Day 166 – Vang Vieng to Vientiane

Travelling to the Capital

Today we checked out of Many Riverside Guesthouse after breakfast. We planned to catch a taxi to the bus stop and buy tickets to Vientiane. We knew we could buy tickets from the bus station for 60,000 LAK / $9.85 AUD per person, as we checked this out when we arrived from Phonsavan. We actually went to another guesthouse called Damon to buy some water when we saw they sell bus tickets. When asking how much it was, we found out a bus would be leaving within 10 minutes and it only cost 50,000 LAK / $8.21 AUD per person. SCORE!

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We were one of the first to be picked up on the tuk tuk / songathew. As the songathew kept stopping at various hostels and hotels, it became extremely cramped. By the end, people we holding onto the hand rails as they stood on the rear bumper! Given the over crowding on the pick up service, we had low expectations for the bus. But to our shock, we arrived at a waiting coach. The coach was clean, comfortable and looked new-ish.

The 4 hour journey had one break for lunch, but was otherwise uneventful. Once in the capital, the bus stopped just past the front of the temple Wat Ong Teu. Here we walked around a bit, looking for cheap and available accommodation, that wasn’t horrible. Most of the cheap places were really horrible and old. We finally found In Touch Hostel, which is a little away from the main tourist area. Accommodation for 2 nights cost us 280,000 LAK / $45.97 AUD. The rooms were large, and okay. There was an A/C but it didn’t do much against the heat.

After settling in, we walked around town to grab a bite, and then we walked towards the Mekong River, which has a massive night market parallel to it. Items were really cheap and it was full of locals, which is always a good indicator of reasonable prices.

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