Vientiane to Pakse to Don Det
I found the bus station without too much hassle or at least the tuk tuk driver did.
When I got there a man took me to a counter for the VIP Bus took my ticket and gave me another one. I did not realise until later that the time on it had changed from 2000 hours to 2030 hours and the seat had also changed from 10 to 22. I went back to the counter and checked to make sure it was still the VIP bus and questioned why the had changed the bus I had booked.
There was no real explanation as to why it all changed but they assured me it was still the VIP bus. I noticed a few others having the same conversations so let it slide until I could see the bus, after all as long as the bus is comfortable and does not stop every 10 minutes down the road I really do not care.
Thankfully the bus was a comfortable 2 story bus. I was unfortunate enough to be sitting next to a fat western guy who did not speak a word of english so I had the same problems with him encroaching on my seat and ended up squashed up against the window. If it wasn’t for him the journey might have been comfortable.
We arrived in Pakse about 0630 and a handful of us sat at a little coffee shop trying to decide what we were going to do.
In the end we all decided to go straight to the islands spend some time there then work our way back to our respective destinations.
A tuk tuk took us to the local bus terminal and we found a sawngthaew, a truck with seats in the back, going to Don Det, or at least to the boat that will take us to Don Det.
The ride was fairly bumpy but no where near the rides up north and a little cramped. The truck stopped along the way dropping people off and stuffing more people on until the end of the line. We had to walk the last little bit to where the boats go from but it only took about 5 mins. There was a little bit of muttering from some particularly since they had been diverting well of the road down minor roads only to have to backtrack to the main road after to drop the locals off at their door steps.
We found a boat that left straight away for Don Det but still arrived in the late afternoon which made it a little hard to find accommodation. Ended up at the most expensive place for the night as it was already getting dark and none of us wanted to walk around in the dark with our packs, there is no electricity in Don Det and except for a few bigger places that have generators there are no lights.
The evening was relaxed and spent at one of the restaurants \ bars at the waters edge, lets face it Don Det is an island and a fairly small one so just about everything is at the waters edge!
