Firstly, there was torrential rain the evening we left, making the twisted journey down the mountains very scary and dangerous. Everyone on the bus started to feel sick - which is understandable since our driver had taken crazy pills and was driving like a mentalist. Secondly, we arrived in Chang Khong at 2.30am and had around 4 hours sleep before we had to be up again. "Boom House", our residence for that previous evening, organised passport photos for our visas at the price of 80TB. No one had a clue what was going on since there was very little communication between the guesthouse and our group. After hanging around clueless for too long, we were bunged into 2 trucks, 10 in each (4 people in the boot) and taken to the border crossing.
Luckily for us, a newly formed bridge had been opened, making it quicker and easier to cross over to Laos. We purchased a coach ticket for 25TB and proceeded to border security. Crossing the bridge to Laos took less than 30 seconds. On the other side, we paid $35 for our visas - the cost varies depending on your nationality but they range from $30-45. Make sure you already have some US Dollars converted as the exchange rate is quite low at the border. You're allowed to pay by Thai Baht but again you'll end up paying more. We travelled on a Saturday and had to pay for overtime which was about a other 20TB.
The rest of the day was just pure shit. We were dropped off in the middle of no where. There was a larger dog population than humans. It was how I imagined living in the wild Wild West would be. Everything was old and dusty even though we were apprently at the "New bus station". We had a 7hr wait until we would be picked up by our coach at 6.30pm. This meant a lot of hanging around. In the end someone suggested we catch a tuk tuk to the nearest town, 10km away so we hopped in looking for something remotely interesting.
Come 6.30, the "VIP" coach had arrived. Let's just say this 14hr journey is like no other and I strongly advise everyone to catch the slow boat instead. You share the coach with Laosians, which is fine by me. You'd expect them to be used to the twisty pot ridden roads but they were throwing up left right and centre. It was absolutely vile. Just thinking about it makes my skin crawl. Even with my music turned on full blast (and hurting my ear drums) you could hear the constant noises. Eughhh. The cherry on top was the Laosians ability to phlegm their brains out every 2-3mins into a plastic bag. We think it's in the culture since everyone does it. It was just something else. HORRIBLE. And what's worse is that they had their plastic bags for their phlegm which filled up as the hours passed so can imagine what the bags looked like once we'd arrived in Luang Prabang?!?!!
So the best advice I can give is to NOT catch the over night bus from Chang Khong to Luang Prabang. Traumatising.
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