the road to thailand...

I got up at 5.30 in the morning, to make sure I would be on the first public bus out of Luang Prabang which left at 6.30am. I am not sure what was more irritating- the crying baby in the seat next to me, or the Thai pop music blaring from the speakers above. Both quientened down after a while though. All was fine, until the bus began to go very slow, making weird clunking noises... We broke down, and had to wait about 45 min for another bus to pick us up. I was getting quite worried, as it was already late in the day, and I really wanted to make the connecting bus from Vientiane to Bangkok. The people who lived in the tiny village where we stopped seemed quite intrigued by all the commotion. Finally I was on my way again, all the time staring at the clock. We got to Vientiane at 5.10pm, with my Bangkok bus leaving at 5.30pm from a station on the opposite side of town. I found a tuk tuk driver to take me there, but I had to wait for him to search for more passengers to fill all the seats (and his wallet) up. I made it to the bus with 5 minutes to spare- very relieved! I passed into Thailand on my fancy, air-conditioned bus, and slept on and off, before arriving in Bangkok at 5.30am... 23hrs of straight bus travel!