I'm ready to leave Thailand. It was the perfect place to start this trip... modern but not completely Westernized... anything I forgot or discovered I needed was here (well almost everything... so who's coming to visit because I need a few things...)

So tomorrow I'm leaving Thailand. I should say being kicked out because my visa expires tomorrow. I was going to leave a few days ago but I figured I might as well use every day I paid for!

I've been looking across the Mekong into Laos for a week now & I'm excited to get there. So when I "leave" Thailand, I'll take a $1 taxi to the immigration check point, have my passport stamped that I've now left & step into a small boat for the 15 minutes ride to the other side of the river. Then I’ll pay to enter Laos. From this side, it looks nicer than where I am at but I know hot showers are rarer & there's no internet at all. So I'm guessing it's not.

After I'm "in", I'll find a hotel. I just found out that Laos is supposed to be more expensive than Thailand... I'm a little disappointed because I've finally gotten my expenses under the $15 range I want. Anyway, then I've got to find a boat to take me to the old Lao capital of Luang Prabang. The entire city is supposed to drip with old French colonial charm & its a World Heritage Site. And there’s no roads there... the river's the only way.

There's supposed to be a 'fast boat' that gets there in a day... but even though they give you a helmet to wear, people still regularly die on the way. I think I've ruled it out. So that leaves the 'slow boat' which takes 2 days. But I've been hearing rumors there's a 1 day slow boat... I'm going to leave for the boarder early tomorrow morning so I can try to find this mythical boat.... but I just bought a cushion in case I'm stuck sitting on the wooden seat for 2 days :)