Visa Run

This past Wednesday I had to go to Laos for my visa run.  I came to Thailand with a tourist visa and I'm technically not supposed to be working in the country with that, so I had to go to Laos to get a Non-Immigrant B visa.  I went with Ashley and another teacher from our school, Luke.  We took the night train Wednesday night and arrived in Nong Khai, a city on the border of Thailand early in the morning on Thursday.  We had to get Laos visas, even though we were only staying for a night and it cost about $50!  If I had known it would be so expensive, I think I would have tried to stay there for more than a night and actually see some parts of the country.  But we went straight to Vientiane, the capital of Laos which is only about 30 minutes from the border, and then straight to the Thai Embassy.  The school had given us all the paperwork we needed to get our NIB visas, so we just had to wait in line to turn in our paperwork and passports and then we could pick them up again the next afternoon.  We found a really nice guesthouse and rented bicycles for the day.  Vientiane is a pretty city with good food and a fun backpacker atmosphere.  I really enjoyed Laos, at least the little bit that I saw, and definitely want to go back when I have some more time to travel.  It was colonized by France and still has a French influence, so there were lots of bakeries and bread shops.  Friday morning I even had a bagel with cream cheese!  Something I haven't seen at all in Thailand.  After we picked up our passports, complete with new visas, we got a bus across the border to Udon thani, another city in Thailand.  From there we decided to take a bus back to Lopburi instead of the train because it usually gets there faster and would be cheaper.  We got on the cheapest bus there and left around 9pm.  At 1am we were awoken with flashlights and people telling us in Thai to get off the bus.  We were all pretty confused; Luke speaks some Thai and I guess they were saying that a light broke on the bus or something?  So we all had to get onto another bus, but this bus was already pretty full and I ended up having to sit on a stool in the aisle for the next three hours!  It was an interesting experience and I think it will be worth paying for a nicer bus next time, haha.