Kara and I are lame. We took a bus to Savannakhet, Laos in hopes of gradually making our way to the Vietnamese border over the next two days. The buses in Laos are... um... interesting, and we thought that cutting up at 12 hour journey into two six-hour journeys could be a better way of going about things.
The trouble is that the bus system here is minimal. Upon arrival, we went to our lovely guesthouse (literally a bedroom in this nice family's home... at the equivalent of $2.50 a night) and enjoyed the small town of where we're staying by walking along the Mekong river and having a beer on a patio.
The next day - yesterday - we went to inquire about leaving on a bus to head towards Vietnam. It turns out that those buses only leave every even-numbered day of the month at 8 am. This means we has missed the bus that morning. So, instead of leaving as planned, we are leaving tomorrow - a whole two days longer than we planned on staying in town.
This means we've gotten to know this place pretty well. The people are absurdly friendly... they yell hellos and how are yous from their front stoops whenever we walk by. For all their niceness, though, we're ready to motor. There's not much by way of dining (we've frequented the same two restaurants on numerous occasions) and we're covered the entire place on foot several times over.
Although we are both big fans of Laos - and especially of the people who live here - we're ready to move on to the Vietnamese portion of our trip. There's only so much small-town Laos fun to be had.
Our first stop in Vietnam: the beach.
; "Catching fish")
The Beach! And you can join some wacky commune.
I remember bus issues like that while traveling. Sounds like you're having a great time though.
About the clean sheets, an idea from a traveller I met in Bali: buy a length of fabric (silk!) and sew it (or have it sewn) into a (silk!) sleeping bag. If it's a thin light (silk!) fabric, it'll fold up to almost nothing, be super light (silk!) , but always been clean and soft. That way you always have a set of clean soft (silk!) sheets with you.
Lol Kari :D