Well my first couple of months stay are almost up, in fact my visa expires tomorrow, so I have to leave the country. It’s usually possible to leave, turn around and come back in, but as I haven’t been to Laos for 20 years, I think it would be nice to spend a bit of time there. Especially as I did the immediate turn around last year in Cambodia.
I booked my tickets long ago for the Bangkok to Vientiane(Laos) train as I needed proof of onward journey when applying for my visa. The overnight express trains tend to get booked up far in advance these days too.
The tickets were only about £20 for the two of us, so it wouldn’t have been a problem had we decided to do something completely different. I did only book air-con seats rather than beds as I was pretty sure that we wouldn’t get on the train in Bangkok, but at Khon Kaen, which is hundreds of miles further north. This reduces the time from a 12 hour overnight journey to just 4 hours in the morning. I wasn’t able to book the train tickets from Khon Kaen to Laos due to technical reasons. In short the train leaves Bangkok on one day and arrives in Khon Kaen the next before carrying on into Laos. This seemed to upset the website and it refuses to allow you to book them, so Bangkok to Laos it was.
By the way, if you are taking the train in Thailand there are lots of sites that will sell train tickets, but they all charge a premium, sometimes a very hefty one. It is much better to use the state railway booking system at dticket.railway.co.th You can choose to see the site in English and once you create an account you can book any tickets you like at the best price there is. It’s a bit fiddly to use, but I’ve used it a few times with success.
Sasipa is worried about where to leave her car as, according to her, it is one of the most stolen makes in Thailand. Luckily John’s wife has a daughter who lives in Khon Kaen and we can park it at her house.
The journey to Khon Kaen is about 190km and as we park up the heavens open and the rain lashes down furiously. In the UK you’d say raining cats and dogs. The French version translates to something like the cows that piss!
We order a taxi and the daughter walks us to the car holding a spare bit of tarpaulin over us to keep the rain off.
Having checked in to our hotel, we head out for a walk around this bit of Khon Kaen. I didn’t realise what a big city it is, one of the top 5 in Thailand. We are in the area around the train station, but that doesn’t mean that it is a rough area, which is often the case in Europe. There are some very smart looking bars and restaurants and nice hotels as well as a fish market and the usual stalls selling food.
Not far away we find another big market with loads of different food options and we sit down to eat. Some of the stall holders have given up early due to the on and off downpours. Then the power goes out, back on, out, on then off again. This proves too much for our seller, who starts to pack up shop. Luckily we have just about finished and head back to the hotel as we have a very early start.
My tickets still say Bangkok to Vientiane on them, so the first thing once at the train station is to check with the ticket office. It’s no problem, he changes them and we sit down to wait.
Unfortunately the train is delayed an hour so I stroll down to the 7-11 to buy coffee and snacks. There are a few people still in the bars as I walk past despite it being 4.50am and the fish market is starting to come to life. Video clip 
On the train, we find a couple in our reserved seats, they move instantly back to their separate seats when we arrive. They have no complaints as they have been able to sit together all the way from Bangkok in our seats as obviously we weren’t there.
Soon we are at Nong Khai just before the first friendship bridge that crosses the Mekong. We get off the train to go through Thai immigration, once through we will get on the train again for the short journey to Khamsavath station in Vientiane, where we will have to go through Laos immigration.
I thought it would be entirely routine, but in fact the Thai immigration official tells me I must go to the embassy and get a visa for when I come back. I query this with him, pointing out that I always have a visa and showing him the stamps in my passport. He accepts this and asks how long I am staying in Laos. He then says OK no problem, it’s fine. Despite him backtracking on what he first said, I am now concerned about re-entry in to Thailand and it will somewhat spoil my holiday in Laos.
Just for the record, immigration in Thailand have been much stricter of late. Visa free entries are only supposed to be a maximum of 2 times a year, each entry is currently 60 days, although there is talk about reducing this to 30 days again. This is because there has been some abuse from certain countries (not the UK), with overstays and people basically living and working in Thailand without the right visa or indeed any visa at all and just doing border runs. I am a bit annoyed, because I haven’t had any visa free entries for several years and always have a visa. At least my immigration guy backtracked, but he shouldn’t have said anything in the first place.
Back in the old days when we spent a couple of years travelling, you could do as many visa runs as you wanted, no questions asked. I knew people that left the country once a month on a visa run for years on end!
Anyway we got back on the train and were soon in Laos. Immigration was easy as I had already got my visa on line (51$US) and Sasipa doesn’t need a visa, just an entry card and 60baht, which she filled out when we got there.
There is no Grab app in the Peoples Republic of Laos, but they do have their own version called LOCA. It’s pretty good and we were soon on the way to our hotel. The other thing the app will do is allow you to use it for scanning the QR codes of any market stalls, shops etc, with the money coming off whatever card you link your account to. It’s really useful as it means that I can scan QR codes in Laos and pay for things just like I do in Thailand. There is a bit of commission charged so you wouldn’t want to do it long term, but for a holiday it’s great.
We are right in the centre and our hotel is lovely, all wood floors and beams in a semi colonial style. There are a huge number of tourists here and I mean everywhere. There are some lovely markets, both for food and then the night market near the edge of the Mekong, which must stretch for the best part of a kilometre.
There is another food market nearby and behind it an amazing eat all you like place that has many types of seafood piled high on tables, plus lots of different meats, sauces and vegetables. A chef makes salmon and tuna Sashimi at the front and the long trestle tables are full of people tucking in. There is no time limit and it only costs 399,000 LAK (£13.50). Yes I am a millionaire again in Laos! I popped my card into the ATM and withdrew a cool 3 million. Actually a real pain, I couldn’t close my wallet! Even with such enormous sums it seems to go quickly as the prices are equally astronomical (although not actually expensive in the grand scheme of things).
I found a nice bar called Laos FE. It’s brand new, but I think it will become one of the places to hang out. The service is excellent and the beer is cold. They bring you water and peanuts and keep topping them up. The drinks are not too expensive and the seats are comfortable with fans outside and aircon inside. A black Lambourghini and a red Ferrari, parked outside complete the look.
There isn’t really a great deal to see in Vientiane. I’d say its more of an administrative city than one of high culture. There are quite a few temples and we visited a couple. One particularly well known one is called Wat That Luang Tai, you can’t go in, but you can walk around the cloisters outside. It is painted in gold and looks good, but it is a bit run down. There are various aged artifacts and statues in the cloisters, but again not all that interesting. Outside there are a couple of hawkers holding a handful of tiny little cages with small birds inside. You can pay for a cage (which you don’t get to keep) and free them, it’s a complete scam as, of course, the birds will be recaptured later with some seed and re caged for tomorrow. I just know that Sasipa is going to ‘buy’ a cage and free the two trapped birds, but I have to bite my tongue hard not to say too much about it. She is adamant that it is good luck to free them and that they might get away and not be recaptured. I don’t think there is any chance of that and also if no one ‘bought’ a cage then the sellers wouldn’t be in business and all the birds would be free,
The other temple was much more of a working temple and we had a little audience with a monk who did the usual water on the head from a kind of stick, chanted for a bit and tied something like a friendship bracelet around my wrist, wishing me good luck for health and business.
The last place to visit was to the Vientiane equivalent of the Arc de Triomphe. Called the Patuxi, it is actually quite an impressive monument. It was built as a war memorial for the Laotian soldiers who fought for independence from France and in the second world war. It’s nickname is the vertical runway, because the cement used to build it was given to Laos by the USA to build a new airport, but the Laotian government built the monument instead!
I found a couple of nice music venues as well, including the hard rock cafe and the moonlight lounge. Things close quite early here and music stops by11pm at the latest. I discovered this first hand at the moonlight lounge. I turned up at about 10.15, settled into a seat to watch what appeared to be a really good jazz band and singer. I was just perusing the drinks menu, when they finished their song, announced that was it for the night and left the stage. Luckily I hadn’t ordered yet, so with apologies to the staff, I said that I had only come because of the music and left. Sadly it’s a dance tomorrow and there won’t be live music until Friday, by which time we will be in Luang Prabang.
With the introduction of the Laos China railway, it’s now easy to travel around Laos. What was a hard seven to eight hour drive from Vientiane to Luang Prabang is now less than 2 hours on the new high speed train. The train runs all the way up to Kunming in China from Vientiane. I remember getting the bus 20 years ago from Laos all the way to Kunmimg and it took a couple of days, changing buses more than once. We did see some great things on the way though, so I’m not sorry there was no train back then.
The train itself is very long, around 15 carriages. It is absolutely packed every journey. I had the required app on my phone and was able to book the tickets we needed, but it isn’t easy. The tickets are only released 3 days or so before and sell out almost at once. If you want to take the train there can be no spontaneity. You have to plan ahead. The train station is a nightmare, the outside is a sea of minibuses all lined up, more than a hundred of them. The queue to even get in the train station snakes along the side of the vast building. Getting in is like being at an airport, with security scanners for you and your bags. You then wait inside until they open the gates to the platform. Here half a dozen long queues also form stretching 40m each or more. Quite a lot of people just queue jump. This is what happens when a country with over a billion people can just hop on the train and go on a tour of a neighbouring country. I don’t mean to be critical, but there are just so many of them, the infrastructure can barely cope. You really would have to see it to believe it.
I was talking to a Laos restaurant owner about it and he told me that many of the Lao people are not happy. The visitors stay in Chinese run hotels and eat at Chinese run restaurants. They descend on a tourist attraction in their hundreds, spoiling it for everyone else with their sheer numbers and then just as quickly leave, but most Lao people, make little or no money from this tourism.
Anyway, I managed to book the train, although it was earlier than the one I wanted and we were soon off to Luang Prabang. The train stops at Vang Vieng on the way, which used to be a real backpacker party place, but is no longer apparently. We did want to go here as it is supposed to be beautiful and calm, but logistically it was difficult with the train availability.
Although it is promoted as a high speed train the maximum speed we reached was 160km/h. A reasonable speed, but not a patch on the TGV or the Eurostar. Even the old British Rail Intercity 125 from my youth, was faster than that.
Getting off at Luang Prabang was yet more chaos. Again there were well over 100 minibuses jamming the roads all around. Sasipa and I found a marginally quieter corner and I booked a taxi with my Loca app. Luckily he was already here in a car park, but despite photo’s and messages back and forth it took nearly 20 minutes to find him in the vast scrum of people.
Our hotel is right on the river, a tributary of the Mekong and our balcony has an unimpeded view. The room is decent enough, but it is a bit tired. There is still a remote control for the ceiling fan sitting on the shelf, but the fan has long since been taken away and replaced by air conditioning. It’s comfortable enough though and the view really is excellent.
We hire a motorbike, which is perfect for for tootling around town and exploring. We pop into a bakery and see that they have Banh Mi for sale. This is a small baguette filled with a variety of tasty ingredients that hails from Vietnam. It obviously has it’s roots in French cuisine, but it’s very much Vietnamese in taste, with things like chilli and coriander as well as pate, ‘salady’ stuff and meat. It is seriously delicious and both Sasipa and I love them. So we immediately bought two and sat on a little table in the shop munching away.
The colonial feel of the buildings in Luang Prabang is still very strong and although busier it looks a lot like it was when I was last here. I even came across my previous guest house and now have a then and a now photo of me standing in front of it!
We drove along the Mekong all around the edge of the town, stopping to admire the views from time to time. One of the things you must do is to take a sunset cruise, so we stopped at one of the sellers and booked a couple of tickets for their boat. We have to come back just before 5pm, when we will go out on the cruise.
We clamber down the bank and on to the boat and soon cast off, heading upriver. We are each handed a Beerlao as we embark, as Sasipa exceedingly rarely drinks beer, I get to have hers as well. The others on the boat have to pay for a second beer. There are quite a few boats out, but the river is wide and big and it is peaceful, apart from a group of English girls who are on our boat and continue to yak on about getting pissed, boys and their travels etc. Video clip
There are lots of nice photo opportunities and after turning around and heading back down river, we pause for a while to watch the sun go down behind the limestone karsts and hills. A little car ferry crosses behind us. It runs just from one side of the river to the other and is loaded down with cars and motorbikes.
Lao food is similar to Thai food and the language they speak is almost indistinguishable from Thai, so Saipa has no problem talking to them at all. It further helps, because Lao has words that are the same as the Thai Isaan dialect, which Sasipa speaks. She can’t however read Lao as the writing is different. This is amusing as the menu’s are in Lao and in English. So, of course, I can read them but she can’t, so I have to translate.
The night market here is huge, there is a central area that is full of food stalls selling many types of cuisine and these surround hundreds of tables and chairs, which are all packed with people eating. Practically everyone eating here appears to be a tourist and personally I find it really noisy and unpleasant. I’d much rather find a little local stall somewhere and eat there, but it’s our first night so we choose something from one of the stalls and tuck in.
Running along and far down the street are all the other stalls, selling clothes, trinkets, cloth, leather goods and many other items. Occasionally there is a stall selling items made from aluminum. There is a sign saying that these trinkets are made from the shells and artillery used in Laos in the past. Maybe that was true once, but I don’t believe it now. It was a long time ago and I have seen quite a few of these stalls, so unless they are the worst sales people in the world, the supply of old artillery metal must have been used up years ago.
The evening was rounded off at a nice Australian bar, with a relaxed vibe. Sasipa naturally found a nearby hungry stray dog with puppies and went off in search of some food to give her. I forget to mention the absolutely excellent BeerLao. It is well know in Asia for being rather good and since my last visit they seem to have branched out with dark, green, white and IPA versions. I tried the dark and IPA versions in addition to the usual, but didn’t think they were much different, so I stayed with the original.
There is a story that Carslberg bought BeerLao around the turn of the century and had big plans to improve it. However upon trying, they found that actually they couldn’t improve it and so left the recipe as it was. I first heard this story in 2006, I don’t know how true it is, but it is certainly good beer (as far as lager can be!)
I found more evidence of the colonial past down a tiny side street. A lovely looking French restaurant called the La Cage du Coq. I took a photo of some of the menu as below. There is something for everyone from a burger Quercy, made with duck to a filet de poisson Mekong or even a vegan signature dish, subtitled ‘a life in mauve’, if that’s your thing.
Our first proper trip out was to the Kuang Si falls. It’s about 35km away, up and down the mountains and through small villages. Last time I was here I actually cycled all the way there and back again! The road doesn’t seem to have improved in all that time as it is still only tarmac for the first few kilometers. There are quite a few more buildings at the sides of the road as well as the odd guesthouse and shop. In general though you still feel like you are mostly in the middle of nowhere.
The difference really becomes apparent as we near the falls. Last time we rode up to the falls parked our bikes and went in. Now we are stopped a kilometre away and waved into large parking complex with various buildings and a coach/minibus parking area too.
We have to pay to park our motorbike and then pay an entrance fee as well. Once through the turnstile there are electric carts that take you up to the actual falls and the little village at its base.
The first thing that you come across is the Tat Kuang Si Bear Rescue Centre. It is a sanctuary for rescued Asiatic black bears (moon bears) and Malayan sun bears that have been rescued from trafficking and poaching. They live mostly in a natural habitat and are really interesting. They were here when I last came, along with some tigers too, although those are now long gone. The size of operation and number of bears is much greater now than then and watching them playing and running around made Sasipa’s day. Pronouncing them very cute she was up for wanting to give them a big hug. Probably unwise, I suggested!
The falls are on numerous levels and having brought along my swimming gear and a towel, I had to go in for a dip. The electric blue (from the minerals) water was icy cold and fabulously refreshing after the long ride in the blazing sun and I really enjoyed it. Sasipa watched on as did the large group of Chinese that suddenly arrived, continuing to stare even as I was getting changed afterwards.
There is the kings old palace to visit in the centre of town, plus a couple of other temples. They are interesting enough, but very busy. There was a puppet show put on by children using painted wooden spoons as the puppets. We did drive out of town and came across a temple that was obviously used every day, but was completely deserted when we were there. It held a commanding view of the town and had numerous levels, each one smaller than the last. To reach the top level you had to climb a ladder and the small round room at the top was covered in beautiful murals. The lower levels too had some as well as statues of Buddha and an altar on each floor. It was really interesting and peaceful, I’m so glad we found it off the beaten track.
Apart from returning to the Banh mi bakery, I booked a table at a pizzeria for one of our evening meals. We had a table on the terrace overlooking the Mekong and the brightly lit boats sailing by were magical. Until, that is, there was a loud crash. Looking over the parapet of the terrace we could see two people sliding along the road under their motorbikes. It seems that some guy had come out of a side road without looking and the girl riding along the main road had crashing straight into him. Clearly the man’s fault, he limped over to his motorbike hopped on it and drove off. No number plate and no insurance no doubt. The girl was a bit shaken, but seemed unhurt and after a little while she got back on her motorbike and drove off too!
We rode out a couple of times, crossing over the motorbike bridge, which puts you on the other side of the river. There are four thin raised planks for each direction,on the bridge, where the motorbikes go along. It’s quite a feat not wobble off and drop down on to the bridge. It’s not far at all and wouldn’t be the end of the world if you did wobble off, but it would be a bit embarrasing. I wondered why I was struggling to to stay on there and kept weaving around. Luckily I stayed on, but I was a bit concerned about my lack of balance. I parked up back at the hotel then my phone beeped, it was a message from the motorbike shop telling me my back tyre was nearly flat and to bring it in for repairs. They gave me another bike as this one needed the tyre replacing and I whizzed back over the bridge in a dead straight line. My balance was fine after all, it was the tyre!
Once over the bridge you feel like you are in a different world. Tourists largely disappear, prices tumble and it feels much more real. Signs in English disappear and you see the local supermarkets, shops and stalls packed with locals. We stopped at a 4×4 vehicle laden with Pomelo’s. The price was only 10,000 LAK (30p) and they peeled it for you too! If you have ever tried to peel a Pomelo, you’ll know that that is a very worthwhile bonus.
We also stopped at a large market, where you duck down and find yourself entering a slightly gloomy world of tarpaulins stretched tight just above your head with dozens of fresh vegetable stalls. Others sell meat and fish and then there is a labyrinth of small alleyways with shops selling dried fruit, herbal remedies and rice in a myriad of different types. The rice prices and excellent choice had Sasipa in a delight, but it’s not something you can really transport in your luggage, so she had to content herself with looking. We stopped for lunch at a little stall that had a small seating area behind it inside the shop. We ordered a local noodle dish which was really tasty. Full of locals tucking in, we were the only foreigners there, which made it even better.
I have been very lucky in my life with punctures, I don’t think I have ever yet had a car puncture and very few others over the years. Luang Prabang, however, appears to be my nemesis. Twenty years ago on the way back from Kuang Si falls, we had 2 punctures and this time I also had a puncture. Who’d have thought it, Luang Prabang, world capital of punctures!
Our last night we went to a beautifully lit restaurant in the centre of town, it was busy, but we had a good table and could watch the world go by, before heading to the night market for a last look around.
I have had to constantly juggle currencies here, between Loas KIP/LAK, GBP, USD and Thai Baht. It has been a good mental workout and is also very necessary to avoid being ripped off. The Lao’s often quote a price in USD. Then if you pay in LAK they inflate the rate and vice versa. Sasipa would often ask a price in Baht, which they happily accept in Laos, but again inflate the rate. Quite often they would tell her something was 200 baht and I had to interject and tell them I wanted the price in LAK not Baht. Invariably when they gave me the price in LAK and I converted it in my head at the normal exchange rate it would work out a fair bit less. 160 baht instead of 200 baht, for example. Sasipa who is not used to travelling had a bit of a struggle with the currency and the huge numbers. I don’t blame her as there are about 29,000 LAK to £1 and 15000 LAK to 20 baht. As they speak the same language it’s confusing as they often just knock off the 000’s and will say 15 instead of 15,000 etc.
We loaded all of our bags onto the motorbike and headed for the motorbike rental shop, via one last mercy mission to feed the stray dog. Going across the motorbike bridge loaded down with all our bags was challenging, but we made it and I dropped the bike off and paid. It was only 600,000 for 4 days which is about £20. The Loca app got us a taxi and we were soon at the train station to start our journey home. As before it was absolutely heaving with people and long queues everywhere. The journey itself was smooth enough and before long I was booking another taxi to take us to the Thai border.
Of course I have been worried about getting back into Thailand these last few days and have been playing through different scenario’s in my head. A friend had to bribe his way in a few weeks back. His retirement visa had expired, so he had to go out of the country as he didn’t have a chance to renew it in time. When he returned they wouldn’t let him in saying that he’d spent too long in Thailand. He’d been here quite legitimately, but once your visa expires you are just like anyone else. It doesn’t matter how long you have lived here, it earns you no ‘brownie’ points at all. The immigration guy looked at his passport, saw that he’d been here several years, so refused entry. The fact that he had been here legitimately didn’t matter. Luckily he has now renewed his retirement visa and all is good.
We go through Laos immigration, which is easy, although Sasipa has to pay 60 baht again and fill out a departure form. Then we hop on the bus that drives us over the first friendship bridge and into Thailand. There are no other foreigners on the bus. We queue up and I nervously hold my passport, taking it out of it’s protective wallet in preparation. I pick an immigration guy who looks a fair bit older and may be more sanguine about the whole thing. I catch a break as some orange clad monks arrive and I wave them in ahead of me. This earns me a nod and a smile from the immigration guy. A point for me!
It’s my turn and Sasipa walks up with me, she is completely unfazed about it. The guy asks me about a visa and points to all the stamps in my passport that say E-visa below them. I tell him that I don’t have a visa on this occasion. He doesn’t seem bothered by this and he stamps my passport with 60 days entry and waves me on, past his desk and back into Thailand! Phew, no problem at all, just as there shouldn’t have been, if not for that immigration guy on the way out!
We immediately see a bus for Khon Kaen and we hop on after scanning the bus drivers QR code for payment and take a seat in relief, so far so good. I organise with the driver to drop us off about 10km before the bus station in Khon Kaen as our car is parked in the north of the city, near the university.
A few hours later we are tucking into some street food, sitting on the usual blue and red plastic stools, while waiting for a cab to take us the last couple of kilometres to the car.
The car is waiting for us all in one piece, although slightly smelly inside from something left in the car 🙁 Now all I have to do is drive the last 190km home. Sasipa is asleep as I cruise along the almost empty roads. It is now nearly midnight and we have been travelling for over 12 hours. I stop for some fuel and drive on with some music playing quietly in the background. I feel pleased with myself. A lot of planning went into the journey today and indeed this whole trip, which has included motorbikes, taxis, trains, buses, international borders and many other little things. It went like clockwork in the end and as we arrive home the dogs, recognising the sound of the engine, bound up to the gates to welcome us.
I can see reading back that I have done quite a lot of complaining. whether that’s due in part to the worry about the visa or the shocking amount of tourists I don’t know. There were of course many lovely moments, but travel in Laos can be a bit stressful due to the sheer numbers. I’m sure off the beaten track it is still fine and I’m happy to have come back for another visit, especially to see Luang Prabang again, but I think I’ll go to Malaysia next time!