Ended up staying 3 more nights at Sabaidy 2 in Pakse (55000kip per night with fan & hot water bathroom). We really liked the town. Real small town feel, people all really friendly and everything. I was recovering from a head cold that I picked up on the plateau (Larn got it too, so it was definitely from up there), so we ended up just hanging round town for two days, sorting out photos and things. We've got all our photos up to now burnt to DVD, so we feel pretty good about that. We've uploaded a few (up to the first day at Angkor), with plenty more to come.

Didn't end up going to Wat Phu Champasak (a pre Angkorian temple ruin just south of Pakse, that is also on UNESCO's world heritage list) . Sabaidy 2's tours had the best price, but noone else was wanting to go and they need at least 4 people to make it worth while. We thought about taking the slow boat down and then bussing back, but the wind had picked up by then, so the boat didn't look like an option. Feels a bit stink having missed it, but hey - have to have something to do next time :)

In Pakse there is a great indian restaurant (Jasmine Restaurant) where we ended up eating every day we were here - go the Rogan Josh, it's fantastic :)

Took out some Kip here too. In Cambodia we didn't bother changing any money. You can take out US$ in the ATMs and everyone takes either dollar or riel, using a standard rate of 4000 riel to the dollar, and giving change in riel (or dollar, or both). In Laos they're a bit more into using their own currency, so we decided to go with that instead. After two trips to the bank, we felt like multi-millionaires, with a whopping 5,000,000 kip in our pockets (around US$500) . If you get out any large amount of cash here, make sure you get it in 50,000 kip notes, otherwise your bundle of cash will be way big! Day after our bank visit we happened to be wandering further down past the bank and we noticed an ATM there, so don't believe everything you read, ATM's have come to Laos, even to the smaller cities.

Anyway, we decided to head a little further up country instead of doing like all the other tourists and take the overnight VIP bus to Vientiane. We took a tuk tuk to the northern bus station for a local bus to Savannakhet. Never did see the northern bus station, since our tuk tuk driver chased down the bus that had just left and got us on it! Super effort that. Bus trip cost 30000kip each and was relatively painless (except for the, now mandatory, flat tire).