Earlier that day, Tiger and I booked our transport back down to Bangkok so we could head to Koh Tao for the 23rd December. We had a bit of a problem since we found out that once you leave Thailand, your one month tourist visa expires. Well no one told us this! So originally, we thought we could just pop back over. Luckily the travel guy told us that if we crossed the border by bus/train/bus, we'd only be given a 15 day visa. Vietienne does have a thai embassy where you can apply for a 3 month tourist visa at a price. However the process can take up to two days and longer if you go on a Monday. So that plan was dumped. The only way we could do it was if we flew back into Thailand; we would be given a new 30 day visa on arrival. Flights were around £70, so we worked out it was the similar price of buying a 3 month visa (£30), the overnight train ticket to Bangkok from Vietienne (£30) and the travel from Vang Vieng to Vietienne (£10). And it allowed us to stay a few more nights in Vang Vieng and one last night in Bangkok woooo!!
Next day, another VIP bus journey to Vietienne which took around 5hrs and was probably the smoothest bus journey we've had. Once on Vietienne we caught a taxi to the air port for around 15,000LKP. The one thing I won't be missing in Laos is their ridiculous currency. We flew with Laos airlines and it was amazing; the flight was only an hour long yet we still got an inflight meal, so we were very, very happy.
Back in Bangkok (Suvarnabhumi airport) and we took the sky train back to Khosan Road. There were loads of riots and protests going on in the streets so roads were blocked, but we managed to find a tuk tuk driver who would take us near enough to Khosan. We stayed on Rambuttri road, close enough to Khosan but far enough so you can get a good nights kip. The hotel was called Four Sons Village, and was £8 a night. Decent place for the price.
So the past 4 nights we'd been drinking and partying in Vang Vieng, then we flew into Bangkok with a 10hr bus journey leaving at 5am the following morning taking us to Koh Tao. Nether the less, we went out to Khosan Road to relive out first nights in Bangkok. It was amazing! So good to be back in a familiar place. Khosan was heaving - we thought it was busy before, but it was rammed packed this time round. Come 4am, we headed back for our 5am departure. To be honest, there was no point on booking accomadation, since I didn't go to sleep and Tiger got an hours kip. Some guys on Khosan recommended that we take some Valium for the 10hr bus journey. They're easy to get at the pharmacy (500TB for 10 pills) and it basically just knocks you out for around 5/6hrs depending.
Our bus and boat ticket was booked with Lomprayah for 1350TB. This bus had to be the most disorganized bus we'd been on so far. No representatives turned up and everyone was still waiting around at 6am. We were all assigned stickers which linked to our seat numbers and everything was a bit hetic. Once on the bus, (which had to be the nicest bus we'd travelled on) we were handed water and croissants. After an hour, we popped some pills (hehehe only Valium) and next thing we knew, we were at the port of Chumptong.
So the boat we were booked on was a high speed catamaran. The boat holds around 500 people and stops at Koh Nang Yuan, Koh Tao, Koh Phangan and Koh Samui. The boat was horrible. I'm not one to get sea sick at all, but Jesus, this ride was all over the shop. The waves were massive and were hitting the side of boat. So many people were throwing up (it was worse than our journey to Luang Prabang), the boat boys were just going round handing out sick bags. I managed to hold my stomach - just about, although I can't say the same for Tiger. To our disappointment, the journey was around an hour and a half (we thought it was the same distance from Portsmouth to the Isle of Wright).
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