Share Vientiene, Laos, October 2010
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What I did…
We got the coach from Chiang Mai to Udon Thani which was a welcome change to my last coach trip! We actually slep on this night bus! We arrived around 8 am the following morning (set off 8 pm) and got another bus to the border. We sorted out our visa and entered Laos quickly and easily. We got a truck for 40 BHT to the center and had a well deserved beer at 9 am! We found a place to bed and then I went to hospital. If you can call it that… it was more like a shed in the middle of a housing estate… not housing estate, more like a shed in amongst more sheds that looked slightly worse. Anyway I still have my leg… for now anyway, I dont want to make too many jokes just in case they actually cut it off!
I then had a little sleep before hitting the pop with the lads. We got pretty spondugled and thought it would be wise to buy a beer from the shop and drink it right on the border… the border is the Mekong river and Thailand is now on the other side! After a few minutes a bike pulls up with 2 lads on… one of them had what looked like an AK-47 rifle over his shoulder. SHIT! So we got shouted at in Laos (the language and i suppose the place!) and when they found out we were English the one without the gun rode off to find an English speaker.
They came back and we promptly waved goodbye to our money! They checked my bag and they saw I had quite a lot of KIP on me… I gave them about 2000 which is nothing (12,600 is a pound)… they asked for more so I told him where to go and we started walking off. Crossing our finger we would not get many small holes in our back. We, as you can probably tell, are still alive. That might not have been the case if we had done what we all wanted to do and kick 7 shades of shit into them.
So 1st night in Laos and mugged at gun point. MADNESS!
We hired push bikes and headed for the Vietnamese Embassy to get our visas. Closed. We had been invited to a Halloween party at a bar for the night so decided we would do fancy dress, I had to dress Ed, Ed dressed Jase and Jase dressed me! We went to a local market and split up to find our humiliating outfits… we returned to the room to reveal who had who (we picked out of a hat) and what we had to wear. I had to go dressed as a Yummy Mummy, Ed as a Ladyboy and Jase as Little Spoon! Needless to say we got pretty drunk in a bar with the lights on and music on low… so much for the promise of party! We still made it a good night and met some nice people. (Images are on FB)
Sunday was a bit of a dull day, all that happened was we ate and bumped into Anja after 3 weeks. Done.
Got our Vietnamese visas on Monday morning to enter on 19th Nov till 19th Dec. If the guy in the embassy is anything to go by Vietnamese people are so kind and helpful… naaaaaaaaaaaat! Push bikes again to get around the town and see some of the sights of Vientiane, there aren’t many! We all went bowling on the night, Me, Ed, Jase and Anja… guess who was the overall winner?! ME! by 7 points. I won the 1st game and Jase won the second, close game. Bowling alley was really old school, the lane kept breaking and a guy just appeared hanging from the rafters setting the pins up!
We checked out our hostel following morning and set off on a chilled day. It’s really irrelevant but I’m going to tell you anyway, I had this thing called a Chocolate Swedish! Oh My Gaaawd! Good job I’m leaving today! We then got the free Tuk Tuk to the bus station to head south. It turned up, rammed! I mean it was so full we all had to sit on the floor in between everyone’s feet. Not safe at all but it was either get in and go, or stay there! Got to bus station to find out the bus we were on had beds! Get in! Nice little sleep on the 14 hour night bus and we shall be feeling fresh tomorrow!