Day 26 night - Marching to the south

Day 26 evening - 4 of us arrived Pakse and returned the bikes around 7pm. Me and Ben did pretty well in these 4 days, as opposed to a 6 days trip. In order to utilize our days in Lao (only 5 more days left), we decided to head further south tonight. To our final destination of Lao, Si Pha Don, we had to stop by Champasak for a night. We were struggling if we could make it tonight as the journey would first take 1-2 hours to the pier and the boat crossing the Mekong to Champasak stops at 9pm.

We finally managed to find a friendly jumbo driver who was willing to drive us there. It was almost a 2 hour drive in the dark. We drove pass the beer Lao factory, after a while it was complete black. No lights, no cars, no stars. Not soon later, it started raining. So heavily. The driver passed us a plastic sleeve to make our own shelter against the rain. Me and Ari have been holding up our hands for almost 45 mins. Feeling numbed. I could feel how clumsy I was. Getting wet, freezing cold wind blowing through the leaks to my underarm...

Luckily it stopped raining. Arrived the pier, no more big boats. Yet, we managed to find a small boat crossing the Mekong. it was actually a floating board with an engine technically. The Mekong is wide, but very calm. Safely, chillingly we made it to Champasak!

We jus realized the boat dropped us at a different pier, where was 2km away from town. It was dark. no hope to hire a tuk tuk. Guess walking with the bags was the only option... My bag was over 20kgs :( I just kept my mouth shut, walking, trying to catch up with the speed. Everyone seemed walking comfortably but my little legs were silently complaining.

Luckily luckily we bumped into a gathering restuarant with full of locals watching "king of Kung Fu". One of the locals who owner of a guesthouse, who offered us a ride. I was so over the moon happy.

here we were. Finally settled down. It was almost 1030pm. I had my fried rice, not too good, but hey, we were in Sekong this morning and now we made it to Champasak. A huge progress we made. Nothing seems impossible in this journey. We were all enjoying the not very good fried rice celebrating our successful day :)