We spent enough time and money in Thailand, and it was time to move on to Laos. After a ferry ride from Koh Samui, we took a connecting bus to the train station for an overnighter to Bangkok. The sleeper train cars were all full, so we got to ride in seats that reclined maybe all of 5", needless to say, it was not the best train trip thus far.
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| Bangkok train station |
We arrived early (6 am) and went into the city to kill time before our next overnight train that evening. It was our 4th time in Bangkok, so we felt like old pros with their sky trains and metro rails. We shopped around and ended up at the movies to see Django. Later that evening, we were finally on our train (in the sleeper car, yay) and headed north to the Laos border crossing. We arrived at the border the next morning around 10am. We got off the train and got a ticket for another train that would take us across the Thailand / Laos border via the "friendship bridge".
While we were on the train that goes over the bridge, Matt noticed a guy wearing a cowboy hat. Matt curiously thought that he may very well be from Texas. As it turned out, after Matt found a way to casually tell him he liked his hat (only a little awkward to start a conversation), the guy, Colin, mentioned that he and his girlfriend were indeed from Texas. Being Texan, Matt kept probing with the "from what part" questions, and found out the girl, Kate, was from Spring and went to Klein High School (Kristin did too!). If that wasn't a small enough world, the girls looked at each other and then recognized one another from middle school where they played oboe together in band. They hadn't seen each other since early high school. It was pretty crazy to run into each other on a train in Laos!!
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| Kate and Kristin with the same backpacks! |
We took a van from the train station into Vientiane, the capital and largest city of Laos. The city is located along the Mekong river near the Thailand border. There's not a whole lot to see and do in the city (besides some more temples); however, we planned to stop here for a night or two to recover from the last couple of travel days.
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| The not-so pretty riverfront in Vientiane. |
Naturally, we met up with Colin and Kate later that night for dinner and went out for a few Beerlaos. It was fun to catch up and hear about their trip, and what they're up to back home. The next day, our Texas friends moved on while we roamed the city a bit, and then made use of the internet to catch up on the blog and plan out our next few legs of the journey.
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| A temple right across the street from our guesthouse. |
After two nights in Vientiane, we were rested and ready to move on. We booked an overnight sleeper bus to Luang Prabang, 10 hours north. This was the bus that showed up to the station....
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| April Fools! |
Luckily, it was NOT ours :-). The sleeper bus was a different kind of sleeper bus than others we've been on. It had 3 rows of double-decker reclining seats. It looked great, but it really wasn't very comfortable. It turned out to be quite humorous for Matt. Well, Kristin did most of the laughing as Matt tried to fit in the short, skinny "bed/seat" combo. Matt didn't exactly fit in the small space where his legs/feet were supposed to go. Another instance where Kristin didn't mind being short ;-). Not to mention that the 10 hours through the night were on some of the windiest roads with huge potholes. Thank goodness there were seat belts to hold us down, otherwise Kristin might've ended up falling over the edge of her seat! No worries, we made it safely to Luang Prabang the next morning.
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| It looks nice in theory. |
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| How Matt slept that night. |
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