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Published: August 22nd 2012
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After the journey to Vang Vieng with the slightly crazy driver in the minivan we decided to get a “VIP bus”, another name for a coach, to Vientiene instead. We’d been told that the roads weren’t anywhere near as mountainous so we figured that the coach would be the better option. In the end it wouldn’t have made much difference, the road was just as bad as before only without the windy bits. The main highway running up through Laos seems to be a third tarmac, a third dirt road and the final third somewhere inbetween. The coach would be cruising along nicely when suddenly it’d be slamming on as we entered a stretch of dirt track, not the best journey ever but we got there ok.
Vientiene lies right on the border with Thailand and once you’re over the border you can get an overnight train in to Bangkok, which is why we were there. Because it’s the capital of Laos we thought we’d stay a night and see the sights before moving on.
We had loads of trouble finding a hotel in Vientianne, as they all seemed to be expenive and rubbish, going by the reviews! Our
hote was no exception! When we finaly found it, it turned out to be being fully redecorated, ad all te staff seemed more concerned with that than their guests. They initially took i our valuables but then phoned and asked us to pick them up from the desk, despite the sign in the rooms that said to leave them at the desk! At breakfast, nobody spoke to us until a women arrived and plonked 2 fried eggs in front of each of us, good job James doesn't like fried eggs hey!
Everything we’d read about Vientiene said that it was essentially a town with not much to do, which is exactly what it turned out to be. It seemed a bit strange to be in the capital of Laos and being able to walk around the centre and think that you’ve pretty much seen all there is to see in a morning. There is so much development going on in Vientianne, all the land along the river front is shown on maps as marsh land. Now you find miles of fenced off land being developed, i thin a few years will find a very different Vientianne!
In the end we visited a Buddhist temple which was nice, though compared with others we’ve seen it seemed a bit ordinary. We also had a wander to the Laos version of the Arc D’Triomphe or the Marble Arch, the sign on the wall telling you that it wasn’t actually finished seemed a bit typical.
After that we went for a coffee and had an hour before setting off to get across the border. The border at Vientiane is actually a river and there’s a Friendship Bridge across it, you sign out of Laos on one side get across and sign into Thailand on the other. We’d read that there was a train service twice a day across the bridge to the station on the other side, it seemed ideal for us and so we asked the hotel how long it would take to get to the station and how much it would cost in a Tuk Tuk. They told us it would take 10 minutes and would cost 50 000 Kip, about 3 pounds.
It turned out to be total rubbish, much like the hotel, we ended up paying about a tenner for the Tuk Tuk and after about a 40 minute journey we’d missed the train. It was looking like it might be a bit of a disaster. We got the same Tuk Tuk to the Friendship Bridge and made to cross it that way. We managed to get signed out of Thailand easily enough, and jumped on a shuttle bus across the bridge. You can’t cross the bridge on foot and the bus isn’t free, about a pound each. We were feeling pretty apprehensive about getting to the station on time, we had about 40 minutes before the train left which sounds like a long time but we’d found that entering countries takes a lot longer than leaving them, not much of a surprise there.
We were pleasantly surprised to find that the Thai side was empty and it took all of ten minutes to get into Thailand. We jumped on another Tuk Tuk and somehow managed to get to the station with 20 minutes to spare. Enough time to get a packet of crisps and a few beers for the train. Panic over.
Overall Laos is a beautiful country with fantastic jungle and hill scenary. It is racing to try and grow with he tourism, but its deffinately still catching up! Luang prabang however is a little diamond in the rough!
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