January 3, 2007 Vientiane – In Transit, Laos

January 3, 2007
Vientiane – In Transit, Laos

I got up early this morning (8:00is) and made for the internet café to make a call home. After discussing some issues with my mom I returned to the room and finished packing my things. Once we were all packed up we headed to a travel agent to figure out how to get out of Vientiane.

We sat down with a travel agent and asked to book a flight to Siem Reap, Cambodia. We were told that it would be $140 and then made a trip to an ATM (they didn’t accept Visa) to extract the necessary funds. When we returned with the money we were told that there were some problems with the reservation and that the price had gone up!

Unwilling to pay the extra money (and advised not to by the travel agent), we were back to square one. We made a trip to the bus station and booked a VIP night bus to Pakse (southern Laos). Next, we returned to the city and grabbed some food.

When we were done eating we went back to our hotel and checked out of our room, leaving our bags at the front desk. Each of us went our separate ways for the afternoon. I made a trip to the internet and spent a while looking into some of my options.

For those who have been following my blog closely, the last two weeks have not been as great as the previous 4 months. I was quite frustrated with the situation and have considered a number of options, including coming home early.

I pondered this thought for most of the afternoon. I chatted about it online with Jackie and thought about it as I walked on the bank of the MeKong. I also emailed my travel agent and asked if it was even a possibility.

At 16:30 I met up with B for some dinner. We had an awesome meal at the Swedish Café and then decided to get a massage (B got a body scrub). While the massage was quite nice, B reports that the body scrub was less than extraordinary.

We got back to the hotel a few minutes before 19:00. From there we loaded into a song tao and made our way back to the bus station. We spent the next hour wandering around and waiting until we could get on our bus.

At 20:00 we loaded onto the bus (a 32 seat VIP) and were excited by how much room we had. I reclined my seat and tried to get to sleep. In turned out to be the coldest bus ride yet! My seat was located on top of the air conditioning unit. As such, I had a very difficult time keeping my feet and legs warm. I searched throughout the bus and found several extra blankets but I was still cold. Eventually, I changed seats and fell asleep…