18.01.09 - 19.01.09

18.01.09

FANCY BUS

We woke up as usual; but at about 0600 so that we could have breakfast before 0800 and get to the bus depot at 0800 for the 0930 bus. Once again with Mr. AirNoy and his adequate Tuk-Tuk we traveled to the bus depot in Tha Kheak. Once at the bus depot with the usual language problems we managed to acquire 5 tickets on the “VIP” bus. That was at 0810, we then had another hour or so to look at the many types of jerky and jellies at the market. We had a Nescafe coffee and Lao tea, biscuits and ricey sugary cake things like rice bubbles, almost the same… same…but different. An hour later we entered the bus and were on our way out of Tha Kheak.
Broom broom. The bus was fairly new, and moderately fancy. We had a compartment of eight seats to ourselves and get this. The seats slid from left to right as well as reclining for the fatty westerners. Oh and… shock horror we had leg room without sugar. The bus was in fact double storied we were in the bottom level with the eight seats and all the locals, rich locals were on the top. One cake, more ricey things and jelly later, we arrived at Vientiane. The bus depot was very different from Tha Kheak for one it had less if not any stalls and it seemed to be a lot busier. We unloaded our bags and started loading them onto a same same but different Tuk-Tuk. The journey was relatively safe, probably because we had an old local gentleman with us but more likely because we were sharing it with a monk as well.

After an uneventful journey to town we found a hotel called Samsenthai Hotel. It was so clean that the floors squeaked under our feet. And the beds were soft. It was relatively accommodating and in the centre of town. Seeing as we hadn’t had lunch we headed off the banks of the Mekong River to get a bite to eat Sitting on little cushions on a reed mat on the banks of the Mekong. We ambled around town ordered a sarong and found an ATM. We then headed back to the hotel for the night, when us children then headed out again and interneted for a while. Went back to the hotel for the night.

(by Patrick)

19.01.09

Vientiane

Today we woke up at 0800 and had breakfast at 0900, as we were not sure whet we were what we doing, we packed. Patrick, James and I went off to internet again, whilst the parentals went off to find out what we going to do. So while Patrick and I slogged away, bring the bloggy thing up to date the others went off and gallivanted around town. Finding us a 1830 bus to… iu don’t know where we are going actually. But know that this blog is up to date, Patrick and I can go and find us some lunch.

Bai Bai
xoxoxo