4/11/08

Arrival to Vientiane, Laos

On Monday (3/11/08) we took a bus leaving from Bangkok for Laos at 7:30pm. This journey was to take 10 hours to the Thai/Laos border and then a further 4 hours at the border and arrival at Laos' capital city, Vientiane.

The bus wasn't too busy which was brilliant and meant we had plenty of space to be comfortable. It stopped several times at service stations bu seeing as it was through the night it meant we had very disturbed sleep. As an example, we stopped 12:45am and the driver switched all the lights on and told everyone to get off? It was more a shame for some of the small kids on the bus who were fast asleep. At another stop the driver started fillling the tank up with petrol and again we were told to get off. When we looked outside onto the forecourt there were swarms and swarms of mosquitos flying about so we were obviously reluctant to do so. Luckily I had jeans on but put on my hoodie and even pulled the hood on to avoid getting attacked my the mozzies!

At around 6am this morning we had stopped at a small cafe and again told to get off. This time it was to sort out the visa application and arrival cards ready for when we arrived at the border.

The border crossing too was an experience and took a good hour at least to get through. We firstly had to get off the bus and queue to hand our passports in with the departure card for Thailand. The official didnt want to see our visa application forms. I had to stand and have my picture taken. I looked in my passport and realised that my stay at Thailand had been terminated and at that point I had no authority to be in Thailand or Laos!

We were ushered back on the bus and drove for a further 10 minutes down the road, passing the firendship bridge between Thailand and Laos.

Again we were told to get off the bus and queued to hand our passports and visa application forms over to an official who demanded 36US dollars, gave no change nor receipt and then told you to stand somewhere round the corner at the same time as waving the next person in the queue to come over! So we waited at a small window round the corner which said 'collect passports here' and we waited and waited...about 30 minutes later we could see the same official walking acroos the room to open this other window and passed out three passports randomly to whoever was standing closest to the window and then closed it again for another 15 minutes! Luckily mine was one of the first.

I looked in my passport to see that I had received a visa stamp in my passport with a departure date.

The coach we had travelled in so far left us at the border and we now boarded a local bus which was very different and old! It took just 15 minutes for us to be transferred to Vientiane. With our backpacks in tow we decided to get a tuk tuk to the guesthouse we had googled the night before. The charge was to be 1US dollar each - we thought we were getting a good deal until we took a turning off the main road, along for a bit and then back on this same road. We were dropped off just at the same time that we saw fellow travellers from the bus walking up the street. One said to us that the bus stop was just up the road...less than a couple of minutes walk!

The guesthouse we were planning to stay in was full but were directed to the one next door. Caz and I checked the room first and decided it to be ok for the night. We were more keen just to all get freshened up.

Despite only having maybe 2-3 hours of undisturbed sleep lastnight, we have managed to squeeze in a visit to Vat SiSket and Vat Ong Teu. The road near to Vat SiSket (Avenue Lanexang) is a long stretch of straight road up to the Patouxay Monument shown in the blog picture.

This evening we got tickets to see a traditional Lao dance performance (Yensabai Show) and have just returned after it finished. It was really good and consisted of 10 different performances showing some of the traditional dances from different regions of Laos. They even asked us up to dance afterwards! I took plenty of pictures which i'll have to upload onto here because the costumes were very rich and vibrant.