That was a classic border-crossing Sonya, so... thanks!

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Of my four border crossings of the trip, this was by far the easiest.

After one of those absurd journeys into Vientiane (sp) where the driver takes me to some random guest house, where I ask the owner "why am I here?" and he responds in fits of laughter "I don't know!", I chose the old guest house, Youth Inn I, for the driver to take me and then pick up for the bus later. I chose this because I wanted to scab a shower from them and I knew where it was on the second (English first) floor - so I strolled in, bold as brass, said sa-bai-dee, plopped down my big bag and went for a shower.

Coming down stairs I saw some people I knew I recognised from the bus from Luang Prabang. I introduced myself and a guy from Shottingham, or Nottingun called John had, coincidentally, used the same company from LP and had come to the same Guest House for the same reason - and had the same time flight from me at Bangkok (5 mins difference, and different airlines so we're having a race - they're due in to Heathrow at the same time), given the number of guest houses, this was quite a coincidence, although no more than meeting Dan Harrington's brother in Cambodia.

But, get this, we got to the border to Thailand and straight through - no scams, no bribes, no waiting for a finger drumming official to get his back-hander, no people offering to take us for half the price to his friend's restaurant. It was textbook, Linn, absolutely textbook.

Then, when we got on the bus the other side of the border, it was huge and luxurious with comfy seats and plenty of leg room, even for a lanky westerner. "Welcome to Thailand", I thought. A few minutes later we stopped, got off, and were treated to some free fried rice with vegetable. I bought a really nice bottle of wheaty beer for 50 baht (1 quid exactly) and sat there, exceedingly contented. Such was my excitement that when I got back on the bus, sleep was out of the question despite the fatigue. The only blight on this trip was my bag getting soaked from an apparent flood on the floor - someone must've spilled their water. But the principles of acceptance reign, so I tied the bag to the curtains and drifted off into a bizarre dreamed half sleep. I think when my body wants a full sleep, it will, so I'll wait till then (tiredness plus jetlag will no doubt catch up with me back in blighty!)

So we're now in Bangkok, just went for some really nice coffee at a cool place on Tannon Rhambuttri, and the plan is to stay up until 5am and get the bus to the airport... let's see how that goes! I have a load of Baht left and only a day to spend it...

So now I'm spending the day with John from Guntown and Graham, a Canadian-English-Scottsman.

Check-in to the plane, get a good seat, get to the airport and all things being well, I should have a text-book journey back home (touch plastic in the absence of wood).

P.S. Just realised that I'm not ready to go home yet! Nooooooooo!!!!

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