Most intense travel day so far...

So I took my 3 hour boat to chumpon from Koh Tao. From there I took a 12 hour bus ride to bangkok Which arrived at 5 am. Durring the trip i met a nice american couple. We had dinner together along the way which was cool. When we got to bangkok they hadn't been there before so I took them to Rambiturri rd. where i stayed while i was there.

It was kinda a shitty time to get to bangkok (5am) so i took a cab to the train station and found out that the train i wanted to Laos didnt leave til 8pm that night. So thats great, i have to spend a day in Bangkok. Me and Bangkok have kind of a love/hate relationship. Kinda like me and the city of Richmond. There are parts of it that are fun and then parts of it that are like pulling teeth. I grabed a hotel room so i could get a 6 hour nap because i was pretty tired. I then decided to go to MBK mall for a movie and some mcdonalds. On my way i checked out a suit place. I told them that i didnt want to go in because i knew what would happen, and sure enough it did. I ended up buying 2 sweet suits and a tux. You never know when you might need that kinda stuff right? The nice thing was that it was tailored to my body and had extra fabric if it needed to be altered in the future. I bought a grey suit, a black pin striped one and a tux. Along with 6 shirts and 5 ties. So after about an hour of going through all that i went to MBK. I went and saw the movie "body of lies" with Leo Dicaprio and Russel Crowe. It was pretty good. I did the whole "VIP Movie" thing. Super huge reclining chairs that reclined pretty much as far as you wanted them too. a blanket, cheese cake, popcorn and a coke. Before any movie in Thailand there is a video clip with music that you have to stand before and honor the king. A lil different eh? I bought a few shirts then went back to the suit place to make the final alterations to the test suit they would be making the real suits from.

I then got on a train to go to Laos. I booked a sleeper car in first class. When i got there it didnt look like much, 2 bunks with a sink and some lights. I had a nice guy named Steven from New Zealand rooming with me. We ended up traveling together through to vien tien. We were kinda choked about the money we put out for this plain Jane car. (he paid 200 more bhat than me) all of a sudden people started comming in and making changes to our room every 5 mins. A guy came in with bottled water. Then a guy came in and changed the garbage. Another came in to give us drinking glasses wrapped in paper. Another guy came in and made the beds with fresh sheets and blankets. Then the last guy came in to take our orders for dinner and brekfast in the morning as well as any drinks we might want (only alcohalic, no soft drinks:( ) So after all that we changed our opinion. I thought that it would be a smooth ride all the way through being on a train and what not but i was sooooooo far off. The car rocked and constantly hit bumps the whole way through and kept making stops. We eventually got there a hour late at 930am. Then took a tuk tuk to the boarder.

I hate dealing with the boarder. There are sooooo many people there all doing the same thing. You have to check out of thailand, then check into Loas and fill out a bunch of forms in the blazing heat. You even had to take a bus from the thai boarder to the Laos boarder, thats how far apart they were. For some reason i was feeling really sick today so that didnt help. Me and steven then took a taxi for about an hour to vien tien. I went to a bus stop and he stayed there. My bus was leaving in 10 mins from when i got my ticket so that was good, but then some stupid couple at the only hotel we had to pick up from was 30 mins late. I know this sounds like i'm complaining alot but when you are sick and waiting in the heat of 100 degree weather (not exagerating) it sucks. So we finally got on our "VIP Bus" This wasnt much of a vip bus, it had ac but wasnt very comfortable. It was by far the bumpyest bus ride I have encountered in my whole trip, and it was like that the whole way, in the 5 hours i got maybe 2 hours of sleep. I finally got to Veng Vien. It looks like its gonna be a good time.

I was thinking i would only stay 3 days because I'm feeling so shitty but with these prices i'll probably stay longer. I met a guy on the bus that owns a bar here so that will probably come in handy;) My accomadation was about $4.50 a night. Nice big bed and a huge fan, i dont really need a/c here apparently. I think thats what got me sick in the first place. I'm gonna do some tubing tomorrow and sample some dishes from the "happy Menu" so it should be fun. So thats pretty much where I'm at right now.