Fun at the border
I pay $1 and get a stamp to leave Cambodia and walk across the no-mansland to Lao border (two sets of wooden cabins and two gates make up thetwo borders). there are 2 windows so I go to the window 2 when itbecomes free and get a stamp in my Passport and pay $2 and have a liedown on the back row of the bus while waiting for others. I dontunderstand why there is such a delay for the rest and there is a queueoutside number 2 window while I am waiting on the bus. then couple ofthe girls get on the bus and are talking about $36. I check with one ofthe guys, what I have been given is just an entry stamp, I dont have avisa. I rush back to window 1 (the one that says ENTRY VISA)and itseems that that they have not checked my passport stamped my itassuming I already have a visa. he gives me visa application to filland pay the money. I then go to window 2 as they have now cancelled theoriginal entry stamp! (why?) and have to do it again. they are busypunching things into computer with single fingers. the main guy alsohas a pistol stuch in his waistband (very cool, huh), looks plastic butpresumably it is not. Then he looks for my visa and there is none, theguy at window 1 has taken my money and form but forgotten to stick thevisa sheet in the pass this time and it is sent back to him to rectify,I am laughing my head off by now. the rest of the guys are on the busnow, one or two are having a smoke meanwhile. the passport iseventually returned to me, I bow before them and we have a laugh as Istart running to the bus. so basically I alomost entered Lao withoutvisa twice!

about an hour later we are getting off the bus again and are expectedto pay for a boat to get to Dondat island, and non of us are happy aswe have been sold the ticket to that destination in the first place butend up having to pay again for the boat, the bus driver suggesting thatthis is done quite regularly and he has nothing to do with it!
I have no idea where this specific island is, just that it is part ofthe group of island I intended to visit. I am planning to chill outhere a few days, but I am told it is suppose to be the party island soI may have to change soon! The Dutchman thought south Lao was boring, Icould do with some boring time as I think without realising it I mayhave been pushing hard agian in my own way.

I was waiting to sort out where I was sitting one woman is showing somephotos around presumably of her family, first a set of 5 young men then5 young women then a young version of herself, I wonder if this issomething everybody does on the bus to introduce themselves!
I have managed to rest on the bus, I may be learning! When we stopanywhere such as lunch there is no head count it is a wonder no one isleft behind. The bus gives two hoots just as it leaves so you wont havetime to catch it even if you tried. I am the first to the food counterwhen we stop for lunch, I am learning the system!

We are disembarked on a steep sand beach with various bodies lyingaround or in the wter. the water is the first one I have seen which isnot muddy, being muddy does not stop Cambodians (we are in Lao now)from bathing or washing clothes or food in the water.

I wander around with some other guys in search or room/bungalow andeventually decide on one set back from the water itself, my logic isthat I would not be sitting on the balcony during the day anyway and atnight it is best to be away from the water and the insects. almost allthe bungalows have a veranda with a hammcok too and fan inside. theAustrian guy has manged ot get a proper room for 80000 Kip ($10) when Isee him later, I lend him my mosquitto net as his room does not haveone! this is very unusual and at times I have wondered if I should havebought a net but I have used it on occasion.

I am typing these words on my veranda, the candle I had lit earlier hasjust gone off and the beer I brought from the shop is finsished. a biginsect (about double the size of your usual grass hopper, thousands ofthem sit in trees and screech all day and night. I managed to photo asingle on e in one of the temples) flew into the veranda and I wasright thinking that either the light or the fan would take care of him.It was the fan! he has been injured and dragging himself around the veranda for a while. It has half a body missing so unable to fly, I put it out of its misery hoping that is the right thing to do.