From the 4000 islands I booked a bus to Ban Lung in the north east of Cambodia. It’s supposed to be one of the few mountain regions of Cambodia and a bit off the beaten trek, means not so many tourists. But first things first: Get out of Laos and get into Cambodia. For some reason everybody had to pay 2$ to get stamped out of Laos. I didn’t have to pay at the border in Vientianne, so I’m pretty sure that money goes right into the pocket of the border officer, but what can you do. Same procedure at the Cambodian border: 1$ for the health inspection (shouldn’t this be free, as it is in their interest), 1$ for the visa application form, 1$ to get stamped in etc (and the money always went into a covered briefcase, so no one could see how much money they make with this…corruption at its best)…
The bus went to the south of Cambodia, so everybody that wanted to go to Ban Lung (about 6 people) had to change the bus at some point. The bus stopped in the middle of nowhere and dropped us of. Once we unloaded our backpacks and went to a small truck stop on the opposite of the street, the guy working for the bus company started with “it has been raining, so very bad road conditions to Ban Lung…the bus might get stuck…are you really sure you want to go to Ban Lung”…basically he tried to convince us not to go to Ban Lung and stay in the bus. I have no idea why (or why he didn’t tell us this in the bus), but it seems to be some kind of scheme, as the tried similar stuff on other people I met, like “there is no atm in Ban Lung (there is), you have to down south first to get money etc.”. Anyway, it worked and everybody expect me and some other girl went back into the bus.
We waited about 2,5h until the bus to Ban Lung drove by and picked us up. It was indeed a dirt road to Ban Lung, but the road conditions were perfectly fine, so what the bus guy told us was just made up stuff…When we arrived in Ban Lung it was already dark (and I hate looking for accommodation when it’s dark), but “luckily” there were like 10 touts waiting for us, when we left the bus, trying to get us to stay in their guesthouse. While this is in some way really annoying, as you just want to get off the bus, get your backpack, try to find out were you are etc, it makes it easy, if you’re to tired or lazy to search for accommodation yourself, which I was at that day. One of the guys offered me a room for 2$ for the first night and 3$ after that. The price convinced me and I hopped on the back of his motorbike to give it a shot and take a look at the room. The room was quiet nice, especially for that price, and who did I run into there: Richard and Angie (they left the 4000 islands 2 days before me). If you’re always staying at the cheapest place, you always meet the same people… 
As it was already pretty late and I was really tired, I just had some food and went to bed.
On the next day I rented a motorbike from my guesthouse and went out to visit two waterfalls and a lake nearby (the main attractions in Ban Lung). There was barely any traffic once I left the main road and I found myself on some good dirt roads winding through a very nice scenery.
The first waterfall was nothing impressive, but still nice to look at…
The second waterfall was a lot bigger and I was able to take a nice shower under it. It felt like one of those massage showers in a spa, as the water dropped from pretty high up…
After the waterfalls I went to the crater lake. It was perfectly round and probably created my a meteor or whatever. The water temperature was a bit too warm for my taste, but still ok. The lake was very popular by locals teens and families. After a while Richard and Angie also showed up and we had a nice walk around the lake together.
In the evening we went to a restaurant, that was recommended by the guide book for a BBQ that was prepared right in front of you on your table. Once we found the place, who do we meet there? Right, Bram and Tina. It’s a small world… The food was really good and not really expensive.
Richard and Angie wanted to do a 2 day trek on the next day, organized by our guesthouse, and I decided to join them. So when we got home, I told the guesthouse owner. Unfortunately it was raining all night long and still hadn’t stopped when I woke up in the morning, so the trek had to be canceled. We spend the day in an internet cafe and did pretty much nothing all day long. The weather forecast for the next few days wasn’t much better, so we decided to skip the trekking and leave on the next day to Siem Reap…
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