Next stop, Paradise

After some more ridiculous mini-bus shenanigans we managed to cross the Laos border with relative ease. Our first destination was the gloriously named Four Thousand Islands on the southern tip of Laos. Don Det is the biggest and we set sail in a leaking boat as the sun set over the water. Unable to do it any other way we spent the first night in a dive and the next day went exploring for somewhere more peaceful. The north of the island is the hub of restaurants and bars but further south, a squeaking bicycle ride away, the slow pace of island life is even slower. We found River Garden down where life was being beaten by a fat lazy snail and we settled ourselves here to become sloth-like. We whiled away the next 3 days swinging on hammocks, eating and reading like we somehow deserved it. Every once in a while we’d feel we ought to embark on some activity or other. We explored and sweated, felt like we’d over exerted ourselves and returned to our lying down positions under a fan. We eventually managed to stand up and leave the island, but not without a small hitch first naturally.
After a night of high jinks we’d had to pay a bar bill that was larger than we’d been expecting – not that we’d asked the prices. The next day and our last night on an island with no cash machines found us thankfully only a $1 short of our hotel bill. Preparing ourselves to starve until civilisation was found the manager took pity on our sorry souls and gave us breakfast anyway. We have obviously have good sad faces.
As our time was diminishing fast we took a bus to the only thing we’d planned to do since we started – The Loop.
We stopped for one day to break-up the journey, which we spent drinking beer by the river and getting lost, and then got a friendly tuk-tuk to the bus station for the next leg. We arrived just as the bus was pulling away, surprising considering we were about an hour early. It shuddered to a stop on the hard shoulder and we were thrown on along with our bags. We were relieved when another foreign couple stumbled aboard, at least they were hoping for the same destination as us.
The cowboys got us to Tha Kheak safely if slowly, punctured with frequent stops where food sellers stormed onto the bus. Each time various food on a stick was waved in our face; fried chicken stretched between two sticks, doughnuts on a stick, eggs on a stick. If it’s not on a stick it’s not food. We spotted a ridiculous woman with eggs in a bag, she obviously wasn’t aware of the mood of the market – put them on a stick that’s what the people want.