One week in northern Laos was enough for us

As already announced, the journey from Sapa/Vietnam to Luang Prabang/Laos was pure torture and strained our nerves... to the point that we were already considering continuing with the next plane to Cambodia... Because at that time the route should look as follows:

Spend one week, among other things, trekking in northern Laos, then fly to Siem Reap and explore the temples of Angkor Wat, continue by bus to Phnom Penh, and then fly to Borneo after almost a week in Cambodia.... That was the plan...

But the implementation looked like this:

We were picked up at the hostel in Sapa at 4:30 p.m. and taken to the bus station. But the night bus didn't leave until 6:30 p.m., taking us only to Dien Bien, the last city in Vietnam before the border with Laos. We arrived here around 5:30 a.m.... so far so good and actually right on schedule, because at 7:30 a.m. the local bus was supposed to continue to Luang Prabang, so that we would arrive by 11 a.m. at the latest (maybe even noon with a break)! So more than half seemed to be done with a -I quote- 'travel time of about 14-16 hours'...

Well, in Dien Bien we had actually had enough, but there was no other option.. So we watched the people load the buses..

It was also quite interesting... But our bus also got fuller and fuller: on the roof, in the trunk (here a chicken was allowed to travel in a box until Luang Prabang...), the floorboards, the back seats, under the seats, in the footwells, in the aisles... It got fuller and fuller, which of course noticeably reduced the seating comfort.. But it was almost done... Already at this point one could have asked whether all this should really be transported directly to one of Laos' largest cities... But more on that later..

So we set off with four other backpackers and a few locals to the border, which we reached after an hour's drive and left half an hour later.. only with the exit stamp from Vietnam...

So we drove about 15 minutes further to the Laotian border post and left 72$ poorer (30$ visa each and additional $, because every single Laotian who had the passport in his hand demanded an extra fee) and only 2 hours later... So at 11 a.m. we were in the northeasternmost part of Laos and realized that we still had about 360km to Luang Prabang... It will be tight with lying by the pool in the hotel at 12 noon...

The mood did not improve when the driver wanted to take a half-hour break in the next village IN THE HEAT of 37°C !!! In the bus, too, one could only exist on one's seat and hope for a near end...

The next hours passed always the same: we drove very slowly on terrible roads, made stops at every milk can to slowly deliver some goods and made various toilet breaks... So hour after hour passed until after 24 hours we still weren't at our destination and it got dark again...

When we finally arrived in Luang Prabang at around 9:30 p.m., the driver did not drive to the hoped-for bus station, but apparently to the other end of the city... As we drove further and further away from the city center, we called out to the bus driver that we wanted to get off here...

From here we took a Songthaeo to the long-awaited hotel, took a shower, went to the night market to get some food, and went to bed! That was our story of the 28-hour journey... Good night!!!

Once and never again!!!! We have sworn to avoid any bus journey longer than 8 hours from now on!

We spent the next two days in Luang Prabang - a really beautiful, somehow sleepy city on the Mekong... formerly the royal city and shaped by the French colonial period, very idyllic with many cafes, small shops, and restaurants.

For the next few days in Laos, the plan was to take a night bus from LP to Luang Namtha, do 2 days of jungle trekking with overnight stay there, then take a bus (only 4 hours ;-) ) to Houay Xay and then take a slow boat back to Luang Prabang via Pak Beng in 2 days on the Mekong.

So in short, it looked like this:

We contacted a jungle tour operator and booked a hostel with a 24-hour reception, and off we went.

We took a tuk-tuk to the bus station, another tuk-tuk to the other bus station, and got on the overnight bus with several cockroaches (which crawled into the beds).

Then suddenly everyone started to wrinkle their noses, because there was a strong smell of gasoline coming from the ventilation... So in the middle of nowhere STOP!!!

Burst gasoline line.... short repair by the onboard boy and off we go.....2 km....

Then another stop... Burst again...

The buses behind us stopped and a small group of experts gathered to fix the broken gasoline line with various old parts and a still fairly decent plastic hose...

...half an hour later everything was working again!

Then we continued to our destination.... well, almost...of course we arrived 11km away from the accommodation (and no one spoke English and only wanted to help you a little)... we took the only available completely overpriced tuk-tuk to the accommodation, where no one was present despite the 24-hour reception at 3:30 a.m. and we rang, called, and called the numbers given on the telephone in the hotel... at some point a sleepy young guy in a Bayern Munich jersey stumbled out of a room.... After a short night, it was 43°C and since no one answered our emails for the tour, Thea had to rest in the hotel room for 3 days and Clem had 3 days at the pool with beer :-D and in the evening we went to the night market to get some food :-) The already booked flight to Cambodia had to be cancelled :-(

Since we were a bit behind schedule due to this "delay" and we didn't know if the back would get better so quickly, we "exchanged" our flight to Siem Reap for a flight via Singapore to Bali...

So the next blog will come from Indonesia instead of Cambodia, and finally there will be sun, sea, and swimming again ;-)

Maybe a few final words about Laos: Apart from Luang Prabang (a truly dreamy little town and highly recommended if you are in the area ;-)), we unfortunately didn't have such great experiences, some people here are quite peculiar and you don't really feel welcome in the countryside, the nature is really sparse due to deforestation (you can actually feel the "influence" of the Chinese, who have big construction projects running here - perhaps that's why foreigners are not so open-minded here?!), it was incredibly hot (37-43°C - not very pleasant for activities) and the biggest point, why we already shortened our route through Laos from two weeks from north to south to just one week in the north: there is only the bus as a means of transport! (or expensive flights from regional airports) And here bus trips are always over 10 hours - even distances of only 300 km. And if you travel longer than you stay in one place, it's just no fun! So if you ask us, we wouldn't really recommend Laos (at this time of year), although the tour in the north is really nice if you combine it with a jungle adventure.. In general, countries like Thailand, Malaysia, and Vietnam are much easier and more pleasant to travel to!

Well, those were some final words about Laos that might help some of you...

We hope you are all doing well! And wish the dads had a nice holiday, you are great!! ;-)

Have a great weekend, Thea&Clem <3