Back to Pakse

The bliss had to end at some stage. I found an English couple (which evidently we have been following each other around Asia) to head north with. This morning we piled ourselves back on to the sliver of a boat and headed back over the waters of the Mekong, to get a bus back to Pakse. Arriving at the dock (hahhahahaha) involved a limb twisting, yoga styled disembarkment, that I am sure confused the hell out of and entertained the locals. We fished our bags gingerly from the bow (hahaha) of the boat and set off down a long muddy and puddled dirt road to a local bus. Handing over our bags to be stowed on the roof we were all sandwiched in to the back of a jumbo, locals, Farang (foreigners) animals, stinky fish guts and all. At one point I was sitting with my feet on a bag of sugar and my knees near my ears. This was far from the worst thing though. I was sitting next to, well sandwiched next to, a very sweaty French man with out a T-shirt. I was about to ask him to don his top, because sharing sweat with him was something that was likely to make me vomit, I was moved up further (even though there wasn't really anywhere to move to) and a local fella, top on, w slid in beside me. All in all there was about 20 of us, plus non breathing items, piled in for the 3 hour trip back to Pakse. Plus we picked up a few on the way. I took this as good training for China and India. As no doubt I'll catch a chicken bus or goat boat in these places a few times yet.
We arrived at the dismal excuse for a bus station and hoped on a Tuk Tuk to the centre of town where we bought our ticket for tonight's bus to Vientiane. Yes another night bus! (filthy, filthy word!)
Here I have sat, for hours, filling in my blogger waiting till that wretched bus comes along!
Only another 3 and a half hour to go!!