Stocked up with our favourite travelling treats; french pain chocolat and iced canned coffee, we grabbed a TukTuk to the bus station (i.e. the side of the road where a minivan was randomly parked) for our epic bus ride north to Luang Prabang. People had quoted a wide range of times of how long it would take; 9 – 12 hours! So we were expecting some interesting driving conditions and delays – along with some car sickness. Similarly the prices of bus ranges from 140,000 kip to 200,000kip (20-30 NZ dollars); pretty expensive compared to the rest of Asia. It’s difficult to find a difference in quality for that price when booking – ‘damned if you do and damned if you don’t’
The trip to Vang Vieng was done in a mini bus; a quick trip of only 3 hours, but the speed made the very twisty road through the mountain passes seem like a rally race. We stopped about five time due to other passengers car sickness. The scenery is amazing in Laos; huge limestone karst mountains and cliffs everywhere. Bright green rice fields and hundreds of school children with colourful umbrellas biking huge distances to attend school.
We then changed to a much large VIP bus – we hadn’t at this stage worked out the difference between the VIP/express bus/VIP express bus or the radically named VVIP express bus. Arriving late to a waiting full bus we were left with the dud seats down the back near the toilet, unable to a actually sit in them as our knees were hard up against the one in front. To our luck a nice small local swapped seats.
The road from Vang Vieng to Luang Prabang is an 8 hour epic – through more massive mountain passes and pot holed roads. It seems there is no money spent on maintenance or construction, unlike in Cambodia, as we had yet to see a road working crew at all.
We arrived at 7pm in the pitch black, pouring rain, at some random bus station outside the city. Obviously not the ideal start, but by now we were use to this. As with any good bus station, the TukTuk’s had formed a little cartel, so no one took any passengers for less than the monopoly rate of 20,000kip (3 dollars). Walking outside to the street immediately halved the bill. Luckily we knew the place we were going to stay at, unlike many of the other backpackers who would have to go hunting in the rain or risk going to the place where the TukTuk took you and got commission for doing so. Another couple who we had met tagged along with us to our place.
We had a quick bite to eat at a local restaurant down near the Mekong river – our faith in Lao cuisine slowly returning. Until now we had found Lao food to be rather indistinct from other Asian cuisines – almost as if it has failed to find its own identity. Many restaurants simple did ‘a bit of this and that’, unlike in Cambodia and Vietnam which had definable regional variation and styles.