Blogs from Laos, Asia - page 529

We got up mega early to get our mini bus to Vientiane that we had booked - it was described as having air conditioning but there wasn't enough petrol in the bus to allow this to be on!! Halfway to Vientiane the bus driver came to a stop and declared it was a toilet stop, we were in the middle of nowhere with only trees about, the lads told him that girls need proper toilets and can not wee at the side of the road - i decided to cross my legs and wait till we got somewhere! We finally made it to Vientiane where we found a very cheap Guesthouse ,we also found another JoMa's - yay! After we went to find out the best way to get to Cambodia, as Alex and Jen ... read more

Well, I'm out of Vietnam now. It took a cramped bus journey, a spectacular but extremely painful motorbike ride over the mountains, a breakdown on said motorbike and frantically pouring water over the red hot exhaust pipe, serial overcharging ("Oh, but your bag is so large! We simply must almost double your ticket price!" Balls, frankly, but that's the sort of stuff you have to put up with.), running out of Dong (In fact I was 1500 short and had to make it up with a dollar), sleeping on the floor of a stilt house, taking a relaxing stroll through the rice paddies and all the other stuff associated with getting out of Vietnam. At the end of it the Vietnamese border guards signed me out, had a poke around in my bag and then I ... read more

The trip south back to lovely Luang Prabang was much shorter than the journey there but just as interesting. We took a local bus (which consists of a couple of benches in the back of a truck) which was initially not too crowded. However, the driver proceeded to stop every few minutes to let more people on with whatever sacks, bags or boxes of produce they were carrying. I think the highest count was about 20 people plus a fridge-freezer (!!!) in a truck designed to carry 10 people. Every local person who got on tried to shove us to the back (with the fridge freezer) but I stood my ground and as a result managed to view the entertaining proceedings from the relatively comfortable seats near the opening to the bus (Laos air-con). We had ... read more

The Bus Of Terror Express bus, I was told, was the fastest way to publically get to Vang Vieng. And this turned out to be true. How was this achieved, I wondered? Perhaps fewer unecessary stops for snack breaks, picking up chickens and so on. This was not the case. It was the fastest way because the particular amphetamine laden driver they chose for this trip had no regard for safety whatsoever. Speed was the name of the game, and I doubt breaking even crossed the mind that lay behind his glazed, absent eyes. We narrowly avoided cows, chickens, pigs, small children and oncoming traffic. On two occasions we nearly had head on collisions, which rather than sobering the crazed driver meerly resulted in laughter and even faster subsequent driving. At least the stunning scenery gave ... read more

7/20 - 7/24 In an effort to save time we took a pair of flights to get Alex, Jaime, and I from Hanoi Intl Airport to Luang Prabang, Laos. Jaime and I were most impressed by Alex's spontaneity, deciding to extend his three week vacation into six (ahh, the life of a student). So the three of us set out to explore northern Laos over the course of a week. Our favorite stop was Luang Prabang, a quaint french rooted town, which has experienced a broadening wave of tourism over the past few years, with westerners attracted to the extremely beautiful local scenery and romantic aspects of this river town. The Laotians we encountered were much quieter than the Vietnamese locals we met and it was a nice change of pace from the previous 3 weeks. ... read more