While the minibuses left at 8, I allowed myself a lazy breakfast by the Mekong, waiting for either the boatman to lower his price, or more people to arrive. I spent the short journey to the otherside persuading him in my very poor French that I didn't need to get a moto to the border for $7. I knew from the Lonely planet that one needed to be at the border before midday, but figured if I didn't get a lift before 10.30, I could stump up. There wasn't much traffic going the right way and though several people stopped to offer me a lift to Paske (presumabley assuming a stupid Falang could easily be standing on the wrong side of the road) , the first truck gong the right was shook their heads. Fortunately just as I was questioning the wisdom of my decision, a van pulled up and offered me a lift for $3 bucks to the border and I didn't bother to haggle. I elected as usual to stand on the back, though this was the first time in flip flops and this added an extra dimension to the balancing act. Sure enough we stopped at all the villages on the way to load and unload people and goods.
Having helped unload a few things I was ordered by an elderly Laotian lady to move two 15kg sacks of rice, to the evident embarrassment followed by amusement of the locals as I initially staggered around holding it in front of me instead of tossing it onto my shoulders.
The conductor chap was enjoying trying out his English and was telling me all about the cheap horses in Cambodia. I wasn't convinced that he was an equine lover and concluded he meant to say 'houses'. Given the amounts of $5, $10 dollars he was saying, I enquired as whether this was a weekly or monthly rent. He laughed heartily at this and slapped me on the back several times, giving me some concern as one of my flip-flop really needed rescuing before it slip off my foot. It took me another five minutes to realise he was actually talking about 'whores' and a similar length of time explaining that I wasn't travelling alone in SE Asia to shack up with a lady be it minutes, months or years.
He was soon jumping out again as we had arrived at a customs Control point. Before we'd come to a halt he'd run over to the gate, raised the bamboo pole serving as a barrier as we sailed through, let it down again, waved to the customs man and we were off. He pointed to the blue sacks lining the bottom of the truck, explaining that it was coffee and they should be charged at $1 a sack. Presumably this is why he'd avoided confrontation with the customs man by operating the barrier himself... So far it had cost me $4 to the border, half the guesthouse price and so despite the meagre saving this represents when in England, made me feel quite pleased with myself. On top of this I managed to get away with a bribe of only one dollar for losing my departure paper. There would have hardly been time to debate the causal link between pride and falls when I accidentally got myself kidnapped.
It was a stupid move really, I should have taken time to investigate where my friendly Saganthew had gone, but as there didn't seem to be many vehicles around, I accepted the offer of a lift over the border for 1 dollar in a taxi. There were some other falang in the taxi, a couple of Canadians and an Aussie, but within a few minutes I realised my mistake as instead of crossing the river, we headed off down a dirt path for about 20 minutes.
Of course it soon transpired that they'd already paid the whole way and still needed to get visas, so I had to wait for them and then be charged a hefty price for the onward journey as there were no cars left. Fortunately we didn't have to undertake the whole journey with 7 people in the care as it soon became apparent we would also be towing someone with a stick.
As I got onto the ferry in Stung Treng, I heard a familiar voice and it was Marijn again, so I decided to continue down to Kratie with the girls and managed to blag my way onto their bus. Except my bag got on that minibus and I ended up on the Irish bus. Ten lads and lasses from Limerick, plus five others from the Emerald Isle they'd picked up on the way. So for the next 2 hours I was treated to various renditions of contemporary and a few classic pop songs. The most apt for me being Madonna's 'holiday', which seemed to capture exactly why they were in Cambodia. Hilarously, they were so unprepared that they didn't have any money between them as there were no ATMs south of Pakse in Laos and they had managed to let the company take them to Siem Riep, with their passports being taken for insurance. Not everyone in the party seemed aware of the arrangement that had been brokered and so there was some discussion before all the passports were collected and passed to me for safe-keeping to everyone's amusement. Running into them again that evening, the girls all dressed in hotpants and skimpy tops made me again question the purpose of their visit to Cambodia, as well as where they'd found the money to be able to tuck into the pizzas they were devouring.
To cap an eventful day I managed to get locked in my hotel room and fortunately someone was in next-door to call reception whose spent 10 minutes trying to get in before smashing the lock in.
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