After a few days in Koh Samui our scheduled time in Asia was rapidly coming to end. Our initial intention was to minimise our time in Thailand and rather concentrate on getting to Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. By this stage, though, and with only four scheduled days left in Asia, we had only made it to Vietnam. It was time to test the bend of our flexible round the world air ticket and we got in touch with our travel agent back in Joburg. The results weren't great. We wouldn't be able to extend our current ticket as there were no available seats to Brazil on our package until Christmas. However, we could cancel our ticket and change to an Emirates flight for an extra ZAR 3,000 that would give us two more weeks in Asia. The added advantage of this flight was that it would also reduce our existing 45 hour journey (via Abu Dhabi and Johannesburg) to 25 hours (only via Abu Dhabi). Bonus. We took the plunge, dug deep into our budgets, and took this change to keep in line with one of our main goals of this tour: to try see what we want, when we want, even if we have to pay in a little.

More time on our hands reopened the Laos and Cambodia discussions and, due to it being further away from Bangkok, we decided to head north to Laos first and Cambodia second. We'd enter via the border closest to Vientiane, the Laos capital.

It took a flight to Bangkok, a sky train, a subway, an overnight train, a quick train across the border and a tuk-tuk to eventually get to Vientiane from Koh Samui. We also needed to get the visa on arrival at the border for USD 35 (you can pay in Thai Baht but you get a very kak exchange rate). Yes, a direct flight to Vientiane would have been much easier but it was exorbitantly expensive and not in the budget after our recent Asian extension. After 24 hours of travelling we made it into Laos and arrived in its very laid back, quiet and small capital city. There was definitely no hustle and bustle here and in fact it was more like a third world version of a small, French, riverside town thanks to its early French colonizers.

The centre is where most tourists stay in Vientiane and although the city spreads fairly wide, there isn't much on offer outside of the centre. There aren't many hostels and rooms are either in hotels or guest houses (though many of these are effectively hostels). Prices of accommodation is very cheap but we did find that general expenses were actually more expensive than in Thailand. There isn't an abundance to do here either but there is probably enough to keep you occupied for a day or two on your stop over to the more sought after backpacker stop of Vang Vieng.

You can also enter Laos from Chiang Mai in the North of Thailand. Chances are, that via this route, you will be heading to Luang Prabang. This is the third of the main tourist stops in Laos and the entire city is a UNESCO Heritage Site. We never made it to Luang Prabang as we didn't think that it would offer much more than Vientiane and we also preferred to have more time in Vang Vieng.

The schlep of getting to Laos shouldn't be a deterrent to visiting the country and although Vientiane, and probably Luang Prabang, aren't the most exciting of tourist destinations, going to Vang Vieng should definitely be on any backpackers' hit list. Read more about Vang Vieng in our next post.

Trek on…Brett and Darren

P.S. Keep up to speed with where we've been staying and how we've been getting around in our blog posts from Johannesburg