We love Laos! (good riddance Vietnam)
Trip Start
Jul 29, 2003
1
26
31
Trip End
Dec 01, 2003
Vientiane,
Lao Peoples Dem Rep
Wednesday, October 22, 2003
So so happy to be in Laos now - we couldn't leave Vietnam quick enough. We had some good times but couldn't stand anymore of the slimy, thieving, lying people. I think I met about 6 genuine, nice people in the country, and 3 of them were from the same family.
Thankfully, the people in Laos are absolutely lovely!
Left Hanoi on Monday night and had a lovely 22 hour bus journey across the border to Vientiane in Laos. When I say lovely I actually mean horrendous.
The first bus we were on was ok as it had the nice reclining seats and air con. Then at about 10pm they booted us off this bus onto one which Janine immediately named the chicken cart bus (complete with empty crates at the back of the bus). We had rock hard non reclining seats and no aircon so some ancient fans which didn't work. We rattled along towards the border but suddenly came to a stop at 2am where the driver switched off the lights, pulled out his blanket and went to sleep, snoring as loudly as possible. We were all sat there wondering what was happening but knew there wasn't a chance in hell of them telling us so we just went to sleep as well.
I woke up a couple of hours later to find a Vietnamese guy (who we later named rat boy simply cos he had a face like a rat) next to me trying to kiss me! I asked what the hell he thought he was doing and pushed him onto the floor but funnily enough I couldn't get much sleep after that!
We got moving again at aout 6am and arrived at the border at about 7am where rat boy smacked everyone (even if they were already awake) and motioned at us to get off the bus to get our passports stamped. We tried to form an orderly queue at the immigration desk but the Vietnamese shoved us out the way and all herded round the desk. We eventually got our passports stamped and they asked us for one dollar. Janine asked why but we got no answer so just resigned ourselves to our final Vietnam rip off and Janine decided it was probably for their lunch money. Also after I got my passport stamped a policeman came running up to me, took it off me and ran upstairs. Just mine, no one elses. Reappeared after about 5 mins with my passport and just gave it back to me. Not at all sure what happened there.
We then got back on the bus (even though they'd driven us round the corner to try and hide it - something they do constantly in Vietnam which they seem to fnd really funny) and drove to the Laos border crossing. We got our passports stamped and felt ecstatic that we'd finally left Vietnam. We were still stuck with a bunch of slimy Vietnamese men though so we weren't quite ready to celebrate just yet.
We stopped for breakfast at a Vietnamese cafe where the menu consisted of delights such as...
- pigs heart and rice gruel
- boiled pigs legs
- pigs heart and kidney
- chicken stir fry with chicken tripe and pineapple
Yummy.
Me and Janine just opted for coffee and a bread roll. Halfway through eating our bread roll we find it is crawling with tiny ants. Lovely. But we were at the stage where it didn't really surprise us so just brushed them off and ate it anyway. After all it was either that or innards.
The scenery in Laos was beautiful although after a couple of hours we just wanted to be in Vientiane already. We were getting pretty hungry around 2pm hoping we were going to stop somewhere for lunch, but the only places we stopped at were to deliver some plastic sheeting to a shop, and also at some checkpoint where the bus driver blantantly gave the police a backhander with a huge wad of Laos kip. (Mind you a huge wad of Laos kip is only about 5 quid).
We arrived in Vientiane at about 4pm and along with Ken, an Irish guy we met on the bus, got a tuk tuk from a big fat jolly man who was blantantly trying to rip us off. Luckily Ken had been here before so managed to get our fare down from $3 to about $1. This would've been fine if the driver even knew where he was going but he stopped about five times so ask people where the guest house was! We got there to find it was full and then Janine realised she'd left a bag on the bus with loads of our presents in it! Me and Ken checked into a guest house down the road and they tried to make me share a room and seemed quite embarrassed when I explained we weren't together!
Meanwhile poor Janine had gone off with jolly tuk tuk man in search of our bus in the sligt hope that it was still in Vientiane somewhere. After about an hour of sitting in reception I was starting to get worried but was dragged outside to sit with the girls who worked in the guest house and plied with beer, beef and papaya salad (which they claimed wasn't hot but was full of chillis!), coconut and crisps. Starting to see what people meant about Laos people being so nice now.
Janine returned after 2 hours, amazingly with our bag in hand, having been on a nice tour of Vientiane and even outside the city, but saw rat boy and managed to track down the bus although somehow the door had broken to she had to climb in through the window!
We were starving by this time so went straight out for dinner dragging poor Ken with us, to a Tex Mex place (nothing like trying the traditional food) where we had a nice view of the mass outdoor aerobics that was going on across the road. We got a nice early night though as everywhere in Vientiane closes around 10:30/11pm and our guest house has a curfew of 11:30pm!
Dragged Ken out again this morning for breakfast (poor bloke) and pretty much lazed around all day as there's nothing at all to do here but that's nice after the hecticness of Vietnam. Went to a beer garden he recommended and stayed there for the rest of the day drinking Beer Lao at 40p for half a litre. Ken went back to catch the bus back to Bangkok while me and Janine stayed in the beer garden being served drinks we hadn't ordered (but only paying for half of them!).
After a couple of litres of beer we decided we'd better call it a day, but decided we're going back there for dinner now as its too good to resist!
xxx
