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This may not be interesting to many of you, but if you're considering crossing overland from Cambodia to Lao, this was our experience.
We began early morning in Siem Reap, Cambodia. Our bus picked us up at 5:15 am. I'd assumed it would be a backpackers minibus or something of the sort, but it was a public bus. At this time, we were the only two on the bus, so not bad. Due to the early hour, Kenny and I both promptly fell asleep on the chairs. Luckily, we took a seat near a window that opened.
A few hours later, more people joined us on the bus, and as we drove through central Cambodia's villages, even more locals jumped on board. The only other tourist on our bus was a backpacker from Japan headed to Vientiene.
Since there are no direct roads from Siem Reap to the remote border town in Southern Laos, we had to go almost all the way to Phnom Penh. Thankfully, we had a bus change and started to head north. We drove and drove and drove until we reached Seung Treng, an hour or so from the border. At this point, it was 5:30 pm, and the border had closed at 5pm! Ahh!!
We had to spend the night in the small town (24,000 ppl) of Seung Treng, but our guest house was nice and had a river view from the balcony. Our room had a flush toilet, hot water shower, fan, and even a TV! Ah, luxury! It was only $6, so we couldn't complain. After showering, we felt much better about not making it all the way in one day.
The next morning at 8 am, another minibus took us to the border. Crossing borders is always a little sketchy, so we went with our guide, who had our passports. The cost for a Lao visa ranges from $20-43, depending on where you're from, and there's an extra $2 charge if you don't have a picture. Our guide requested $43 from me, and $45 from Kenny since he didn't have a photo. Well, we got to bargain with him and got 2 exiting Cambodia stamps, 2 entering Lao stamps, and 2 Visas. We thought we were only going to have to pay $20 each, since that's what the airports charge.
But we finally got our passports back, after some nerves on my part. Then, we walked across nomans land carrying all our luggage. The best part of the whole experience was seeing the Lao border guards chilling out, watching an action movie. I asked one of the guards how many people cross at this particular one, and it's usually only 20-30 people. They seem to have a pretty relaxing job!
A quick 20 minutes later, we were at the jumping off point to Don Det, one of the 4000 islands, where we currently are. There's lots of hammocks, a cool breeze, and our bungalow is right on the Mekong, so we're going to have a hard time leaving!
Our advice for anyone crossing overland would be to do it opposite: go from Lao down into Cambodia, that way you should make it there before the border closes at 5pm!
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