I can’t remember the name of the bus company but we caught the bus to Vientaine from outside the Friendly Backpackers hostel on Nguyen huu huan street, Hanoi, Vietnam. We travelled on a Monday which meant we went on an old bus (double sleeper seats on each side rather than 3 singles AND no toilet! – old bus on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday but none of the people selling you tickets will tell you that, the new bus has a toilet and will be like the other sleeper buses in Vietnam travels on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays). A guy came to meet us at our hotel and we then had to follow/chase him to the backpackers place to get a minibus for half an hour to then get on the big bus, they took our passports (so keep an eye on who takes it!), he returned and then hurried all the westerners onto the bus.
We made a couple of stops out of the city, one which was considerably longer than the others… It was getting dark and we stopped pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Up until this point people had been getting on with the odd suitcase, bag of fruit and boxed fan and the bus was fairly full. However this new group were shuttling stuff backwards and forwards in ‘moving house’ fashion. With all but the kitchen sink on the bus, and it was so full they had to take all the luggage out of the hold and put the backpackers luggage on top, then on came the pair of mattresses… Now officially full!
It was long old journey – pretty much 24hrs (plenty of water and snacks needed), we made a fair few stops but that’s probably more to do with the lack of toilet, so if you get the new bus you might be shut in for longer, a stop for dinner then a stop at the border for a few hours (there’s a cafe there that does pho if you fancy an early breakfast, it’s 5000VND to use the loo). We got there around 4am but the border doesn’t open until 7am, they didn’t wake people up until about half 6 though, when they told everyone to get their passports stamped to leave Vietnam (US$1). We then walked a muddy kilometre to the Laos border to get an entry stamp and visa. We then got back on the bus for the final part of the journey to Vientiane.
We stopped off in Vientiane solely as a stop off in order to get our Thai visas (The visa exemption criteria changes often so make relevant phone calls and check the Thai embassy website or just get a visa while at home to be safe! Although the .gov site says you can have 30 days on entry when you enter by land or air, while we were there entry via land was only valid for 15 days, by air was 30 days. You can only get a Thai visa from certain places, the only place in Laos was Vientiane.
There isn’t an awful lot to the Laos capital apart from food, as we were only there for a few days while waiting for our visas, we thought we’d get by!
Our first meal was a bit of a let down, Ai Capone, a highly recommended (according to Tripadvisor) but overpriced Italian restaurant. We were tempted in by the offer of a ‘Special set menu’ which turned out to only be valid at lunchtime…it was 7pm. As we’d already sat down an ordered drinks, we stayed. The food looked good and tasted fine but I think we were just expecting a bit more.
The food we experienced the following night (and the one after that!) more than made up for it! I’m not even sure that the place had a name but if you ever find yourself in Vientiane, you have to try it! You’ll find it on Rue Francois Ngin, about half way down – it’s the place with amazing looking and smelling food outside, red plastic chairs and lots of very friendly staff! It has a red and white marquee style roof, warning, when it rains heavily – choose your seats wisely, you may get wet!
We went searching for some hidden beauty of Vientiane… We went to the top of Patuxai to see views of the city, see the world peace gong and experienced a weird halo effect sunset… A few temples and the obligatory market were also on our to see list!
