Crook-Tuk's Everywhere

Here I am, finally in the Four Thousand Islands after a hellish journey to get there, one of the roughest of my trip so far. We caught the 7am bus out of Savannakhet yesterday, bound for Pakse to change buses for another journey to Pak Beng, the island we were aiming for. The first bus was one of the shittiest I've been on to date, right up there with that hell bus in India from Sunauli to Varanasi. The seats were basically like the kind you would find in a yellow school bus, except they were designed for Lao-sized legs, not North American. My ass was thanking me at the end of the ride.

In Pakse we discovered the only way to get to Don Det was the way our friends told us not to go: by a tuk-tuk like truck. Oh yeah, and we had to ride for thirty minutes hanging on the rear bumper of the tuk tuk to get to the right bus station. So we get in the truck, which seemed fine at first, a little cramped but not too big of a deal. Then they started loading about thirty people into it, cramming us in like sardines. Again, North American sized legs started working against us. Isaac's were basically against his chest. So we say fuck it and climb out, and when I say climb out, we actually climbed out of the side panels. Then an argument with the truck staff ensued when we wanted our bags and they didn't want to get them down. After chasing the truck and a lot more yelling, they cleared a space in the cab and we were able to semi-comfortably sit in it. By this point we were hungry, tired and sweaty and were ready to lose it on someone.

The problems still didn't stop there. When we got to the 'destination' we found out we had to catch another boat to the island, which they wanted an atrocious amount of money for. We bargained, they claimed it was sixteen kilometers, and we settled on a price. The trip was maybe a kilometer, and the guy didn't even take us to where we wanted to go. At this point our opinion of Southern Laos has been soured. Nobody seems helpful, you have to pry information from them, and if they don't understand you, they're likely to turn their backs on you, which brings out the 'punch you in the face' feeling from within me. So far we've met a few more nice locals here in Don Det, and I'm hoping I'll meet more so I can leave this area feeling like it was worth it. As far as Don Det goes, it seems like a really relaxed place, things move pretty slowly here, partially because it's extremely hot during the day. Thankfully the Mekong river is at the doorstep.