After arriving in Mukdahan after 1 hour on the bus I got chatting to an Egyptian fella who was having problems completing his border crssoing paperwork as he couldn't write English. I completed this for him and turns out he is an Asylum seeker heading to Bangkok where he hopes he can stay, lets hope I did his paperwork correct then otherwise he mayfind himself straight back to Egypt, whoops!!!! I was contemplating whether to jump straight onto a bus all the way to Bangkok but given my heavy head and the thought of 11 hours on a bus I convicned myself to spend a night in Mukdahan. Bit of a waste of time to be honest as this was a really quite place with not a good deal to keep me entertained. I walked along the river front and could see back across to Saavannakhet where I had been in Laos just a couple hours previously. After spending a couple hours in evening on the internet I headed out at about 9:30pm to grab some dinner. I was surprised to find everything shutting up and even the night market was half packed up with the few remaining stalls beginning to wind down (some night market!!!). Ended up with some snacks from 7eleven for dinner and an early night. Had a read up that evening as I still didn't like the idea of an 11 hour bus journey and decided that I would head to Khon Khaen and spend a couple nights here prior to arriving in Bangkok. I got a bus the next morning at 9am and journey took about 4.5 hours. After arrving in Khon Khaen I headed out for some food and met a guy in a restaurant from Newcastle called Ben. His mate Graham from Liverpool then turned up and we headed to a bar for a few games of pool. After this we went to a big shopping complex and had a couple games of bowling which we decided to have a wager on. Deal was the loser of the game had to buy the first round. After winning both games I was looking forward to a couple free drinks that evening!!! Met the guys back in same restaurant that evening and we headed out to a bar in the main town. Their other mate Liam had just arrived back from Bangkok and he met us in the pub where we consumed a few beverages (including my free drinks, luvly jubbly) before heading over to a club. After consuming a bottle of Whiskey between us the night became a little hazy but we got chatting to some people in the club and myself and Ben managed to get a lift home from a couple local girls (No they were not ladyboys, haha). Another good night out and I think maybe a couple nights off the sauce may be required as my liver is begginning to throb!!!

The next day didn't surface until midday and had a lazy day feeling a bit lethargic and not in the mood to do anything but sit around drinking ice coffee all day in various cafes and bars!!

The following morning I was up early and walked around corner to find bus station and find out times of buses to Bangkok. Headed back about hour later to get my air con local bus to Bangkok. This was by far the best bus journey so far with a full reclining seat, tv, we were given a meal, water, fruit punch, packet biscuits some fruit all sorts all through this journey with a hostess walking up and down aisle it was just like being on a plane. Far better then any tourist bus I had been on I even had to use the blanket the air-con was that effective. beautiful!!! So back to Bangkok I was heading for a couple days and to allow me to head down south and to the much awaited beaches of the south..........