We got up late and managed to be at the bus station only at 9.30am....this was not a good idea as the last morning bus to Ubon Ratchathani, the town we had to go on our way to Khong Chiam, was at 9am. Not willing to wait for the 1pm bus we caught the first bus to Si Saket, a town from where we would be able to catch a bus to Ubon Ratchathani. Well we managed to get to Ubon Ratchathani but it took us a long time, 2h45 to get to Si Saket (Bh50) and another 1h30 to get to Ubon Ratchathani (Bh40). All in local buses, comfortable seats, funny decorations but no air-con, only fans....well a good experience but a bit too long! Finding out which buses to catch was very easy as there was always a guy who could speak English coming towards us, the "farangs" (=foreigners), to direct us to the right bus ....as there is very few tourists coming to those towns we really felt that we were the attraction of the day! Ubon Ratchathani was not our final destination, we still had to travel to Khong Chiam. We caught another local bus to Phibun Mangsahan (Bh35, 1h45 trip with a 30min stop at a bus station on the way). In the bus we met two very nice Thai girls, a student very keen to practice her English and a French & English teacher very happy to speak French with Laurence. In Phibun we wanted to catch a songthaew to Khong Chiam but we arrived too late, the last songthaew had left 10min earlier at 4.30pm. The tuk-tuk driver who took us from the bus station to the bridge from where the songthaews usually depart (Bh20 for the ride) offered to take us to Khong Chiam for Bh300...a bit too much for us. A ride by songthaew normally costs Bh40 per person. We really wanted to get to Khong Chiam and not spend a night in Phibun. As we were not ready to pay Bh300 for the tuk-tuk ride we had only one option left, hitchiking. We were very lucky as just a few minutes after we tried to get a ride, very nice Thai tourists going to Khong Chiam stopped and offered to take us in their car. We had a very pleasant 30min ride to Khong Chiam in their comfortable car. That was such a relief to check in at the guesthouse after a 7h30 long journey!
