It is very interesting catching a bus in Laos. There appears to be some underlying 'darkness' that inflates tourist tickets considerably. Bus stations are located out of town, even when the town only consists of 2 streets. It is too far to walk into town, so you have to take a fixed price tuk tuk. We are fairly sure the minibus dropped us off today at the bus station. We then transferred to an equally sized minibus and travelled back the way we came on a parallel road to be dropped off in town, of course we had to pay again! We are beginning to see why people we are meeting are cutting their time in Laos short and heading back to Thailand.
Our bus today lasted about 6 hours from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng. The driver drove rather fast round the tight bends and we saw 2 worries overturned!. There were many people from China on the bus being sick, which must be horrible for them and not great for us either! The scenery was wonderful with huge hills and limestone karsts filling the view. We had several rest breaks, some for the driver to say hi to his friends and family and others to visit the WC. One place we stopped had a huge clear jar on the counter with a small tap for filling a cup from. Inside the jar was ... what looked like the remains of a bear. Yuk!
We must have entered the standard tour route through Lao as today we saw a huge overland tour truck full of European looking faces. There was also a huge amount of minibuses stopped at view point to let their passengers take snapshots.
Eventually we made it safe and sound. We checked into a guesthouse some girls had recommended. It was right in the centre of what is known throughout Laos as the party town. We have ear plugs, so should be ok! The main draw for here is tubing down the river and zip line across the river. There have been many deaths over recent years and the Government has closed many bars. However, you wouldn't think so, this place is like Ibiza! People on go carts, quadbikes racing around the street, drunken behavior, English menus etc. etc. It is not what we are in Laos to see and is horrible to think what tourism has done to this town! We stopped here to break the journey as we head out of Laos in a few days but that's ok, we can relax and watch back to back episodes of Friends in the bar downstairs! Really?!
Our bus today lasted about 6 hours from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng. The driver drove rather fast round the tight bends and we saw 2 worries overturned!. There were many people from China on the bus being sick, which must be horrible for them and not great for us either! The scenery was wonderful with huge hills and limestone karsts filling the view. We had several rest breaks, some for the driver to say hi to his friends and family and others to visit the WC. One place we stopped had a huge clear jar on the counter with a small tap for filling a cup from. Inside the jar was ... what looked like the remains of a bear. Yuk!
We must have entered the standard tour route through Lao as today we saw a huge overland tour truck full of European looking faces. There was also a huge amount of minibuses stopped at view point to let their passengers take snapshots.
Eventually we made it safe and sound. We checked into a guesthouse some girls had recommended. It was right in the centre of what is known throughout Laos as the party town. We have ear plugs, so should be ok! The main draw for here is tubing down the river and zip line across the river. There have been many deaths over recent years and the Government has closed many bars. However, you wouldn't think so, this place is like Ibiza! People on go carts, quadbikes racing around the street, drunken behavior, English menus etc. etc. It is not what we are in Laos to see and is horrible to think what tourism has done to this town! We stopped here to break the journey as we head out of Laos in a few days but that's ok, we can relax and watch back to back episodes of Friends in the bar downstairs! Really?!
