Rather than a straight run through to Pakxe, I fancied breaking up the journey with a couple of days in Thakhek to see some karst scenery nearby. My attempts to obtain info about suitable buses to Thakhek proved highly frustrating, with different sources stating the "only" daily bus was at, variously, 6:30AM, 7:30AM, 11AM, and 8:30PM. I chose to turn up at the bus station at 6:15AM and take it from there. 7:15AM was the correct answer, but even then the ticket seller said it would take 4 hours to reach Thakhek - which would have required an average speed exceeding [View Full Entry]

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After the disappointment of the Plain of Jars, there was a temporary divergence of the Anglo-American alliance, with LA Woman heading to Louang Phabang (which she hadn't yet seen) and me going to Vientiane. We arranged to meet up in Pakxe a few days hence. The bus journey to Vientiane confirmed that Laos people will chunder at the drop of a hat. I watched bemused as pretty much every other passenger threw up at one point or another in the 9 hour journey. Even the guy distributing the plastic bags, who presumably does this for a living, puked. At each food [View Full Entry]

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The bus to Phonsavan possessed that rarest of qualities - it never filled up. This was enough to raise the spirits after countless crowded journeys without the luxury of space. I was sufficiently boosted by this that even the drawbacks of the guesthouse in Phonsavan - a flexible wooden floor that nipped the skin of one's feet painfully and a hot shower that only lived up to its name if the flow was a trickle - seemed inconsequential. Phonsavan is the main base for exploring the Plain of Jars. This stretch of rolling hills takes its name from the clusters of [View Full Entry]

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Viang Thong -> Xam Nua proved to be the most gruelling songthaew journey yet, requiring nearly 7.5 hours to cover 150km. Yes, that's an average of 20 km/h. This was partly due to the nature of the terrain, being all hills and escarpments, and partly due to a problem with the songthaew (or the driver) that required all downhill sections to be conducted in 1st gear. From a time efficiency point of view, the night bus would have been a better bet. At least we had our friends from the LoEME to keep us company. Almost making up for this tortoise-like [View Full Entry]

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From Nong Khiaw, it was necessary to take another songthaew to Viang Kham, just a couple of hours away. A few ducks in wicker baskets were carried on top of the vehicle and the number of feathers that drifted past during the journey made me fear they might arrive bald. There were 3 other foreigners present. Two were a Swiss guy and a French woman, who I shall call the League of Extraordinarily Miserable Europeans (LoEME for short), as they were travelling together but seemed to derive no pleasure from anything, least of all each other's company. The third person I [View Full Entry]

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The standard backpacker route out of Louang Phabang heads south to Vang Viang and then to Vientiane. With the horror of the slow boat trip still fresh in my memory, I felt it might be more appropriate to head east instead. The town of Viang Xai near the border with Vietnam had the dual attractions of the caves where the communist resistance (now the government) had sheltered during the war with the royalists, as well as karst rock formations similar to Vang Viang's. However it would be a bit of a slog to get there due to the primitive transportation infrastructure [View Full Entry]

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After the disappointment of the slow boat, Louang Phabang (spelled in many different ways) proved to be a great place to relax. There was a general air of serenity and quiet about the town, an atmosphere reinforced by the presence of many saffron-clad monks and novices. The colonial French heritage extended not just to baguettes being on every menu, but also to architecture - the whitewashed walls and coloured window shutters some of the few European remnants of Indochina. Numerous restaurants overlooked the Mekong and provided an ideal venue for afternoon dozing, the puttering of the river [View Full Entry]

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Imagine the romance of a slow trip down the Mekong river on a cargo boat. Your vessel slides past the luxuriantly foliaged banks and you wave cheerily to the toiling peasants who take a moment from their labours to wave back, smiling. You settle snugly into your chair formed from sacks of rice and share a joke with the boatmen. A few bottles of Beer Lao appear from somewhere and you exchange travel reminiscences with the small group of your fellow passengers, the good humour almost tangible as the alcohol flows. The hours pass too quickly and suddenly the sun is [View Full Entry]

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To get from Nan to the border town of Chiang Khong required one bus journey to Chiang Kham, which was extremely crowded with the aisle completely full as well as the seats, then another to Chiang Khong. I had absolutely no idea what the procedure would be there, so I asked the tuk tuk driver to take me to the jetty from which boats departed for Houayxai in Laos. He asked if I had a visa then, when I said no, took me to a travel company. They said they could arrange a 30 day visa in 1 hour for the [View Full Entry]

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The bus to Nan from Chiang Mai was, like many other enterprises I've seen here, ludicrously overstaffed, with not just a driver and a ticket checker, but also a hostess whose sole function appeared to be to distribute a packet of biscuits and a bottle of water to each passenger. Unlike in the West, people here seem quite happy to sit in the first available seat, even if there are completely empty doubles further back in the bus, so I spent most of the journey next to a lady who was wearing off-putting perfume. Nan had been mentioned as an up [View Full Entry]

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