If you look at the map, you may wonder why we went to Vientian (Capital of Laos) via Bangkok. The reason is that there aren't any roads through to the north of Siem Rep, and up through Laos, only dirt tracks and jungle, so its much quicker to travel through Thailand.
The border crossing into Thailand was painfully slow, and we had to stand in the heat for hours waiting. A vietnamese lady with no sense of personal space kept trying to push in front of us, using her straw hat as both weapon and shield. I wasn't having any of it, and she didn't succeed. The swedish people in front of us thought our battle very amusing. A Thai border guard, recognising the crowds annoyance at having to wait grabbed the mike and started interviewing random tourists, asking where they were going. Rather than asking for official reasons, he wanted to give out advice about the best beaches. At one point he broke into song, singing what sounded like Thai folk songs. Although it didn't sound so good it cheered everybody up because it was so funny.
We stayed one night in Bangkok, and part of the following day. As we were walking around, we noticed that everyone was wearing yellow t-shirts. Then somebody told us that it was the Kings birthday and this was the start of a week long celebration. Bangkok is famous for its terrible traffic, but luckily we found an easier way to get around in the heat.. by river taxi. It was much quicker than the bus and had natural air-con. The real reason we were here, was to get the train to Laos. We have met several travellers on our way who have cited Laos as their favourite country in South-East Asia. We knew very little about it before, but were intrigued to find out more. With only 2 weeks left of our trip, we headed straight there.
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