86: Luang Prabang to Phonsavan
Arrived in Phonsavan yesterday by public bus from Luang Prabang.
Arrived at the bus station in Luang Prabang short before 8am and were pointed at a nice bus when asking someone which bus would go to Phonsavan. It looked rather new with nice comfy seats and no doubt aircon too. “Excellent” I though, that trip shouldnt be that bad after all:-) I asked the bus driver before getting on “Phonsavan?” but sadly he shook his head and pointed behind the bus. So I turned around and walked to the back of the bus to find a old crappy bus in a rather sad looking state 😉 Well.. backpack on top of the roof and into the bus..
I actually travelled with two people. I met Ella fro New Zealand during my trekking in Luang Prabang and since we both planned to got to Plain of Jars we decided to jump on the same bus… Ella also met Erez (a Israeli) during a trip to the Kuang Si Waterfall in Luang Prabang and he joined us.
The bus trip took 8 hours over very windy roads up and down hills. the route is only about 200 km (120? miles) so on average we drive about 25 km an hour – speedy! 🙂 (Ok we had a break inbetween)
Nevertheless the trip was enjoyable all the way because it was pretty exciting to see the coutryside.
There are many towns/villages along the route 13 and almosty all of them are of the bamboo/wooden hut type variety.
I am amazed to see this since I though only more isolated hill tribes do like in these basic houses. It seem however this is indeed the main type of property in the rural areas.
The bigger towns do of course have stone built houses but even they are mixed with wooden houses.
At the Junction of Route 13 and Route 7 we stopped for lunch (Street Restaurant served some soup noodles but there were also a few stalls that sold fruit etc..)
We arrived around 5pm and were greeted by guesthouse touts who offered transportation.
We picked on that took us to a bit shaby looking guest house with shared open air bathroom/toilet on the main road. It as $2/$3 per night.
We looked at 2 other, better places which seemed more like descent guesthouses but Ella and Erez were happy to stay at the cheap place so we dumped our bags there. I was going to share with Erez..
Later on I decided I would rather go for a nicer place with private bathroom etc and change to a guest house nearby for $6 inc breakfast which had just open a week ago so was spanking new – Nice!
Tags: Laos, Phonsavan, RTW 2005/2006
saschas
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