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Published: January 17th 2010
Bus 154
Lots of people on the bus to the south station :-)Ok, new to blogging here - I'll just try to describe my trip overland from Kunming to Bangkok, as it might benefit other travellers :-)
I flew in from
Xiamen to Kunming on the 4th of January, landed at 13.40 all ready and set to go. I'd heard a lot of conflicting information about where the bus station with buses going to Jinghong was, and I didn't really want to take a taxi there - so I decided to find the train station, as I'd heard that there would be a bus station next to. I caught bus 52 from across the parking lot to Chun Cheng Lu 春城路, from where I walked to the train station (after getting lost and asking a couple of people for directions).
There was a huge bus station next to the train station, but alas - no buses to Jinghong. The lady at the counter was nice enough to tell me that bus 154 would take me to the proper bus station south of town. Right'O - after a search of the area I found an empty 154 bus, which quickly filled up with loads of people from all layers of society. 2
Mall
The biggest shopping mall in the world (or so I think) kuai for the ride - it took an hour and went through lots of different areas. Little alleyways with old people going about their business, fancy new apartment buildings with fountains in their grassy area, countryside seen from a highway... The south train station is called 新螺蛳湾公交枢纽站 Xin LuoSiWan GongJiao ShuNiuZhan (something like "New spiral shell bay traffic junction station" - what a mouthful!) No wonder people just seem to call it 南部车站 Nan Bu Che Zhan - or southern station. But the bus sign for 154 did have the long name, and I found that rather confusing, since I thought it was just called Southern Station.
You can also take bus 52 to the international exhibition centre in Kunming, not far from the airport, and there cross the road and change to the 154. Much easier than going to the train station first!
Anyways, I got there, bought a ticket for the 20.40 (239 yuan)
sleeper bus to Jinghong, no worries. I think the price varies depending on when you take the bus. Seeing that the trip would take about 8-10 hours I didn't want to go too early and get to Jinghong at 3-4 in the morning,
Tofu
These tasted nice! although that might have been a bit cheaper.
Spent a few moments next to the station in what I think must be the biggest shopping mall in the world. Outside the shopping mall are loads of hawkers selling everything from chickens feet to tofu to delicious lamb kebabs, so dinner was easy to find (and cheap).
Ok, a good deal of waiting later I got on the bus to Jinghong, it was ready at about 20, and it seemed like every one else had gotten on a bus already. The station was empty. The bus was comfy, there's a nice snug hole for your feet underneath the person in front's head, so it's possible to stretch out (I'm 170 cm). The bus ride went through mountains and stopped quite a few times for toilet visits and smoking for the needy, but was otherwise quite quiet, and I managed to get a bit of shut-eye.
6.15 we were at the
Jinghong South station, it was still dark, and everyone was still sleeping. The bus driver said it would be totally alright to stay in the bus for a few more hours and sleep, but I decided to get my
bus ticket to Luang Nam Tha and have a look around. Luang Nam Tha is, rather confusingly, called Nan Ta 南塔 or South Pagoda in Chinese. It took a while and a map in Chinese figuring that out - it's just one of those words that have been translated phonetically and don't mean much. As I knew Luang Nam Tha is in Northern Laos I refused to think that it might be called something southern, but there you go. And they omit the Luang.
They had buses for the next day (or this day) at 6.55, 10.55 and 11.55, all costing 70 yuan. I decided to pick the 6.55 one the next day, and spend the day in Jinghong.
I was immediately contacted by a local tour guide who insisted I'd stay at the lovely bus station hotel. I checked out the room, got it for 50 yuan instead of the initial 80, and got to check in at 6.30 in the morning and stay till the next day. Very convenient for the early morning bus ride! And a nice view of the bus station :-)
Jinghong is easy to walk around, I walked straight east and had great
Dai-minority writing
All signs were both in Chinese and Dai in Jinghong! noodles, checked out a few parks and temples but didn't actually go in, checked out the
Mekong (Lancang) (the water was low and the view obstructed by lots of workers and half built river houses), and had
lunch with construction workers from Chongqing in their little house next to the construction site. After they sent me on my way I went to see the
tropical flowers and plants garden. It was about 2 km walking, not too bad. They had some nice flowers there, and not too many people. I also saw rubber trees being tapped and bought macadamia nuts (apparently) straight off the tree.
Walked back downtown, had a nice Lancang (Mekong in China)-beer at the Banna Cafe and a papaya juice, had a chat to the nice Hani girls who ran the place and had a nice fried rice with egg for dinner - yum!
Went to bed early - got up at 6 in the morning to get on the bus, easy as pie. The bus arrived at around 7-ish and had clear writings on the front window screen in both English, Chinese and Lao, so very easy.
The second driver had forgotten his ID, so
Temple
Nice temple we had to wait half an hour in the dark somewhere, and then we had an hour's break to get breakfast in
Mengla. I was served noodles with
bug, decided to say nothing, be polite and try to eat it anyway, but the 4 nice patrons next to me saw the bug and ordered the lady to give me some new noodles. And then they continued discussing how strange foreigners are, eating noodles with bugs without saying anything.. Hahaha :-)
From Mengla it was just a short drive to the border-town Mohan, where we stayed a short while before going to the check out of China-building. Got an exit stamp in the passport, easy, then walked a kilometer or so to the Laos check in-point. On the way there is a nice little stone pillar with the Chinese emblem on one side and the Lao on the other. Great stop for photo shoots and lots of posing (especially if you're Chinese ;-))
The
visa on arrival was easy too, 272 yuan for a Danish citizen, US citizens pay more. Got a sticker and about 8 stamps, had to go to another counter to fill out my entry-papers, got
Friends for lunch
My new Chongqing construction worker-friends. a few more stamps, went to a third counter and got my stamps checked and a nice Lao lesson from the border officials. They even put the essential Lao words on the back of your departure card - how handy and thoughtful! I liked Laos and it's people instantly :-)
A few K's from the border the bus stopped again in an essentially Chinese town (everyone spoke mandarin, the signs were in Chinese), where we all had lunch, and I had my first beer Lao. We could even pay in yuan, and the prices were a bit higher than expected. Not expensive, but not what you expect in a tiny one-street stop over village. Guess they've found a good way to make money ;-)
From there we drove another little while and stopped in another town where the bus had to be weighed. That took a while. From there, just another hour to
Luang Nam Tha. I arrived at about 4.30 in the afternoon. I was essentially the only one to get off the bus there, everyone else was going to Huoayxai (or however you spell it) on the Thai border. A couple others got off but took
a bus straight to Luang Prabang. So I was left alone with hoards of hungry tuk tuk drivers offering me a ride to town. It's 20000 kip if there's only you, but 10000 if there's more than one person. Takes about 20 minutes to get to the town centre.
The town centre is tiny, especially coming after China, where cities not even on the map are full of high rises and lots of people. Many cafes, guesthouses and trekking companies.
I had a beer Lao at Manychan guesthouse, they were fully booked for the night, so I stayed next door at King something.. I'm thinking King Kong, but I guess it wasn't that. A big white building. I got the last room available, very clean and bathroom en suite, 60000 kip.
After storing all my luggage I went around to find a
two days one night trekking trip for the next couple of days. Luck was on my side when I passed Green Discovery (www.greendiscoverylaos.com), had read about them from home (they're supposed to be the best in Laos for eco tourism), and 7 other people were booked for a max 8-person trip to the Nam Ha Vally, excellent,
bought it on the spot. It was 51 dollars or 472000 kip. Sounds a bit pricey for Laos maybe, but it was definitely worth it, as they are a conscious company with an open spending-policy - you can actually see how many percent go to the villagers/guides etc. So there I was, all set and ready to go in the morning.
The trek and what happened afterwards I will share in another post!
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Judy
non-member comment
Thanks and more info
Thanks so much for this blog entry. It helped us get from Kunming to Luang NamTha. Some things have already changed, however (which will probably change again by the time the next traveler tries it.) When we traveled, there was one daily bus from Jinghong that left at 10:40 AM (pick-up at the south bus station at 10:55.) They couldn't sell us tickets for the bus until the evening before (maybe they don't know if it runs unless it shows up from Laos the night before.) The ride was good, and we arrived in the center of LNT near the market (instead of the out-of-town bus station) at around 5pm. I suppose the duration of the trip depends on the time spent at the border and/or the number of checks along the way (we never stopped at a weigh station, but made lots of stops to deliver or take on goods.) Cost was 70 RMB. Also, we didn't take the sleeper bus from Kunming to Jinghong, but got a day bus. We bought the ticket at the deserted bus station next to the train station and had to arrive at 8am for a 9am bus (we were shuttled to the bus which was waiting for us outside of town.) Cost was 200 RMB for a normal bus with seats. Arrived in Jinghong at about 6PM. Once again, thanks for the info and best wishes!