The End of Laos!

I didnt realise it had been so long!

Well from Paskan to the border crossing with Laos and Cambodia, it was all fairly unadventurous...normal roads and nothing out of the ordinary...except my bike actually behaved itself so that was a turn up for the books! We didnt have to stop to fill the radiator once in about 3 days! But then obviously the inevitable happened and my radiator sprung another leak! This meant the last 30km into town was interspersed with roadside stops to fill it up with water and having to knock on peoples doors to get them to open their restaurant to sell me some water!

anyway, we made it and spent two days in Savannahket while I took my radiator to a fridge mechanic (as they dont use water cooled systems for bikes here!) and got him to patch up the holes. However, they arent exactly delicate when fixing problems so with every hole he filled, he created two more!! After a day of welding and cutting sections out of my radiator (so it now only runs at 70% efficiency) I decided to tak it away from him and fix it myself! Now everyone who knows my mechanical skills will know that they guys would have to be pretty bad for me to think I can do a better job! Anyway,I did fix it and it lasted another 10 days!

The plus side of all this was meeting the guy who lived next to the mechanics who insisted on taking me for a guided tour of the city in his pick up. The highlights to him were the bridge that the Japanese built for the Laos people and the bridge that the Russians built for the Laos people! As you can imagine...this was a really interesting city!!! we also visited a temple under construction just to top off one of the most exciting days of the trip so far! (This is when I am hoping I didnt give this guy my blog site address!). I did however get chatting to a monk who was tiling part of the temple so managed to get to lay a tile in Savannahkets largest temple! WOW I hear you all scream!

The next two days were spent heading for the border as my visa was due to expire in 3 days! When we eventually got there, it was about as professional as you would imagine from a Laos-Cambodia border...three tin sheds down different roads for visas, customs and the actual border crossing! And as you would also imagine crossing the border varies in price according to your negotiating skills. We got away with a fairly standard $23 per person and $20 for the bikes! I think the bikes were a bit pricey but we did here stories of people actually fighting with the custom officials while negotiating prices! We decided to take the peaceful approach!

Anyway, we were in Cambodia and were waiting to see if all the rumors of having to be careful were true! The apprehension was unbearable!