Part 2 - The Journey
The distance between Chiang Mai and Vientiane is 252 miles. To put that in perspective, the distance between Chicago and Detroit is around 270 miles. And while that trip can be done in around 4 hours, (to be fair, since we were riding on public transportation the whole time, we should use the bus time of about 6 hours) the trip we took was just a bit longer. The first leg was an overnight bus ride from Chiang Mai to a town called Udonthani, still located in Thailand but much closer to its eastern border it shares with Laos. Considering Julia and I spent most of Sunday Googling info about the trip and trying to glean as much info as we could from various travel blogs, we arrived at the bus station Sunday evening around 6, not really sure what to expect, nor even sure if they would have tickets still available. For about 12 dollars, we ended up getting tickets on the 2nd class bus, or the lowest possible grade, as the nicer ones we already sold out. It was your average coach bus, packed tight with uncomfortable seats and lack of amenities. It left at 7, so we quickly grabbed some food and hopped on.
For anyone who has ever traveled on an overnight bus, its not very fun. I understand the appeal, and the idea of saving a night spent on a hostel or guesthouse somewhere, I really do. We did it many times in Australia on spring break. But that doesn't mean I like it. For someone who values sleep as much as I do, trying to grab all that I need while reclining at a 135 deg angle is enough to make me quite grumpy. We seemed to stop every 45 min to pick up or drop off a single person in some nameless town in the Thai countryside, every stop requiring all the lights to be turned on. Mostly it was a blur of tossing and turning, shivering, and the dulcet tones of Frank I had playing over my ipod to lull me to sleep. I did remember how cold the trip up from Pattaya was, so I came prepared with a hoodie and socks. However, I failed to account for the aircon blowing cold air straight down the center aisle of the bus, and ended up with a tshirt wrapped around my legs, my feet sticking out of the sleeves as I tried to keep the waist tucked under my knees so it wouldn't fall down while I was sleeping. I prob grabbed a total of 3 hours of sleep, but like all things, it eventually ended, and we pulled into our destination just as the sun was peeking over the Thai horizon, 12 hours and 3 minutes after we left Chiang Mai.
We quickly hopped on another bus and spent an hour on it traveling to a town right up against the border. On this one Julia and I had noticed a pair of guys, one farang and one Asian, who we were thinking were heading to Laos for the same reason we were. When we ended up in the same ticket line trying to buy a bus ticket for Laos that they wouldn't let us buy because we didn't have a Laos visa yet, we introduced ourselves and asked them what their plans were, mostly because we didn't have much of a clue what do next. There names were Aiden and Goldie, a Brit and a Filipino, who were also teachers in Thailand and has been living there for years. They were very friendly and we tagged along with them for the rest of the trip. They showed us how to make copies of our documents where it was cheap, and negotiated the price for the tuk tuk to the border.
The biggest border crossing between Laos and Thailand is the Lao-Thai Friendship Bridge. Now I haven't been to many international borders, but it seemed it a bit superfluous to me. You can't take a bus directly to the border, only the bus station a few miles away, where you can hire a tuk tuk to take you to the border. You depart Thailand, standing in line and heading through the immigration stations where they check to make sure you haven't overstayed your alloted time on your passport, and stamp you out of the country. (Because of mix-up of his work visa and some miscommunication with the local immigration officer, Aiden actually hadn't been getting his visa renewed like he thought he had been, and had technically been in the country illegally since last June. This means two things. First, if he had been stopped by the police for any reason, even a cursory inspection, one glance at his passport and they could have deported him immediately for being in the country illegally. Second, because of the 219 day overstay, he ended up with a fine of 20,000 bhat, or around $600 bucks. Ouch. Though they still gave him a visa at the embassy and let him back in the country two days later, so I guess they didn't think it was that big of a deal. But it just goes to show how important this stuff is. And also how its tough to plan for everything, and even to know what the proper thing to do is all the time with this stuff. Both his school and the local immigration office said he was fine and not to worry about it, but that didn't mean much to the officers at the border. This isn't a country where he could get them to call whoever at his local office and work it out. They don't really care, its pay the fine or say hello to you cell.) But anyways, once you pass out of Thailand, you can't walk across the bridge, you have to buy a ticket to take a bus across. You are on it for about 90 seconds, crossing the mighty Mekong river, the geographical divide between the eastern edge of Thailand and the western edge of Laos. Here they let us off, and we fill out the usual paperwork for entering a country, hand over our passport and 1500 bhat ($45 bucks, by far our biggest expense of the trip, and something that would only have been $35 if we paid in American, but we couldn't find anyone who would give us American dollars before we left...woo Asia. :) ) and wait 15 minutes to get our passports back. Boom, they call my name, I have a stamp that allows me to be in Laos for 30 days, and I walk into the newest country on my list.
We split an airconditioned minvan with Aiden and Goldie for the 45 minute ride to the capital. We are pretty sure it was a holiday and that the embassy is closed but seeing as we don't have a place to stay, we figure we will get dropped off there, see where it is, and just try and find a place within walking distance, making getting there in the morning a little easier. We hop out, and the embassy is indeed closed, so we pick a random direction and start walking. Aiden and Goldie know of a place not too far away, but Julia and I decide its a little out of our budget so we keep looking. After 45 min of walking around in the blistering noonday heat, not even really sure where we are on the map, we finally get tired of snapping at each other and decide to just head back to the place where they guys are staying. As our luck would have it, we stumble past a tiny little place located literally a stones throw from the embassy that we had missed in the very beginning of our search because (of course) we were on the opposite side of the street. It is pretty much perfect for us, a large, cheap fan room with two big double beds. We gratefully throw our stuff down and collapse into our respective beds.
So to overview, it had been 17 hours since we had left Chiang Mai, a scant 242 miles away. For those keeping track at home, it looked something like this: tuk tuk to bus station, 12 hour bus ride, hour long bus ride, 10 min tuk tuk ride to border, leave Thailand, 90 second ride across Friendship Bridge, enter Laos, 45 min van taxi ride to Vientiane. The time different was spent among waiting in line to leave Thailand, waiting in line to get in Laos, and of course that hour walking around in circles looking for a place to stay. But we are there! And we cant wait to explore the city! Right after a nap.
Coming tomorrow: Part 3 - The City
TPWWLT - Blink 182 - 'Wendy Clear'
