Getting to Mae Sot

So the next day we all headed off to the Vietnamese embassy to get a visa sorted out for Mullins. He was familiar with the route, so we just followed him to the canal for the boat that would take us most of the way (after getting a little bit confused about which canal we needed).

I think there are only two canals still in use as transport routes in Bangkok, as the Government tends to cover them up and build roads instead, but for now getting the boat is by far the quickest option for getting where we needed to go. It was pretty cool screaming down a narrow canal too, and we arrived in no time at all.

When we got to the embassy it turned out we couldn't have timed it better, as the embassy was closing for the following 6 days due to a big Vietnamese holiday (similar but different I think to the Chinese New Year). Mullins could get an express visa that same day (extra money of course), but would have to come back at 3pm to pick it up.

So with time to kill we headed back down the road to the SkyTrain and popped over to Siam Square for the afternoon. Poor Mullins wasn't feeling very well though (he'd eaten stagnant stall food on our bus journey up from Phuket), so he used the Internet to re-arrange his flights home to pass through Ho Chi Minh City while Sarah and I had lunch nearby.

We didn't get to explore much of Siam Square, but I've been there before, and really it's just big malls with fancy shops, so not really my scene anyway. So come 3pm we hopped back on the SkyTrain, picked up the visa and headed back to Khao San road.

Mae Sot isn't on one of the typical tourist routes so we had no choice but to get a Government bus there (which suited us anyway after being ripped off by the last 2 tourist bus people). So we got a metered taxi to the bus terminal and got a bus ticket for later that night (unfortunately the cheaper, earlier buses were all full, so we had to wait around an extra couple of hours for a VIP bus).

The journey was easy though, and the bus was really comfortable (only the 2nd 3-seats-in-a-row bus we've taken on this trip), so we all slept really well. We arrived at Mae Sot at about 6am and hopped into a songthaw for the quick trip into the town.

After wandering about aimlessly looking for our hostel (which Mullins' mate had kindly pre-booked for us), we eventually found it, but couldn't wake anyone up to check us in. So we hung around for a bit and at 8am went to a lovely nearby cafe for a coffee and to use their internet. A little later we found people awake at the hostel, checked-in, had showers and then Mullin's mate, Mike, arrived on his scooter.