A shock in the night
We didn’t have much of a timescale as to when we’d be arriving in Laos. The coach operator had just told us it’s a long journey and that we’ll be arriving in Laos tomorrow (meaning today). Everyone on the coach was woken up at around 4am by the lights being blasted on, and someone yelling for people bound for Laos to get off. We were all then directed to a much smaller bus parked just ahead of us. I don’t know what the plan was but we, and several others, were waiting for ages for…something, anything, to happen. For our experience travelling from China to Vietnam, check it out here.
Whilst we were waiting, a few locals decided to slaughter a pig on the pavement just outside of our bus. I was alerted to this by Mischa seeing it from the window and recoiling in horror at the event that would soon take place. Mat stood at the door and watched, whilst I stayed in my seat. It wasn’t much better to be honest, the high-pitched squealing of the pig cut right through me. The slaughter took place over 10-15 minutes, I didn’t see much, but I did see blood and guts flowing down the gutter. It was a rather grim ordeal, especially at 4am! There was an awful lot of waiting around, and not knowing what was happening, in the dark, on a small bus, in a small town. The drivers seemed to disappear and reappear half an hour later, drive us for 2 minutes, then disappear again.
To the border
We were in a small bus yard, which also contained food stands, for an hour or so. Mischa, Mat, and I got a banh mi for breakfast, can never go wrong with them! We were wondering when we’d actually be arriving in Laos. Everyone from the bus had to wait until around 7:30am until the bus finally moved towards the border. It was still a bumpy and shaky drive, especially on the cliff edge!
Not too long after, we reached the border, and entered the Vietnamese border gate. It didn’t take long for us to get stamped out of Vietnam. Once everyone was ready, we took a short bus journey to the Laos border gate…this is where things got tricky, and lengthy. When you get there, you have to get a form from the first window, you have to fill this in with your passport info, reasons for travelling, as well as where you’re staying. It’s not super strict, so if you don’t know where you’ll be staying, you can just put a city/town you’re going to first.
After filling in all your info, you line up again and go to the next window. This is where you give your passport photos, passport, and most importantly, your money. On top of the visa fee (which varies from country to country), there’s also a few made-up fees for stamps, environment, etc. Straight in their pockets I’m sure. For most people, despite begrudgingly paying these extra fees, the process happened smoothly enough. However, for some it took absolutely ages. This was mainly due to their dollars being old or imperfect. We were at the border for about 3 hours, waiting for folks to sort their stuff out. For some great info on the crossing, check out this site.
Tip!
My biggest piece of advice arriving in Laos at the Tay Trang border is to make sure you have perfect dollars. If your dollars are too old or are defaced in any way (including bank stamps on the dollars) they’ll probably be rejected. This situation was only resolved after the bus driver used his dollars for some of the folks with ‘damaged’ dollars. The visa fee is $35 for British tourists, but this depends on nationality, I believe the highest was $42 for Canada. They also don’t accept e-visas, and there wasn’t any internet or an ATM, so if you don’t have good money, you’re in a pickle! You’ll also need 2 passport photos, they are able to take photos here, but it’ll cost an additional fee. Most people exchange their VND for Lao kip, although the exchange rate isn’t too good.
Hitting the road
At around 12pm we were finally on the move. Everything had been sorted, and very shortly, we were arriving in Laos. This was halted short as we stopped for lunch half an hour later, everyone just wanted to get a move on! The roads were very bumpy and this made me feel quite sick. I was on a ‘pop-up seat’ in the aisle of the bus. After lunch, I had to swallow my morals and take someone else’s seat, else I’d probably puke imminently. After some more time, we finally arrived at our destination, Muang Khua, at around 2pm. It was a small and unremarkable village, but it was perfect. The village was quiet, quaint, dusty, and very hot. It wasn’t much, but it was everything I’d hoped for.
Our first port of call was withdrawing from the ATM, which was thankfully nearby. Every time we move locations, it’s always a rush to find somewhere to stay so we can take our backpacks off. We wondered around for some time, trying to find somewhere to stay, as opposed to the guesthouse everyone else flocked to. The 3 of us had picked an Austrian fellow up, called Jonathan. This made it a bit more awkward to find a room/s. Most likely it’d be a room for Mat and I, then Mischa and Jonathan, even though they were basically strangers to each other. Eventually we had to bite the bullet and stay at the place everyone else was staying in, this was called the Manchai Guesthouse. It was nice to be honest, no complaints. After we dropped our stuff off at the guesthouse, we went out for food and exploration.
Seeing the village
At the guesthouse, there was a slightly heated debate about who gets which bed between Mat and I. In accordance to the unofficial, unwritten rules of bed claiming, I verbally said I’d take the bed nearest the door. However, he claimed that him putting his bag on the bed first (by a second) gave him ownership. The rule is CLEARLY that you have to say you bagsy the bed, not put your bag on it. I know you’re going to read this Mat, so you cheated! Anyway, after a small spat, we did rock, paper, scissors, and thankfully we’re civilised enough to honour those rules. He got the bed fair and square.
The 4 of us left and went to a restaurant we had seen earlier. Of course, it was pretty much the only place to eat, so we met basically everyone who was on the bus, at the restaurant. We had a nice meal and a refreshing drink before we left and headed down the road to the river. The river was in a valley, and it was ever so beautiful and peaceful. It was great seeing the kids playing in the water, and having so much fun. Mischa was pretty tired, so she went to bed whilst the 3 of us lads got SIM cards and mobile data. The process was made very easy by the girl at the shop (they’re sold at convenient stores).
After this, we went on to walk further out of the village for quite some time, just soaking the atmosphere up, as well as seeing the locals living their daily lives. This moment in time was so simple, yet everything I wanted out of my travels. After some time, we decided to go back to base and turn in for the night.
Tip!
When arriving in Laos, you can get a SIM from pretty much any convenient store. You then get mobile data by loading credit on to your phone (via small cards with codes on them) and then texting a certain code to the operator’s number, and your SIM will have that data package on your phone. We went for Unitel (apparently the best in Laos) as well as 5GB of data for 30 days. This costs 50’000 kip and you text the code *209*24#. The woman talked all of us through it, and it was simple in the end. But I thank the stars she was there to help us through the process. God bless these people going out of their way to help us. I’ve said it before, but I highly recommend looking at options and providers on this website here.
