Off the beaten track.

So another early rise today (6.30am) marked the start of our journey into Southern Laos. We got a bus for five hours to a place called Kampong Cham (not very much there at all, it's an hour or so north of Phnom Penh). We were the only Westerners on the bus, and were being stared at at every stop - especially Caroline who is 6 foot tall and blonde, with pale skin. Although I got my smiling chin stroked by an old woman in a krama: hopefully it's good luck.

Once at Kampong Cham we got swarmed by cab drivers and ended up getting a taxi driver to take us the 200km to Kratie for US$34... I worked out that in England, this would have been the equivalent of a US$1300+ fare (based on a journey from work to home - 8km - costing about 30 quid).

We were laughing our heads off as they were saying that if we had more than four people in the car it would cost less... they were suggesting as many as eight. It was a small Toyota Camry. The four of us and driver fit it with very little room to spare.

Thank goodness we didn't go for the cheapskate option of ramming a few more bodies in because about ten mins into the journey the sealed road turned to dirt, and about 70% of the way it was dirt roads with MASSIVE holes in it - we got air many a time, and at one point nearly got rammed off the road by another car. Hmmm.

Anyway, we're now in Kratie which is another 100km from the Laos border or so, and tomorrow at 7.30am we're off again to do the crossing, heading straight to the area of Si Phan Don, which has thousands of islands in the Mekong - we're staying on the island of Don Det. Hopefully we can chill there for a couple of days as the travelling every day has been tiring lately (oh poor, poor us, hahaha).

Word up and peace out.
x

PS - If anyone has any time to research why about 75% of cars in Cambodia are Toyotas, I am dying to know. And the connection here is too slow to google it.