Blue crater lake in Ban Lung
But first we have to come in the county and tyr not to be ripped off by officials trying to get another dollar from tourists by making up ridicilous fees for stamp or fewer check. Exit out of Cambodia went almost smoothly. After refusing to pay 2 dollars for the stamp they made us wait for 15 minutes in which all other passengers on the bus paying without a question were processed. A truck comming from Laos casually dropped 2 boxes of beer to the policemens which gave him fast (but not completely free) entry to Cambodia. We were quite shocked how open they are playing their game.
On the Laos side it did not get that easy. On first part they wanted us to pay additional 1$ for service fee and when we said we do not have a change everything was fine. But later we got stuck - the ink must be very expensive since the stamp would cost us 2$ each. I told the guy I do not have any more money looking at him as he was staring in the book behind the window. We went to sit and wait so all other people got their passport. Together with 2 chinese guys who did not speak english and werequite confused about what is happening. It went something like this: chinese guy pointing on profession box on visa application and saying:
"what this?"
I was trying to explain him:"you work?"
And after that several arm and whole body movement. He did not seem to understand. If i put work or profession in his translator on mobile phone he just started to laugh, so I assumed it was meaningless. I gave up and just wrote retired as he looked quite old. :)
Time was flying by and every 5 minutes a minivan driver whodid not speak englis came to us pointing at minivan where all other passanger ps were waiting and telling us: "Stamp, 2 dollars!" When he saw we are not gwiving up he called his english speaking friend on phone and gave it to me saying thry will leave without us if we donot pay and he do not care what happens with us if we stay there. I politely replied to him:"Is this official that we have to pay?"
"No, not official but everyone pay that is how it is in this country. Even Cambodians they pay!"
"Ok sorry but if it is not official we do not pay as we do not know where the money goes to," I told him back.
Another 10 minutes and we were trough, this time the bus driver came very angry to us again shouting:"Stamp, 2 dollars", at the same time giving some money to the police guy who than finaly threw the passports to us. We ran to the bus with a driver looking at us very angry, but I was sure he must get a part of the money from this everyday scam.
Few kilometers north at Don Det, the most turisty of the 4000 islands time flew by wery slowly. Our morning was quite long. We rented a bike, which was too small even for Špela, but all the island had the same type so we couldn't really do something. A breakfast was our standard baguette with some kind of eggs and fresh fruit shake! But this time it included a lot of waiting as the waitress/cook/owner just had what seemed a very interesting debatewith one of the local guests. We were done in an hour, but as we were sitting on the terrace by Mekong looking at a fraction of the 4000 islands in the area that were bathing in the sun we did not really care.
By the Mekong on 4000 islands, where time stops.
Later we went around the island where we discovered small wat, planty of sand dunes and rice fields thet were just beeing harvested! What a lovely place this is. Appart from tourism that gives some mony to the locals majority of the islanders still live more or less self sufficiend all growing their rice, vegetables, chicken and cows or buffalos. The buffalos are slowly beeing replaced with small tractors as a working force but the place still has its charm!
Too litle bike even for Špela.
Village life
Evening on Mekong.
Where we stayed: there is plenty of cheap and also a bit more pricey appartments in all inhabited islands there so there is not really any need to book anything in advance. The same is with restaurants: they all serve similar dishes for similar price.
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