The view from our guest house in Paksong

Onwards again today - we're heading to Paksong in the Bolavan Plateau.  Its only 50km away so we're hoping it will be an easy journey by local transport.  Its 1300m above sea level and is meant to be 10 degrees cooler than the rest of the country so should be a bit of light relief for a day or so.

We head to the local market to get a pick-up to Paksong.  We negotiate a price (very cheap), get on the pick-up and wait.  Its leaves over an hour later absolutely packed full with adults, children, a chicken, watermelons, mangos, veg of all sorts, raw meat, clothes, a watering can and anything else you can think of ... and that's just inside ... the roof it stacked high too.  We're so packed in we're beginning to overheat again but it finally leaves so we get some air flow.  We stop here, there and everywhere on the way picking people up and dropping things off but eventually it empties a little and becomes more bearable.  The 50km takes about two hours and, again, a truly local travel experience.  Not a pleasant journey but not as horrendous as yesterdays.  

Its definitely cooler here and we wander up and down until we find a really nice guest house with this view just outside our room.  We enjoy sitting out on the terrace in the cool evening air and Fred even has to put a hoodie on!

Earlier in the evening we discovered we had a bit of an ant problem in the bathroom and we're talking ants of 1cm or more in size so quite large.  The way we discovered it was that Andy was sat on the toilet and something bit his dangly ... ouch!!!  We begin by killing a few but they send off a signal somehow and loads began to come in ... we get some spray from outside reception and kill them then block up the hole they're coming in through which seems to work for now.  There's no one here to tell so we'll have to put up with dead ants in the bathroom tonight.  So long as their mates don't find another route in we'll be ok!