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The mission from Pai to Luang Prabang!
For anyone reading this and wondering what is the best option to cross the border and get to Luang Prabang don't do what I did and take the bus. Take the slow boat!!!
But for all your amusement I will tell you my ordeal that was the mission to Luang Prabang! Step one was leaving Pai to get to Chiang kong on the Thai border. It was going to be a long bus ride however I hadn't bargained on being squashed up against the window and sat on by a 2metre tall Dutch guy! Until we got to Chiang mai all was good. I had a window seat and everyone had loads of room and said guy had the two back seats. However once in Chiang mai we picked up three more very tall Canadians. Now being the smallest person there I felt I had to take the back seat as they simply would not fit... Great! Five more hours to go.
Now once at the border we are shown to our rooms for the night. I kid you not our room was like something off of saw... Enough said. We had also arrived so late in the night that we thankfully only had a few hours there. As apparently leaving for immigration would take place at 6.30 am.
But we're in Thailand so of course that was wrong. We didn't set off until 8am. Now the border crossing. There is nothing to worry about as it is all fairly straightforward however it takes forever.....! A good two hours! I had booked to go on a bus up north which was supposed to leave at 8am (ha!) but which left around 10.30am. So next step was a bus ride up to luang namtha in the north if Laos. The bus ride was actually really nice. Good roads and great scenery. I didn't know what all the fuss was about. (Oh Catherine, you just wait!) and I spent a lovely night in a good priced hotel and had some chill time before the next long bus ride.
It was a good job I did. However all the chilling done in Pai and beyond could not have prepared me for my next bus journey. So the roads that existed yesterday had disappeared today. What's more I had been upgraded to a local bus. This bus fit 25 adults in it however there were only 20 seats. How? I hear you ask. Magic! They had fold out aisle seats! Oh yes, the aisle disappeared and seats folded out to fit more on! A tight squeeze doesn't even come close. What's more there was no air conditioning so we opened the windows. Which was great until we hit the dust.
So the roads were not just potholed but it was more a sand track with bits of concrete road. And our poor driver got this old bus through the winding track and drove for ten hours!!! I could have kissed that man when we got to Luang Prabang! And he was smiling the whole way there. I think that was down to the amazing Laos bus music. A mix of genres from sultry saxophone to full on disco rave!
Now the three day mission wasn't all that bad. I got to see some beautiful Laos scenery on the way including little villages and magical garlic and rice fields hidden in the mountains. So alls well that ends well and I am now safely here in Luang Prabang, Laos! Sabaideeeeee !!! :)
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