while travelling at a max of 50km/hour as well as stopping continuously to lunch, load up people, bicycles, concrete telephone poles, etc. After about 2.5 hours we even turned off for a further stretch of detour but our bus driver miraculously sped up. We made Pakse in just over 7 hours and checked into our basic but cute guesthouse before heading off for Indian dinner! Pakse is great. It is relaxed and one can get good food, good internet and good options for tours and further travel. The next day was for catching up on major website backlog and other admin. We decided that we would hire two motorbikes for the following day to go check out some famous Khmer ruins but once we had counted our days (considering Janine's birthday) we sped through our internet load and booked a minibus south to a place in Laos called the 4000 islands.

Culture Shock: We were amazed to see the bus company turn away additional prospective passengers because the bus was officially full.