I slept so well on the train I have to say I think that it may actually be more comfortable then the bed I've been sleeping on these past four months in Nonthaburi. I did have two wake-ups but they had nothing to do with mattress comfort. The first was because I was sleeping with the window open and it started to rain on me and the second was I went to sleep listening to my music and must have rolled in a way that hit the volume control because all the sudden it was yelling at me.
The train attendant was kind of strange and every time he walked by me he would start to sing to me. Over all I have to say I love riding on the train. I took the sleeper train second class with a fan and the lower bunk and everything was comfortable and quick and I had a lovely sleep. I mean there were a few bugs and one beetle landed on me but it didn't really bother me, just surprised me. I hadn't been on a train since I was a baby and now I want to take the train everywhere.
On the train I met a woman from France named Caroline and she and I went through all of the border crossing check points together. Everything was really easy and clean compared to my Cambodia experience (not that that was terribly difficult but it was dirty). Once we were actually on Laos soil we met up with another traveller who was from New Zealand and the three of us shared a taxi into Vientiane. In Vientiane we went searching for a place to stay and ended up staying at the same guest house. The guest house was ok, I was comfortable enough so all was good. In the afternoon we all went our separate ways because we all had different agendas for the day. I was on a mission to the Thai embassy to see if I could secure a longer visa for reentry into Thailand.
When I got to the embassy I found that you are only allowed to apply for visas in the morning and pick up in the afternoon and since I ended up arriving in the afternoon there wasn't anything I could do. I went shopping instead and ended up buying a really beautiful necklace that was a little pricey, but it's my Laos present to myself.
Since I would have to wait for my visa I decided to go straight to Luang Prabang since it is my "must see" place on my Laos list and then return to Vientiane early to do my visa business before returning to Thailand. I went to an internet cafe to send out an email requesting some documents for my visa and ended up running into Don, my new New Zealand friend. We found out we shared the same plan of taking the first bus out to Luang Prabang so we walked to the bus station and bought tickets for the morning bus together. We ended up hanging out for the rest of the evening, finding an atm and having dinner at a French restaurant (where I ordered my meal in French).
I'm not very used to the currency, it has so many zeros on the end so you spend 20000 Kip and it feels like you're really laying down the cash but really you're only spending 2$ USD
Today's picture is from Luang Prabang, this tree is growing near the bank of the glorious Mekong River. I like how fuzzy the tree looks (enlarge the picture for the full effect).
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