Vientiane and Vientiane to Bangkok

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Got on the night bus from Luang Prabang at 18.30, at first the bus was practically empty and everyone had two seats, but in the last few minutes the bus filled up very quickly. I got the very back seat, behind lots of luggage and chairs, so no one came bothering me 😊 But after lots of people got on from the roadside after the first few kilometers, I think I was the only one left with two seats. Lucky me!
My luck couldn't last forever though, I had to have some bad luck happen to me - lost my cloisonne hair clip from Beijing (no catastrophe, can get a new one next time), lost my new villager-made seed belt (the one I'm wearing in the Luang Prabang photo on some stairs between two golden dragon-snakes) and also lost my money belt. Luckily with only 300 kuai in it, but it still sucked. Oh well, at least I got to sleep somewhat better than everyone else!

The ride was a bit bumpy, but not as bad as the LNT-LP trip. The driver drove like his life depended on it, though - so we ended up in Vientiane at 4 in the morning.. Hmm..
Caught a tuk tuk into town with some people from the bus, and there we were. Too late to get a guesthouse, too early to see anything, lots of hours to kill and in desperate need of a toilet. Had a look at some people's guidebooks and then went off on my own looking for a toilet. I wasn't having much luck, and as I was walking alone down a dark street facing a drunk-looking lone man I decided to turn around and go back to a more well-lit street. I immediately bumped in to one of the people I'd met on the tuk tuk, a half Chinese/half British guy who was also in Vientiane in transit, as he'd been there before.
We woke up a woman at a guesthouse, the guesthouse was full but we could use the toilet. Grrreat!

I was quite lucky to run into a person who'd been there before, so finding things was easy. We set out in search of the morning market, for lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves, as I thought that the MORNING market might be open in the MORNING at 5. It wasn't. It wasn't open at 6 either. We spent an hour in the company of mosquitoes waiting for the market to open, but as we were having no luck, we went further up the street, had a look at a temple, the local arc de Triomphe, and then we espied the famous stupa from all the Laos postcards in the distance. It looked like it was about 2 k's, and I still had my bag on my back, but decided to walk the distance anyways. Not like I had anything better to do!
The stupa was very nice and golden, lots of pretty temples around it. And the sun was just coming up as we were there, so the sky was a very pretty colour.
And there, all the major sights in Vientiane, all seen on foot and before 8 in the morning :-)

We then walked back towards the Mekong, in search of breakfast. At this point I was trying to spend all the rest of my Lao Kip, but I also had to be careful to have enough money for all the meals I needed to eat.
I had my ticket to Bangkok on the sleeper train for that evening, I paid 900 Baht in Luang Prabang for transfer from Vientiane, train from Thanaleng to Nong Khai and second class fan sleeper from Nong Khai to Bangkok. The ticket itself was only 500 baht for the big train trip and 70 for the smaller one, but I guess paying 300 extra baht was better for a bit of peace of mind, as I'd heard the train is sometimes full.
OK, back past the arc de Triomphe, the morning market, which didn't open till 8 (and didn't have any lemongrass or kaffir lime leaves. I even showed them a picture, but they kept pointing me in different directions. They only had T-shirts and dried weird stuff. Hmph) and then finally the Mekong. Spotted a cafe with lots of patrons and nice looking baguettes, got a baguette with cheese and some hot water for my tea, then had a walk along the riverfront. It wasn't very nice. They're doing lots of construction, so it was all oil barrels and cranes and stuff.
I then said goodbye to my new friend who went to sleep on the grass, decided to meet him again at 14 to have a last beer Lao together (as it's impolite to drink alone). I then went off to a coffee bar, had a creamy minty tea-drink and went on the Internet for an hour. I was lucky enough to catch Josh on gmail chat at the end of my hour, yippee!
Had another walk around the area, and I must say, Vientiane also has a lot of pretty temples.

Had nice vegetable noodles at 13.30, a beer Lao at 14.00 and left town in a tuk tuk from Leego travel agency at the Mekong at 15.00. We arrived at Thanaleng railway station some time before 16.00, and I quickly got in line to get my passport stamped. The tuk tuk driver found us all in the line and gave us our two train tickets. The leaving Lao-stamp was easily obtained, then had to go to another window to get my tickets and stamps checked, and get my arrival and departure cards for Thailand.

The train left at 17.00 sharp and arrived at Nong Khai Thailand at 17.15. I didn't even see a border. Everyone then got into two lines to go through Thai immigration right there on the platform. I got a 14 days visa on arrival, and the immigration official then stapled the departure card into my passport. I thought this was a bit weird, as in China and most other departure card countries I've been to, you can just fill out another one when you leave if you've lost your departure card (I don't think I've actually ever kept one before).
But it was then explained to me that if you don't have your exact departure card with the right number, you don't get to leave the country. Or you might be in trouble before they depart you, either or ;-)
Had a nice Thai noodle soup across from the railway station in Nong Khai, and enjoyed my first beer Chang. I think the noodles were 30 baht and the beer 50. I thought that was very expensive, until I got my conversions right :-)

The train for Bangkok left at 18.20. We were first seated on black, very seat-looking, seats. Then a train official started walking around, and in about 5 minutes he'd transformed the bottom seats to a bed, flipped down the upper bunk and made two beds. The speed was mind-boggling. My lower bunk was very comfortable, I settled in, it was nice and dark and I quickly fell asleep.

The train was supposed to arrive at 06.25, but it was closer to 8 when we finally stepped off the train. The last hour or so it was light outside, and although it wasn't mountainous or scenic or anything, it was still very interesting. Firstly, the flags had changed. Still the same colours, but different design. Yellow royal flags started appearing next to the Thai flag, and the closer we got to Bangkok, the more huge photos of our beloved King Rama IX started appearing.
There was even a huge one at Hualomphong (or something like that) train station when we were allowed to disembark.

Found 3 people to share a cab with, had heard the cheap accommodation and backpacker's area was near Koh San road, so that's where we headed. I also heard that the Koh San area is far from the "real Bangkok", that only tourists go there, and it's close to the major attractions like the king's palace. Since I was leaving the next day I thought that a place at the tourist area would be just the thing.
About 3-4 taxi drivers didn't want to use their meters, they suggested obscure prices like 200-300 baht. I'd heard it was supposed to be 50 baht on a good day, so I kept insisting we'd find a taxi driver who'd use the meter. We finally did, and it ended up being 75 baht to Koh San.
More on Bangkok later!

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Photos

Arc de Triomphe in daylight
I heard that they got some money from a foreign government to build an army of some sort, but spent the money on this instead.. Don't know if it's true but it's a good story :-)