Blogs from East, Laos, Asia - page 3

Hello. 8h30 du mat, tuk-tuk jusqu'à la gare routière. On part en minivan à Phonsavan, dans l'Est du pays à une petite centaine de kilomètres de la frontière avec le Vietnam. La ville se trouve dans les montagnes à 1200m d'altitude. Il faut 6 heures pour y aller. Le trajet est plutôt sympa avec de jolis paysages et une image plus réaliste du vrai Laos. Mais la route est plutôt cabossée et comme toute route de montagne, elle n'est pas en ligne droite. Beaucoup, beaucoup, beaucoup de virages. A croire qu'il leur restait du goudron à dépenser. Heureusement je ne crains pas les routes de montagne mais le chauffeur me racontait qu'ici les chauffeurs sont obligés de prévoir les sacs plastique car il y a souvent des personnes qui s'amusent à déposer une gerbe... mais pas ... read more

Another bus journey… This time we chose to go during the day though. The bus was supposed to leave at 8am from the Northern Station, but thanks to a guy working at the bus station in the centre we would be picked up from the centre instead! He said it was no problem at all, he would just divert the bus for us. Wow! How nice was that! As we were waiting for our bus I thought that maybe he forgot to do that after all as it was 9am and the bus was nowhere to be found yet (we were supposed to leave at 8am). But eventually it came a few minutes after – funny yellow minibus packed with locals and their stuff. At the beginning it looked like we might have to fight over ... read more

Hi! We have arrived in Vietnam now after a THIRTY hour bus journey haha!! We drove for seven hours and then so typical of Asian people they just stopped the bus at this random bus stop/hotel thing from 2am - 5am to wait for the border to open. Nobody told us what we were waiting for though and nobody told us this was going to happen when we bought the bus ticket haha! Anyway at 5 we sat off again but only for about 20 mins, then we had to go on foot to get our passports stamped, which was such a walk away! Then when we did all of that we had to all unload out bags and carry them literally 20 metres over the actual border from Laos to Vietnam and then we had ... read more

We were up early - that morning the gates of the guesthouse were unlocked - and rattling along in a tuktuk to the bus station to catch the 'express' bus to Phonsavan. Our bus (120,000 kip each) certainly didn't look much like the shiny VIP express bus - destination Vientiane - that it was parked beside it at the bus station. Not much more than a run down rattly local bus - the air conditioning that we had been sold the previous day comprised of open windows. But the seats were comfortable and it left on time packed with locals and with a total of six Western tourists (Michael and Emily from England, Marty and Carolyn from Canada plus us) on board. We followed the highway towards Vientiane - a pretty drive with lots a curves ... read more

V noci bola fakt kosa. Zobudil som sa na debilneho komara.Ma dobre postipal na ruku,ma to furt svrbi. Definitivne som vstal o 7/00,oholil sa a pobral sa prec. Motorku som zobral z ubytka,ktore je pri ceste do garden. Okolo 18/00 tu premietaju daky dokumentarny film,som si vsimol,ze toto robia vo vacsine zapadniarskych ubytiek. Motorka bola uplne bez stavy,tak mi tam domaci trochu sprtol nech sa dostanem na pumpu. V tomto ubytku som nakonec aj kupil listok na bus, majitel pohodak. Nechal som tu batoh a siel smer hrnce. Na pumpe som natankoval 1,85l benzinu a potom fakt uz smer hrnce. Cestou som sa radsej opytal ci mam dobry smer,jeden chalan vobec netusil kde sa nachadzaju hrnce a to bol miestny. Som sa ho pytal aj po laosky,nazov mi napisal majitel motorky a vobec sa nechytal. Nakonec ... read more