A dash through Thailand

After Siem Reap I decided to head for Vientianne in Laos, which meant 2 days of travelling. The bus to the Thai border from Cambodia was packed, ancient and the roads were terrible (we had to stop for repairs by the driver at one point) but I met some nice people on that bus, in fact I even bumped into Sarah at the lunch stop as she was heading this way to Bangkok. After quite a wait at the border and a tuk-tuk ride I got on a bus heading North to Khorat in Thailand. This was a lovely air conditioned bus on modern straight roads, you even got a snack included (a strange combination of pink wafer biscuit between crackers) and I became the only foreigner on the bus again. Towards the end of this trip we passed through torrential rain and amazing lightning that continued long a fter the rain stopped. Khorat wasn't bad, though part of the roof in the restaurant I was having dinner in collapsed due to all the rain while I was in there. In my guest house I was told that there was another Scot staying there, from "Celtic City" near "Rangers City". Hmmm. Next day was another long bus trip and much messing around to get across the Loas border and on into Vientianne.