Advertisement
Published: April 1st 2010
Edit Blog Post
Our alternative transport
At least we won't need air-con Unfortunately our time in Vietnam has come to an end and we are now faced with the interesting prospect of travelling overland from central Vietnam to Thailand, via Laos. Whilst this was not the preferred route of travel, many things conspired against us to leave us with no other option.
The official tourist bus from Vietnam (Hue) to the Laos/Thai border of Savannakhet departs on every odd day. We needed to depart on an even day so our only option was to use the many other ‘tourist’ buses advertised by hotels and travel agents. After being assured (“same same”) the minibus taking us to the Vietnam /Laos boarder was a tourist bus with A/C and would go direct to the border and the bus meeting us in Laos would also be a tourist bus, we parted with our US$17... US$3 more than the official tourist bus price and crossed our fingers it would be ok.
If ever there is a scam this is it. The minibus which picks you up at your hotel is the only part which could be classified as a tourist service. After an hour of pick-ups we drive into the local bus station where the
tourist bus changes into a public bus! On enquiring at the ticket office the price from Hue to the border is 50,000 don (US$2.50).
The minibus was packed, the row in front of us had 5 adults and a baby squashed into 4 seats. The A/C was switched off until Natalie asked him to turn it back on and we made frequent stops to drop off and pick people up - so much for direct!
The border crossing was uneventful until we were told the bus picking us up was parked 1km down the road, a hot walk or US$1 motorbike ride, so much for being picked up just across the border! We set off on foot with the other tourists. We arrived at the bus station to discover the ‘tourist’ bus was in fact a local bus which was so packed people were hanging out of the door - no chance we were going to spend the next 5 hours crammed in like sardines! The bus pulled off leaving the eight of us stood in the dusty ‘bus station’ (which was more like a field).
One of the tourists was a Thai girl, she was able
The new bus...
...but were did it come from?? to converse with the Laos lady who was supposed to be part of the company organising the ‘tourist ’ bus. Thank god she was there as we don’t know how we would have organised the next bit without her. For an additional US$1 each we could hire a sawngthaew to take us to Savannakhet, our final destination. Annoyed that we were paying more money for something we had obviously overpaid for anyway we reluctantly loaded the bags on top and jumped on board (the alternative option was to wait for the next bus, approx 6 hours later). Strangely, about 1.5 hours into the trip an empty bus came the other way, we were transferred onto this bus which then picked up some locals, turned around and off we went again!
The Thai tourist was able to establish that the Vietnamese company who we booked through don’t give her much money and thus we needed to provide more money to cover the new transport cost. We therefore paid US$17 of which US$2.5 was for the Vietnam leg of the journey and probably less for the Laos side. Therefore someone is pocketing a lot of money to provide sweet FA; probably
a Vietnamese tourtist mafia racket. If anyone needs to complete this trip we advise you travel with the official tourist bus which ONLY departs on odd days and can ONLY be booked through Singh Cafe...you’ve been warned!
We finally arrived in Savannakhet 5 hours after leaving the boarder. We were hungry and dehydrated as we had no Laos Kip, no one would accept our Vietnamese Dong or our Thai Baht and we had used our US$ for the visa and transport. After a short wait and a bottle of water later we boarded a brilliant bus to take us over the bridge into Thailand where we were meeting Daniels friend from Yorkshire and his Thai partner. Hugh and Sue were waiting for us and we jumped into their car for the hour drive to Sue’s village. What a day, 3 countries in 16 hours!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.047s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 10; qc: 27; dbt: 0.0286s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb