Tale of the lazy travellers

• Radiojohn's Profile
• About this blog
• Entry from Bangkok

Trip Start Jun 15, 2008 Previous
Entry Trip End Jun 15, 2009 Next
Entry

  Bangkok, Thailand
Friday, July 4, 2008

We arrived in Vientiane with the task of having to find a guest house for ourselves. We promised we would never arrive in a location without prebooking accomodation after Vang Vieng. But unfortunately, despite booking a place the previous day on the net, we WERE arriving in a new location without having our accomodation sorted because we received an e-mail from the hotel just before we set off, by bus, that morning explaining that the guest house was full. When we got to Vientiane the firdt few places we tried were full. "was there something on in town?" I asked the receptionist, but it seemed there was nothing on, Vientiane was just extraordinarily busy. We eventually found a hotel which had one family room left but they were willing to just charge us the standard rate. 200,000 Kip or about 17 euro. That will do nicely.

Throughout this trip our "Lonely Planet: Asia on a shoestring" guide book has been our number one companion. It gives you a pretty good idea of where to eat, stay and drink, although somethimes it gets it wrong e.g. Riverside(Tarantula inhabited) Bungalows. Fortunately for us we had found a hotel to stay in , in the livlier part of Vientiane reccommended by Lonely Planet. The guide book recommended a local establishment, Khop Chai Deu, which has a good bar and restaurant and was very popular with backpackers and tourists. It did not dissapoint as we enjoyed a delicious meal in the upstairs restaurant before making our way down stairs to the bar. It was pretty crowded but we spotted some seats at the bar.

Caroline in Vientiane

"Caroline asked the chap in the next seat if there was anyone siotting on these two free seats. He said no and we sat down and ordered some drinks. As we were ordering the drinks I noticed the guy beside us had turned around in his seat and had positioned himself for a chat. "Oh no" I thought "What have we let ourseleves in for here?"

You may think I was overreacting as I had'nt even had a chance to talk to the guy, BUT, sometimes you can just tell if someone is a weird, freak of nature (Strong words, I know) with no concept of personal space or compelling conversation. His name turned out to be David and he had been living in Vientiane for the past 8 years(Of course he moved to Vientiane before all the backpackers came and ruined it). He was Canadian and had come out of retirement as a n advertising executive to work as an agricultural scientist. ALL of my gut instincts about this guy turned out to be untrue. I could tell he was making Caroline extremely uncomfortable as he invaded her personal space all the while making these weird facial jestures and twitches. When I questioned him on these weird jestures, he said that his years as an advertising executive had resulted in him having these "Ticks". All the while I'm thinking "How the Fu*k did we end up beside this person and how the Fu*k do we get away from him QUICKLY?". The night was young so we didnt want to head home and this place was just getting lively so we didnt want to leave it. We could hardly say"Excuse me I think we are going to sit over here" i.e "Excuse me, you're a weirdo so we are going to sit over here" There was only one option, sacrifice this establishment or sacrifice our sanity trying to maintain polite conversation with this person.

Tuk Tuks in Vientiane

I look at Caroline, She looks at me, "Didnt you want to ring home from the internet cafe down the road" I say. "YES" says a relieved Caroline. "David it was lovely (Painful) meeting you but we have to go" So that was that. Dejected we had to leave Khop Chai Deu but fortunately we found a chilled out establishment down the road, The full moon Cafe, and immediately set out about erasing any memories of David from our conscious with lashings and lashings of wine.

Co-incidentally it mentions in the guide book that you are more likely to get hassled by older western "Guru" type travellers, than by locals. Too true lonely Planet, too true.

The next day was our only full day in Vientiane and we didnt really get to do much except plan our move to our next destination. We wanted to get to Koh Samui , an island in south Thailand. We could fly to Bangkok and then onto Koh Samui or we could get a train to Bangkok and a train from there, But that meant 48 hours travelling. We decided to get the Over night train to Bangkok and then fly from there, which would have us travelling for 24 hours solid. The only seats left for the train the next day were first class sleepers. Ok, we thought, lets treat ourselves. The next day, we got to the train station in Nong Khai, in north Thailand, in the back of a pick up. We got absolutely covered in dust in the back of this thing and it did not put us in good form for the 12 hour train journey ahead of us. Our first class cabin turned out to be pretty swish with outr own wash hand basin and air conditioning. Fortunatley for us as well we had stocked up on a few drinks for the journey to help pass the time. We were due to arrive in Bangkok at 6.30. The journey was fun and the drinks DID help pass the time. The next morning we are woken by the train attendant shouting "Next stop Bangkok". Mind you neither of us got much sleep. Unfortunately for me the train journey and the alcohol had a negative effect on my well being. I know i said this before but I REALLY meant it that morning - I AM NEVER DRINKING AGAIN. We got a taxi to the airport (After some confusion as to which one we should be flying from, there are two in Bangkok) and I proceded to evict that evil alcohol from my body in the mens toliet. NOT PRETTY

Slideshow Print this entry Share Bangkok hotels

Previous Entry Next Entry