Laos trip

I finished school early on Friday, I set off at 3.30pm, one and a half hours earlier than usual. I went home, had a quick shower and packed a knapsack to last me five nights (two would be spent on overnight buses). Then myself and three colleagues got on a bus that would take sixteen hours until it reached Nongkhai, a town in Thailand where its possible to cross the boarder into Laos.

We had opted to leave one day only so that we could travel an extra three hours to the town of Vang Vieng, famous for tubing down a river lined with bars and for its stunning scenery. We got off our overnight bus, crossed the boarder (using another bus) into Laos, then got a private van straight to Vang Vieng. We had gotten a private van because we wanted to make it in time for tubing, which wouldn’t be possible on the public bus that didn’t leave for a few hours. We got out of the taxi in Vang Vieng, found a hostel straight away, got into our togs and set off for the river. There we hired tubes and got a tuk tuk down to the river. The tubing was basically 150 people  floating down a river from bar to bar until dark. After dark everyone heads back to a bar in town.  

The next day we had breakfast at one of the stunning ‘hangover bars.’ They are restaurants that overlook the river in Vang Vieng and has views of the surrounding hills. After a morning of relaxing in front of the views we got in a public van back to Veintiane, the capital city of Laos where we needed to go to the Thai Embassy to submit our documents for our visas. Vientiane is a city of 800,000 people. The buildings are French Influenced and the city is based along the Mekong River bank. Across the other side of the river is Thailand. Along the river bank had been the 2015 Vientiane Art Sculpture festival. There were huge elephants, eagles, and other sculptures made of sand. The school students like to ride down and hang out around the sculptures and swim in the river in the evenings. We decided to stay at Sihome guesthouse, which is very popular with the ‘Farangs’ (foreigners) for one reason or another. We went to sleep pretty early as the next day we had to get up early to line up at the Thai Embassy. We got a tuk tuk to the Thai Embassy the next morning to be there before 8am. Already a line stretched about 200meters out the building and down the road. WE had been told to wear respectable clothing so the two boys were in their teaching clothes and us girls in long skirts. We had our documents all prepared and our 2000 baht ready (the cost of the visa). After about an hour and a half waiting in life we got a number, then had to wait another hour for this number to be called. It was interesting waiting in line and talking to all of the other people who were getting visas. There were a number of English teachers like us, some yoga instructors and some people who were in relationships with Thai people and therefor wanted to stay.

Finally at 11.30am we had submitted our documents, left our passports over night and our fingers were crossed for a good result when we came back the next day.

The rest of the day I spent walking along the Mekong River Bank, getting a mango smoothie and getting sunburnt beside the pool. That evening I also checked out the markets on the river bank with a roommate from New York that I had just met. I got another smoothie and banana rote.

The thing that my colleagues and I struggled with was the translation from Thai Baht into Laos Kip, kip is much more of a weak currency so you end up with pocket full of thousand dollar notes that aren’t worth much at all. (a small bottle of water is at least 6000 kip).

The following day, we arrived back at 1.30pm after lunch on the river, lined up again, and got our non-immigrant B visas! The trip was a success. We then took another overnight bus back to Mae Sai, and went straight to school for a full day of teaching.