Pakse

After a 10hr. bus ride I arrived at 6 a.m. with my friend Elina to Pakse. She and I negotiated a tuk tuk to one of the few guesthouses in this small boring little town: Sabaidee 2(not #1, haha!), and set ourselves up in the dorm room for the night. The guesthouse was filled with very interesting and upbeat people. Elina and I rented a manual motorbike which I drove and printed a map to the jungle temple with the intention of having a lovely ride through the mountains, seeing some waterfalls on the way, having a picnic, and exploring this Angkor Wat-like temple as a day trip. We ended up getting a little lost. After I turned around and we rode in the right direction, following the advice of a local we met on a tractor, the weather took a gloomy turn for the worst and began beating down on us with persistence. Luckily I was able to see a shelter off the side of the road through the wall of rain, and we pulled off to sit out the storm. We saw a guy from our guesthouse ride past, so we waved at him, and he pulled off the slippery rain-blinding road(almost getting hit by a truck), and sat out the storm with us for the next couple hrs. Our shelter was leaky and we were getting cold, so I did a little patch work with my duct tape on the shelter so we could try to keep as dry as possible, and we patiently waited, appreciating the gorgeous views around us. Despite the circumstances we were all good humored. Once the rain stopped we took off again. Not long after we were on the road the rain started again... I was so cold, and the rain was hitting my body like pins in my flesh, so we pulled off to every shack we saw asking the locals if they served food. None of them did, nor did they speak English. My chills turned into shivers, and we were offered fire-water to warm our bellies(rice wine). It was almost dark and getting colder. We weren't very welcomed in this small town, and had no choice but to venture fw to Pakse. I found a pancho, which did little since I was soaked to the bone, but I drove the last 35 km and eventually got us back safely. That night after a hot shower and dinner we sat around drinking beers and singing songs on the guitar with all of the Sabaidee guests until early morning. It was a lovely night. At 3 p.m. the next day the bus came to pick us up to take us to the 4,000 islands. Yay! We were on our way.