A short expensive detour through Laos
Monday, December 8th, 2008As my boat wasn’t going I was forced to detour through Laos, which isn’t in itself a bad thing. I love Laos and had an awesome time there last year, its cheap ad fun. But when I was just passing through trying to get to Thailand it wasn’t so cool. Made worse by the fact it didn’t turn out to be cheap at all…but I won’t get ahead of myself.
Bright and early I made a start for the border hoping to get as far towards the Thai-Laos border as I could that night. The day invovled a looong series of taxi, bus, tuk-tuk, taxi, bus, bus etc etc.
First job get to the border town. There I meet Danial and Anushia, a German/Malay couple and a Japanse guy heading the same way so we made it to the border and crossed out in Laos together. Paid my $35 USD visa feee, a little frustrating as only there for 24 hours!
We waited on the Laos side and had some food until bus took us to another town where we said goodbye to the Japanese guy then continued to yet another bus station to try get a final bus to our last destination that night. Of course the last bus had left but maybe there would be another one passing through at 2, or 3 or 4…hmmm typical Laos attitude. Deciding to wait it out and hope for the best we sat around a drunk some BeerLao in the sun. Laos is super chilled out and already it felt just like I remembered south east asia. We had been driving through beautiful jungle all day and waiting for the bus we looked out over banana tree’s and green fields.
Eventually the bus did come and we piled onto the old bus, we had to literaly climb over the luggage piled up in the asiles but once we were settled we started the 5 hour journey east to Huay Xia, it wasn’t so bad. Also in the bus we discovered a furry little creature tied up under the seats, very strange, we have no idea what it actually was or why it was there.
(Our furry bus friend)
Our drive was really scenic as we passed through faded green fields dotted with thatched huts. A massive gleaming gold stupa rose out of a hill in the distance. Definitley a lot different than China, a lot less developed although luckily the road we were on is new and cut the travelling time down from 8 to 4 hours. Eventually we pulled into the town at around 8pm, a long day of travelling but not a bad one.
Huay Xie is really just a tourist destination, one street packed with cheap guest houses, internet cafe’s and street side restaurants. After finding a box like room for $5 I meet up with Daniel and Anushia for some food and to find a mini bus leaving the next morning for Chiang Mai in Thailand. All sorted, got where wanted to go, everything easy…well so far
The next day proved to be difficult. After discovering at the border that I couldn’t leave as I didn’t have an entry stamp in passport, apparently I was supposed to check this at the border and go to a different line after I had gotten my visa which had about 5 stamps on it anyway. Surely it would be their fault for letting me into the country without a stamp, but no its my problem and I would have to travel back to the chinese border to fix it…or pay $100 USD, made even worse by the exchange rate which means this is $200 NZ. Well I was super pissed off, and lost it a bit, for the first time on any of my travels and just could not see a way out of this horrilbly unfair situation. I sat at the border pleading and with guards to let me though, aware that any extra moey would have to come out of my home fund. I ended up bursting into tears and really losing it, enough to make some nice people come ask me if I was OK. Turns out Daniel and another girl had the same problem and it was a very stressful morning on the phone to the embassy trying to sort out options which was basically pay them. It was frustraiting because it was essentially just a bribe. I tried to sneak around and use my British passport just to buy another visa which was only $35 but the officals saw me and took me to the back office where I thought I might be arrested! But no, jut told me again that I needed to pay the $100.
Also my atm card wouldn’t work so I couldn’t even get out money, ended up using my credit card to get a cash advance and evetually gave in, talked them down to $80 and crossed the river into Thailand. It was so frustraiting and should really hve just walked through to begin with but I asked something and after they looked at my passport they woruldnt let me go. A mini bus would have got me to Chiang Mai in 5 hours but by bus it took about 8 hours swapping buses in Chiang Rai.
(Thailand on the left, Laos on the right. Crossing the river border)
It was late and I was well over it by the time I arrived in Chiang Mai. I took a private room with my own bathroom to make myself feel better and collapsed into bed trying not to think about the huge amount of uneccesary money I spent.
Laos=Bad times
admin