To Pakse, Laos

As we drive across Ubon Ratchathani (UR) to the bus station all the kids are going to school. Its crazy over here, seriously about 85% of the people drive around on scooters. Not only that but somethimes there's like 2 or 3 people on one. Most of the girls sitting on the back just sit side saddle not hanging on to anything. I thought that was crazy dangerous at first now I've come to realize that is just normal. Apparently everyone is just kind of zipping here and zipping there and everyone just kind of watches out. (This is pretty much standard everywhere we've been so far in Thailand and Laos) We board the bus to Laos (pronouced LAO over here, no s on the end) at about 9:30am, its a 3 hour bus ride to Pakse and we have to cross the border and go through customs and immigration. We all jump off the bus once we get to the border, but since we're Americans it takes us a good 30 minutes or more and $35 US to get all the paper work in order. Laos still is a communist country, you know. Thank god the bus is still waiting, the people on the bus probably dread seeing Foreigners on the bus, because they know its going to take awhile. The Thai people can pretty much just cross no problem. On the way in were checking out the scenery, lots of little shack like houses line the road. Pretty similar to any tropical country where people don't have too much money. Make shift dwellings, with the rusted out corrugated metals roofs. People sitting in them either trying to sell a few things or just lounging out of the heat of the day. Animals are roaming around, pigs, chickens, cows, dogs, and goats. The land is covered with fields broken up in little sections with built up ridges around each section. I figure out after not too long they must flood these sections when they need to and grow rice. Some people are doing just that as we drive a little further. We cross a huge bridge over the Mekong River and we see Pakse. I can already tell Pakse has a little more life to it. I guess the French were here at one time. It has a definite resort town feel to it, but without the big resorts and the tourists. It pretty much has all the things you want or need as a tourist, good food, cheap beer, nearby internet cafe (1/2 block away), motor scooter rental, etc. Yet I have only seen about 20 "white" people since I've been here. That's probably a good sign... hahaha. Plus Lao has no chain fast food restuarants or chain stores that are found in Thailand and most of the rest of capitalist world. That just adds to the charm. We jump off the bus into a waiting Tuk Tuk and the we get a good recommendation from some fellow Thai travelers and find a nice guest house for about $18 US/ night. This is probably the cleanest, newest and best room we've had so far. These rooms aren't much more than two twin beds, an ac unit, maybe a tv, maybe a mini fridge, and a bathroom. This one has all the above and the ac unit is new, sweet! Funny thing about the bathrooms over here so far, you have a toilet, sink, and shower in the room, but there is no separate section for the shower. You just pretty much shower right in the middle of the room with the toilet and sink right next to you. There's a drain in the middle of the floor.
My first priority right now is to get some money, since I haven't been able to pull any out of the last two ATMs. They tells us we can use our credit cards to get money off them at the local bank. We figure we're going to be in Laos for about 7 to 8 days. We decide to get $500 US and split that between us. Well $1 US equal 8220 Kip (Laotian Money). So if you do the math... yes that's 4,000,000 KIP!!! She hands me a stack of bills about an inch and a half thick. Pretty hilarious. Cramer and I grab some food, after getting a recommendation from a friendly fellow traveler. I get the fried noodle with vegetable and Cramer gets the spicy noodle soup. After a quick recharge in the apartment, we head across the street for some Beer Lao, Laos' national beer. Its pretty tasty and cheap. $1 US for a 22oz bottle. We end up chatting with a guy named Robin from the Netherlands. He tells us he's been traveling for 9 months on his own! Holy crap. He said he spent 6 months in Australia, 2 months in New Zealand, a week in each Borneo, Bali, Indonesia, and a few days in a bunch of cities in Northern Laos. Now he had about a month left to hit up pretty much the same stuff we're going to see: Southern Laos, Cambodia, and the beach/ island towns in Southern Thailand. As fate would have it the Netherlands were playing Brazil in about 15 minutes after we were talking to him. So we head down to another restuarant, a Laotian BBQ place (it looked amazing, but we already ate) and grabbed a table in the back with a great view of the game. So the 2 Americans and the 1 Dutch guy are the only people rooting for the Netherlands in the whole place. In an amazing come from behind fashion and a couple of great goals the Netherlands pull off the huge upset and beat Brazil 2-1. We celebrate with a few more drinks then wish our fellow traveler farewell and hit the sack. It's been a long day, seeing I was up at 3am. Tomorrow we're going to rent motor scooters and hit the Lao countryside.