See, we made it to the C in TLC

Cambodia. More specifically, the town of Siem Reap.

Immediately after signing out of this 'ere blog last night in Savannakhet, Paul and I deliberated our choice of options. Option #1: stay in Savannakhet for the night, take a bus to Pakse, then try to figure out how to get from Pakse, Laos to Siem Reap, Cambodia, a pretty good distance apart, including an overland border crossing. Or, option #2: leave immediately on a 9:30pm bus from Savannakhet to Pakse, Laos, go to the Pakse airport, and see if we'd be lucky enough to buy plane tickets for a 10:30am flight from Pakse to Siem Reap, Cambodia, the next flight not being until Thursday.

We chose option #2. Although we were still pretty wiped out from being dropped-off at the side of the road outside of Savannakhet at 2:30 in the morning less than 24 hours earlier, we decided that the benefit to gaining a lot of time -- with much less hassle -- by flying to Cambodia outweighed the cost of pushing ourselves back on the road so soon.

The bus ride from Savannakhet to Pakse was about five hours long: 9:30pm to 2:30am. It was more comfortable than the hellish bus ride the previous day from Vientiane to Savannakhet. But, for me at least, there was one pretty good highlight. So I'm sitting toward the back of the bus, on an aisle seat near the stairwell that led down to the lower deck (it was a double-decker bus). Sitting next to me on my left was the stereotypical small, gray-haired, old Asian guy. Over the course of the trip he took off his sandals and his legs were short and frail enough to pull them up towards his chest and rest his feet on the edge of the seat. Anyway, about three hours into the trip, the old guy slides open the window next to him, grabs a plastic bag from the ledge in front of us, and tosses the contents of the bag out the window. I kinda chuckled at that. Oh, by the way, the bus was completely dark, as there were no street lights on Route 13, there were no other vehicles on the road besides our bus, and all the lights on the inside of the bus were turned off so people could sleep -- the only light was from the headlights of the bus and the moon high overhead. So that's the set-up when this old guy is holding the now-empty plastic bag in his hand; he then inches up to sit on the very edge of his seat, and angles his body slightly toward the wall. He sat in that position for a solid 30 seconds or more, then cautiously took the plastic bag filled with his warm piss, held it out the window, and let it fly. He sat back with a look of contentment, and I just laughed to myself.

For the second night in a row, Paul and I were dropped-off on the side of the road in the middle of the night. We were on Route 13 -- the major north-south artery in Laos -- just outside of Pakse. A Laotian guy who I had been joking with showed me his watch, and it read 15 minutes to 3am. Paul and I sat there as there was an intermittent light drizzle, until finally, about half an hour later, I was able to wave down a motorcycle with a sidecar, the driver willing to take us to the Pakse airport. But he was already taking another fellow who had to sit behind him, while Paul and I squeezed into the narrow sidecarriage, and our bulky backpacks had to be strapped to the back. We were dropped-off outside the airport, which was closed, at about 4am. We had no choice but to rest/sleep under an awning of a wooden shack on the side of the road across from the airport. I barely slept because the mosquitos began to harass me a bit. I watched the sun rise over the Laotian countryside.

We were successful at buying tickets for the 10:30am flight from Pakse to Siem Reap: US$106 each. So that now brings us to our arrival here in Cambodia. We're now staying at the River Star Hotel, right in the center of town for $15 total per night, with air-conditioning and cable television. We're within easy walking distance of tons of bars and restaurants. And I got the business card from the young guy who drove us from the airport to downtown, in case we decide to take him up on his offer for a discounted rate to drive out to the temples of Angkor Wat.

Anyway, Paul just came up to me here in the lobby of the hotel. We're gonna head out now to get a bite to eat and get things rolling for the evening. By the way, please click HERE to visit Paul's blog; his goal is to get 1000 hits before the end of the trip, so he'd appreciate your help in his cause.

Alright folks. Peace in the Middle East. Health in the Illadelph. I'm audi!!!