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Laos
Laos by Train
In April 1997, my one-year student visa expired and I had to leave Thailand to get a new visa. I elected to go to Laos as I have been to Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Australia, Hong Kong and Vietnam before. Also you can go to Laos my train and then take a bus across the Mekong River on a new bridge built by the Australians. There I obtained a new 90-day visa, which will keep me current until July when I travel to the US.
I left on Monday the 13th on a first class overnight train. The train arrived in the morning and I took a tuk-tuk to the bridge and a bus across. There I obtained a Lao visa for $50 and changed $100 into Lao kip. What a surprise, I get a stack of bills two inches thick. Their largest note is 1000 kip, worth about 40 cents. This is about the same value as the smallest common Thai note of 20 baht. Shared a taxi into Vientiane the capital of Laos and found a nice guesthouse to stay at.
I had imagined, from what I read in the guidebook, that Vientiane was a picturesque, quaint, old French colonial town on the river. I had planned to stay in a guesthouse by the river and just lay around, relax and read. Turns out on the Vientiane side of the river, there is a very big sandbar during the dry season and the water is a long ways away. Then to top things off, the city is putting in new drainage ditches and has the road by the river bank all dug up and they have torn down all the restaurants that were on the riverbank, including the famous Mixay café. This has also ruined the businesses for all the guesthouses by the river.
I was also hoping to avoid the Thai New Year "Songkran" festivities by going to Laos. Songkran is a time the kids love and the rest of us hate. Everywhere you go, you get doused with buckets of water and even garden hoses. You stay completely soaked all day. I stayed inside my apartment in Bangkok to avoid it. But when I arrived in Nong Khai, the Thai town across the border from Laos and took a tuk-tuk to the bridge, I was doused by buckets of water and hoses from both sides of the road. This soaked my backpack, my camera and me, so I was unable to take any photos in Laos. Then in Laos, I found Songkran was not only celebrated, it started a day later and ended a day later. So I got soaked walking around town for three days. Being that I was traveling light with only three changes of clothes meant that when I returned to the hotel I put on dry duds, but then had to change back into the wet duds whenever I left the hotel.
I found this one traffic circle with a fountain in the center, a beer bar surrounding the fountain and several restaurants surrounding the traffic circle. One was a Scandinavian bakery with very good sandwiches. Had lunch, dried off and talked to one of the interesting locals, a reporter during the war that forgot to go home. He told me a lot of places to check out. That night I walked around town and not only do Vientiane's sidewalks have more holes to step into than Bangkok's, most streets are unlit.
The next day everything was closed so I walked around down by the river, or really, riverbank by the sandbar. The road was a muddy mess with the construction and Songkran. Now my clothes were not only wet, but also muddy. Could not find the Mixay and found that it had been torn down just two weeks before. Compared to Thailand which is a bargain to the US and most countries, Laos is dirt cheap, with a large bottle of beer (660cc) being $1, T-shirts $2 and a steak dinner $3.
Vientiane was pretty boring, especially when I found the Thai embassy to be closed not only during the Thai New Year, but also the Lao New Year. This meant I had to wait until Friday to turn in my application then wait 3 working days, until Tuesday to get it. The only saving grace was good cheap restaurants. In the circle by the fountain, besides the Scandinavian bakery, were excellent Indian, French, Italian and Continental restaurants and I had time to try all of them. Then after being soaked for 3 days with hoses and buckets of water during Songkran, I awoke Friday to 3 days of rain.
Then Tuesday, my last day, I awake to beautiful day. I picked up my visa first thing and decide to take the city tour that was not being run during Songkran. This is an official tour run by the Laos Tourism authority. It runs only Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Only problem is, most of the temples they take us to are closed Monday and Tuesday. Turns out, in the past they were closed Sunday and Monday, but the government changed the days without telling their Tourism Authority. The Buddha Park, however, was open and it had many interesting half animal/man statues plus a very large reclining Buddha.
Flights to Bangkok from Vientiane were $120 and the next flight was 6PM. So, having lots of time, I decided to do like the locals, travel to Udon Tani in Thailand and take a Thai domestic flight for $33. Took a tuk-tuk to the bridge for $4 and bus for $3 to the Udon airport. It is huge, no aircraft and you can hardly see to the end of the runway. I hear we built it for B-52's during the war.
I got stuck in Vientiane a bit longer than I planned. Returning to Thailand was a lot like leaving Mexico and driving back into the US. Everything is more modern and the roads are a lot better. The local expats were a strange but interesting bunch. Also met some other interesting travelers and even some old friends from Bangkok that I had not seen for a long time. As for the national beer, "Beer Lao", it was cheap but I had a hard time drinking it much of it. Guess the old saying "it tastes like horse piss" would be a fitting description.
Glenn Todd, April 1997
Laos by Car
In December 1998, I had no plans for a year end vacation as my father is arriving on 10 January and I will take him around Thailand. But I a Thai friend, Werawat, invited me to ride up to Vientiane, Laos after Christmas with him. He and his friend Pyson picked me and my girlfriend, Nit, up Sunday morning after Christmas. We drove north on highway 2. Leaving Bangkok there was not much traffic and outside Bangkok it was a 4 lane divided road 3/4 of the way to the border, so we made good time clipping along at close to 140 Kph or 85 Mph. We stopped along the roadside for lunch over looking Lam Trakon reservoir and ate a big catfish caught in it. We then stopped at Phimai to see an Angkor period Khmer shrine from the 10/11th century.
We arrived at Nong Khai the city on the border with Laos about 7 PM and found a nice hotel with rooms for about $25. We ate dinner at the open air restaurant on the roof. It was cool and windy and all of the Thai's were wearing jackets but I thought it felt great. We had BBQ at our table and the fire kept everyone warm. Had a few bottles of beer and Werawat ended up on stage singing with the band. After the band quit we went to a big disco next door. Had a $2 cover charge and that covered your first drink!
In the morning drove to the bridge but they wouldn't let Werawat drive his car in because he still owed money to the bank for it. So he parked it and we took a bus over the Friendship Bridge to the Laos side. I got a visa there which was good for 15 days for $30, down from $50 I paid my last trip. The Thais can get a three day two night pass free without a passport which they did. Took a taxi about 10 miles to Vientiane and stayed at a nice hotel I knew from my last trip.
In the evening we went to a beer garden for dinner. Big pitchers of Beer Lao were only 5,000 Kip or $1.20. We ate and consumed quite a few. Then we went to The Fountain which is the expat hangout in Vientiane. It has beer and pizza and in the center of a traffic circle that is surrounded by Vientiane's best European restaurants. Had another pitcher or two there then moved onto a Lao disco for a few beers and then to an expat disco in Vientiane's largest hotel. There one can of Beer Lao was 10,000 kip which we thought was outrageous after paying only 5,000 earlier for a whole pitcher so we left. The next day we realized that 10,000 was only $2.40 which we pay everyday for a beer in Bangkok.
The next day we slept in and met Werawat and Tyson for lunch at a Lao restaurant which had really great Lao food. Then they left for the border and we went for a walk along the river bank although there is a big sandbar separating the river bank from the river during the dry season. That night had a great pepper steak at a French restaurant on the circle around the fountain for $3.60.
Wednesday we had to leave because Nit could not stay any longer on her border pass. We got up early and took a city tour of Vientiane and had them drop us at the bridge. There we took the bus across and a van down to the airport 50 Km away in Udon Thani. The flights were all fully booked for the holidays, but we managed to get two standby seats and were back in Bangkok at 3:30 PM. The flight cost less than $40 each and it was Nit's first airplane ride.
Glenn Todd, January 1999
