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Hello from Laos!
The sleeper bus to Vientiane wasn't too awful, fortunately. It wasn't a proper sleeper bus with converted bunks but it was a comfortable coach bus that got us to the border bright and early. When we arrived at the Thai side of the Friendship Bridge most of us passed through without a hitch - one guy, however, had lost his departure card and held us up for about twenty minutes at the border. Then we drove over to the Lao side where we handed over passports, passport photos and either baht or dollars for our Lao visas (Note: if making this trip, carry US dollars - with the current exchange rate being what it is the Lao visa costs about $12 more if you pay in baht). No problems. Then a minivan arrived to take us to Vientiane, only about an hour away. I ended up trailing a Swedish guy who works in Bangkok; he was in Vientiane on a Thai visa run and knew where a good guesthouse was. Arrived at the guesthouse, picked out a room, and crashed. Sleeper buses never make for a good night's sleep, no matter how comfortable.
I spent the next few days in Vientiane lounging in gourmet coffee houses, french restaurants, parks and internet cafes (it was from Vientiane that I uploaded all those photos last week). Laos still has a few remnants of French colonialization, including gourmet coffee, baguettes and incredible french restaurants (steak au poivre for about $8!). It was a pretty lazy few days. So then I booked a bus to Luang Prabang. It took about 10 hours to make the drive from Vientiane to Luang Prabang. We took Route 13, which is apparently a major highway. It was more like the Kancamagus (if the Kancamagus was located in a tropical climate). Yup. The major Lao highway is like the Kancamagus.
Anyway, I managed to sleep for most of the ride and only woke up a few hours before we reached Luang Prabang. The entire town is a UNESCO world heritage site. It's very nicely situated along the Mekong river. There seems to be a temple on every street, nestled among the french-colonial buildings, and novice monks in their bright orange robes wander about between them. It's a very laid-back town, but also very easy to arrange trips to waterfalls, elephant camps, minority villages and caves. There's also a fantastic night market selling Lao textiles and handicrafts. Oh! And while I was here, I ran into the former Peace Corps volunteers that I had met on the bus to Bangkok from Siem Reap! Asia is a surprisingly small world, despite being such a large continent.
After spending a few days checking out temples, wandering along the river and the market, munching on baguettes and downing coffee, I'm on the move again. In a couple hours I'll be on a sleeper bus to the Thai border, and from there it's just another bus to get to Chiang Mai. The whole trip will take almost 24 hours, but it's much cheaper than flying and much faster than the slow boat up the river. It's kind of a shame - I really like Laos.
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