Friday 14 March 2014

Laos departure..... I'm awake quite early, but there's plenty of time for breakfast and arrange a packed lunch and drinks for the trip to the border. It's just a case now of a wait until transport collects me. This is the usual arrangement in Laos where virtually every hotel and guesthouse doubles as a travel agent. I take a last look around at the mountains I've been used to for the last couple of weeks knowing it won't be like this for much longer. A little after 9 am the transport arrives. It's another one of those small buses or is it a large van? It will travel around Vang Vieng until it's full. That takes time but just after 10 am all is ready and the bus heads south towards Vientiane. The distance is 155 km. In the UK that journey would take 2 hours but in Laos you must simply double that. Mountains or not the roads are never that good and often full of mobile chicanes. In the UK we call them cows! At about midday there is a rest stop. I hadn’t expected that.
Back at Vang Vieng I changed all my kip for Thai baht. Luckily I still had some small baht for a convenience. At about half way the Song Valley widens and the mountains I've been used to disappear. Then at around 2 pm the bus is in the suburbs of Vientiane. I hadn't figured that the driver would enter the capital as the Friendship Bridge at Thanaleng is some way east of the city, but I guess there's time for a bit of sightseeing. However, the bus has one drop-off to make before the bridge and that cuts the compliment by half. The other half enters the train station at Thanaleng. Although I'm aware that this station just across the Thai border has existed for some years, I've never seen the point in catching a train to here. Maybe I should pay more attention and as I have time to take some photographs, I resolve to feature it in the railways section of this website.
Disorganized..... This chapter outlining my epic journey through four Laotian provinces is about to end, but it's probably too much to ask the Laos Immigration Department to provide me with smooth passage into Thailand. I wouldn't trust them to make a pot of tea. Thanaleng/Nong Khai is the busiest Lao/Thai crossing by far, and I wouldn't be surprised if it handles more traffic than all the others put together but all the more reason to get it organized. For the life of me I cannot see why they've introduced an electronic card to allow subway train style passage through electronic gates. It just confuses everybody with no clear instructions anywhere. The best part of an hour is wasted in the queue. By contrast, I'm processed through Thai Immigration in under 5 minutes and as one door closes another one opens. Rather than continue my blog here I've decided to close it now and open a new one which will appear in my tour summary titled Udon Thani. However, this is also a suitable moment to draw some conclusions about this unusual Laos tour.
Conclusion..... The selection of the 17-day tour duration in Laos was governed by the longer than normal period of stay in the Far East. Without any restrictions, an awful lot could be achieved in this time. However, I'd made an early decision to concentrate on just two locations as in the past I'd always seemed pressed for time to fully exploit my selected tour sites. As it turned out the health restriction I was under might have suggested I cancel the tour, but I calculated there would be ample time for rest. What I ended up with was a tour of four provinces in Laos that I'd never stayed in before and not some of the more obvious. Apart from Vang Vieng which has now become quite popular, the other locations are not those that tourists naturally head for. The first location at Thakhek I didn't exploit except to witness the old French town there and the second location at Pakxan really had nothing to exploit, it was just a rest stop. So I was left with the two original ones which divided my remaining time equally. At Phonsavan I realized how remote this place was, yet it still attracted a few tourists. The history of the place both ancient and modern deserves far more attention, but it's not hard to see why it doesn't. The mysterious Plain of Jars is under consideration by UNESCO as a site of special historic importance, but the concern is still the high level of unexploded ordnance in the area. Access to a Thai border crossing point is difficult, an arduous journey of 9 hours: The Vietnamese crossing point by contrast is 2 to 3 hours away. Vang Vain is much more amenable to tourists and was on my rest list. However, I found plenty to do there. My verdict on Laos is positive, but one has to expect that this land-locked country has a lot of catching up to do. If you are under 40 years old you may never have experienced a lifestyle quite like it, but it has the power to open minds. As far as the climate is concerned it is very dry and dusty until the rains come in May, clearing the heat haze and bursting into life. Just a final word about Vieng Thara Guesthouse; it was so typically Laotian, showing its age but cheap and functional. Importantly, I never had a bad night's sleep there or issues of any kind.
Tour continues to Udon Thani or back to First Page