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We decided to take an overnight bus from Vientiane to Pakse and I can't even start to describe our excitement when we discovered that our 'King of Bus' had beds on it. Ok so they resembled a tarts boudoir with studded red plastic walls and they were quite snug but it was still a bed and we were on a bus!!! (see photos)
We arrived in Pakse at 6am and immediately jumped onto a public bus to take us down to 4000 islands unfortunately the bus stopped continuously picking up and dropping off people and products.If we stopped near a village the bus was immediately taken over by the village children and women trying to sell their wears - believe me cooked chicken on a skewer is not a good smell at 8am. We eventually arrived at the port at Ban Nakasang and jumped on a boat to Don Khon.
Don Khon is lovely - we hired bikes for 3 days and just cycled around it and the neigbouring islacnd Don Det. Our accommodation was on the banks of the Mekong River and we had some really spectacular sunsets. The only issue was the noise - you would think that an island in the middle of nowhere with no mains electric would be quite a quiet location - WRONG!!!! The chicken run was next to our accommodation so you can imagine the noise from there, there was a hall directly opposite where the monks liked to go and chant and the boats on the mekong have the noisiest outboard motor engines imaginable. One night we even had an unidentified animal wearing a bell forraging around under our room (all the buildings are on stilts because of the rainy season).
In our pictures you will see a picture of a big green insect which landed on some guy's table and caused a bit of a commotion. The owner picked it up put it on the end of a broom and tried to feed it to a Gecko, the gecko gobbled it up but as the insect was bigger than it was it had to let it go - it was vile!!! The owner then brought it back outside to freedom and whilst he was letting it go he told us that when he was little they cooked and ate these insects. When we asked what they tasted like he said...grasshoppers, so still none the wiser!
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