Andy's Blog - Gone Further

11 September – 15 September

Our flight into Vientiane included the most interesting immigration procedure yet. The plane landed in the arse-end of nowhere in Laos and we had to get off and walk to immigration through a building site before getting back on the plane.  Everyone on the plane was scammed for a dollar as a ‘processing fee’ before shelling out $35 each for the visa itself.  We were warned about this dollar scam but for the sake of 65p you don’t want to be the one to get rubber-gloved.  If you feel like protesting the best thing to do is ask for a receipt and note the chap’s name.

We arrived in Vientiane and stayed at the second place we looked at before wandering through arguably the most relaxed capital in the world.  Vientiane has a population of 300,000 and there’s not the mad hurry to go about things a la London,  etc.  We decided to do Vientiane in 24 hours and started off with a great meal in the riverside stalls on the banks of the Mekong before a few drinks in nearby bars.  The next day we were up early, arranged our bus out of there for 2:00pm and set about the sights of Vientiane.  We did the obvious things such as the Presidential Palace and the That Luang Stupa but the thing that stands out is the visit to the COPE organisation that assists people who need prosthetic limbs.

We had booked a ‘VIP Bus’ to our next destination, Vang Vieng.  Don’t be fooled by the title if you’ve never been on one, this isn’t the A380 of buses.  We were at least expecting a coach but what arrived was a scaled up minibus.  I counted the seats and reckon a legal number of people on that bus in the UK would be around 20.  We had 31.  Many people had to share seats and one couple were just perched by the gear lever for the seven hour trip, she seemed to enjoy it.  The journey isn’t very far but Northern Laos is mountainous and our poor overstocked bus struggled up and down the hills – no smooth Alpine-esque passes here.

Vang Vieng is quite out of place here.  It’s a million miles from the serenity of the surrounding mountain towns; its popularity has boomed on the basis of the River Tubing on offer here.  This is worth its own post as it’s definitely the most fun thing we’ve done so far, click here for the Tubing post.

We were only in Vang Vieng for a couple of nights.  We were debating whether to stay another day and do the Tubing again but as it’s been one and there’s plenty more to do we decided to leave.  The next destination was a toughy.  There’s no airport in Vang Vieng and we have decided to lay off the 24 hour buses.  We’re craving some beach time now and that rules out any of land-locked Laos so the decision was made to call time on this country.  Instead of getting the bus back to Vientiane we decided to continue north to Luang Prabang and have a night there before getting a flight to Chaing Mai in Thailand, the launch pad for ‘phase two’ of the trip. The bus was just as hairy and we thought we had struck gold when it was just the two of us on the bus but an hour later the bus in front came to a halt and we had a total of six passengers, including a vomiting Laos lady.

Our night in Luang Prabang was peaceful (still feeling the effects of the Tubing), we strolled through the town and took in our final view of the Mekong River over a smoothie as the sun went down.  The Mekong has been the backdrop of much of our trip since we were in Saigon.  Luang Prabang is another World Heritage city and we haven’t done it justice, just like we know there’s much of Laos we haven’t seen such as the Plain of Jars however since we arrived in Singapore on 13 August we’ve seen and photographed more than we could have imagined and we’re quite happy to be heading back to Thailand where, weather permitting, we’ll work on that tan of ours.

Photos are coming very quick right now but all albums are linked from the photo page.

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