Saturday 10 January 2009

Crossing the border from Laos to Cambodia

We'd heard many warnings about the Voen Kham border crossing in Laos, and the advice was to buy a bus ticket all the way from Laos to your chosen destination in Cambodia. We followed this advice, as we didn't want to pay a sky high price for transport on the Cambodian side of the border.

The border crossing itself was actually very easy. The $3 in 'administrative charges' to the border guards got us our exit stamps from Laos and our visas for Cambodia. A young Cambodian guard came to have a chat with us through the bus window. He was very interested in the book Jen was reading, 'Castaway', as the cover picture showed Amanda Donohoe in a see-through lacy bra.

We stopped off at a little town called Kratie, on the bank of the Mekong. We had our first Angkor beer while watching the sunset from a little place on the boulevard. People were very friendly. A gentleman with two gold teeth taught us how to say hello, thank you and goodbye.



In the guest house, Andy caused a flood. The pipe connecting the sink to the wall suddenly shot off as he turned the tap on. High pressure water gushed out, soaking Andy and rapidly flooding the bathroom. As the water level rose, Jen had to get the staff to rescue him. They found the incident very funny.

On the way, we stopped off for some tasty snacks. We didn't eat any of these fried spiders but they were popular amongst locals. Live ones were on display to demonstrate their 'freshness'.

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