Actually doing some travelling...
Trip Start
Jan 16, 2006
1
80
102
Trip End
Ongoing
Vientiane,
Lao Peoples Dem Rep
Thursday, June 28, 2007
It goes a little something like this:
MSN Messenger to Alex Depledge (AD)
AD: I'm over in the Philippines again on Sunday with work for a week
MR: Sweet. You do more travelling than I do
AD: I know. Have you been there?
MR: Nah, never made it
AD: You should come. I'll be staying in a 5* hotel so all you'll have to pay is the flight
MR: People I spoke to recently had a real hard time getting cheap flights there but I'll have a look
20 minutes later... an email to Depledge:
Found cheap flights. Comin on Wednesday. You best be there.
And so I was. I had 5 days to get to Kuala Lumpur, from where my flight to Manilla left. I had a cheap flight, just about a thousand miles away from where I was. Hmmm...
Friday morning, following a sub-standard breakfast and watching the Alms Giving Parade - the monks of Luang Prabang walk in a procession from the top of PhouSi Hill to their respective temples, and people line the streets to give them rice, their only food for the day. Very nice to see, even if it does require waking at 6am - I caught the 8am bus to Vientiane from Luang Prabang.
Arrived Vientiane at around 5.30pm, hoping to catch the VIP bus from there to Bangkok, but ended up following a Dutch family and getting the train from the other side of the Thai border. Just have to get to the border, take a shuttle bus across the border, and get a train from Nong Kwai to Bangkok. Easy. Not so when you haven't eaten all day, haven't changed any money, which becomes almost invalid outside Laos, and when you're in a mad rush and not knowing what in the hell is going on.
But I made it.
Just.
Buy cheap sandwich. Check.
Get through Passport control. Check.
Shit. Still haven't changed my the arsehole Kip I took out of the ATM yesterday (good move Marc!). Ok. Run round all the duty free shops, eventually find one.
Get well and truly ripped off for my money. Check.
Get propositioned by a Thai (I think) girl (I think) at counter. Check.
"She hopes to see me again". "I hope to get the hell out of here very very fast".
And away we go. Across the river and we're in Thailand. Through Thai Passpot Control and tul tuk to train station. 10 minutes before train leaves. I guarantee there's no tickets left.
"Third class seat only sir"
Ok, bear in mind this will be a 14 hour overnight train journey, so a seat is not ideal. Third class is not gonna be ideal. Then bear in mind I'm in Thailand. You think third class is even going to get me to Bangkok, let alone with all my possessions, money, limbs, will to live etc...
"I'll take it!" I survived with a little help from Mr. BeerLao, Mr Gordon's Gin, and a thoroughly depressing book on a Cambodian torture prison survivor leant to me by an American guy sharing my desperate measures to get somewhere.
And I made it. Possessions: Check. Money: Check. Will to live: errrm... check?
Let's do Bangkok. For the 8th time...
