We booked a sleeper VIP bus from Vientiane to Pakse. We were told it's one with a flat bed, which we didn't even get to experience in South America. When we got on the bus, I was pleasantly surprised to see that our seat was a single bed, which would serve as our bed for the night. We are lucky we're travelling together, as if you're travelling alone, you don't get a single bed to yourself unless you pay for 2 seats. On the seat opposite us, 2 fairly big traveller guys had to try and sleep on the one bed together, which was pretty funny!

Once settled, we watched some Game of Thrones episodes to pass the time. As it was a night bus, we didn't need to keep busy for long. Then we tried sleeping in a really confined space. It was bad enough with us two on it, so I can imagine how difficult it was for two guys, or even strangers having to share a bed when the nation are so reserved. I suppose it was better to have a flat bed at least, rather than trying to sleep on an uncomfortable chair. It was quite noisy throughout the night, the driver kept stopping, so all the lights went on. It was difficult to get a good nights sleep.

We got woken up in the morning when the driver was shouting Pakse. Everyone was still dazed and confused as they had been asleep, so we all hurriedly gathered our stuff to get off the bus. There were tuk tuk driver waiting to overcharge people for a ride into the centre. Still half asleep, knowing our hostel was quite far out of the centre, we had to take one. The driver had a hard time finding it, but we told him we needed to be dropped of at the hostel or we weren't paying him. He had to pull into a bus terminal to ask someone. Eventually he spoke to someone at the hotel who gave him directions. We were on our way and the driver found the place and dropped us off.

When we got into the hostel, we thought we'd have to wait until 2pm to check in. We arrived at 8am, so it would be a long wait if we did. Luckily, there was a free room and the owner let us check in early. He asked what our plans were, and even offered to take us to the bus terminal to book our bus to Siem Reap tomorrow. So John went on the back of their moped to book the bus for tomorrow. I had wanted to see some of the local waterfalls around here, but we were just so tired, and to get there we'd need to hire a tuk tuk as I didn't want to hire a bike. It was pretty expensive, so we decided not to bother.

We hadn't really planned to come to Pakse, it was just a stop gap to break up the long journey to Siem Reap. John's reason for wanting to come was so he wasn't stuck on a bus incase we didn't get there in time to watch the FA cup final. His beloved arsenal are playing tonight, so at least he'd be able to watch it here in Pakse. When John returned, we just went back to bed for a few hours, he got even less sleep on the bus than I did. He couldn't even stretch out his feet straight, but I was ok in that respect.

When we woke up, we got showered and went out to find lunch. We had to get a tuk tuk, as we're far out and it's just too hot to walk. There's not really much to do in Pakse, so we were just wandering around aimlessly trying to find somewhere open to eat lunch. Eventually we found somewhere. After lunch, we went to the mini-market to buy supplies for tomorrow. John also stocked up on alcohol for the footy match tonight. Then we caught another tuk tuk back. Most of the drivers want to charge you more than you have agreed to pay. I'm getting fed up having to take expensive tuk tuks everywhere! We just relaxed, went in the hammocks and I was blogging as usual.