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Published: October 13th 2009
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Making our way to the South of Laos
On the tourist trail, certain people attempt to lock-in fat profits in particular situations. Take a busload of tourists arriving at the bus station as an example. One thing we noticed about Laos’s transportation was that drivers set a price per person instead of by vehicle. When we arrived in Vang Vieng there was only one Tuk-Tuk at the bus station. Another thing we noticed was often they wouldn’t compete. So, despite the fact that many Tuk-Tuk drivers were around, only one would be available for service. The rest would sit around and watch American wrestling (as was the case in …). My guess is they split the profits or take turns. Good on them for creating a successful cartel but frustrating as heck for anyone used to bargaining for services.
Eight travelers arrived on the same bus and the Tuk-Tuk driver was charging a set price of 10,000 kip per person to take us the 1.5 km into town. When several of us attempted to negotiate and were flatly shot down, Mazi, in her savvy-ness went out to the road and flagged down a passing driver. She quickly negotiated a ride into
town for half the price. She yelled over to the rest of us, so we hopped in, feeling grateful to Mazi and happy that we weren’t defrauded as so often happens.
When we got dropped off in town we walked for awhile to find a place to stay. The main drag was unimpressive with well-used hotels and unappealing pub style restaurants with crappy versions of western food in the menues. The electricity was turned off that day (we found out) so we didn’t find any local stalls or restaurants open. We were too hungry to find a room so we stopped at a restaurant with a sign labeling organic foods. The food wasn’t worth mentioning.
Our first impression of Vang Vieng was not the brightest. The town looked like it was set up completely for tourists and had no character. When we began walking again a Tuk-Tuk driver approached us. He offered us a free ride to a hotel near the river. We were curious as we hadn’t been impressed with what we had seen so far so we jumped aboard and he took us out of the down-town to a medium sized resort with bungalow style rooms beside the
river. The cozy rooms were an expensive $15 US dollars (including the Tuk-Tuk drivers’ finder’s fee), a slight splurge but it came with a fantastic view of the river and the bridge crossing over to the beautiful Karst mountains and caves.
We didn’t go tubing but we saw many tourists with cuts and bandages. Instead we went on a tame but beautiful bike ride on a bumpy gravel road through a picturesque backdrop of rice terraces and Limestone mountains. We passed through several villages and paid the fee to climb up and inside one of the caves advertised by kids along the way.
Vientiane - A busier place (because it’s the biggest city and capital) but still very sleepy, not much to do but eat BBQ fish by the river and watched the sunset. I (Mazi) enjoyed a massage and we went to the Australian Embassy Clinic for a Hep A booster. We left with sore arms and a big hole in our wallet but better safe than sorry; a young UK man was at the Clinic looking for a cure…
On our second night, arriving at almost the same time, to the riverside bar-b-que stand was David
and Claire. This was now the third time we ran into each other unexpectedly in our travels, too weird!
Thattek - Since we arrived in the evening there was not much to see. The bus station did not feel very welcoming; the hotels were empty and trashy so we walked along the highway to find a hotel. As we walked further we walked by a small hole in the wall with dim red lights with a sexy photo of a couple kissing. We had to head on a little further to avoid the hourly hotels. At the end we found a clean, empty hotel with a nice new white Toyota truck parked in front. A family owned the hotel and the children were startled to see guests while they were goofing around in the living room tossing balloons up and chasing them and running into furniture. It was a cute scene. We stayed one night and caught a bus the next day. In the morning it was pouring rain but we had to walk to the bus station so we geared up with bulky plastic rain covers over our big packs. We’ll just say we didn’t look very graceful.
Savanakhet - In Savanakhet we went for a nice walk along the Mekong River. Everyone was out biking and relaxing & chatting with family outside of their home enjoying the evening breeze. It was really nice to see the sense of community (as we commonly found throughout Asia). Dinner of bbq’d fish was delicious but the cucumber and papaya salads were really spicy. Yikes, it burned our tongues!
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