Asian Adventures - Journey along the Mekong to Laos
Before leaving on our trip, we booked a Bamba Bus tour from Bangkok through Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and then back to Bangkok. This included all our transport for the countries listed and experiences in some of our stops along the way. For example our bicycle tour in Bangkok and our trek in Chiang Mai were through Bamba. We had already paid for Bamba before we left so this meant we didn't need to bring as much spending money on our trip. All we had to do is decide when we wanted to move on to the next place, email Bamba to book it for us then someone picks us up from our hotel, takes us to the bus station, buys our tickets and then shows us what bus to go on. Pretty easy for us! It's probably more expensive than if you did it by yourself but it's far easier doing it this way especially for first time travellers to South East Asia. We spend a lot of our time looking for our next accommodation so on top of that we would have to look into transport as well. We will have to book our own transport for some of our trip but for the first part that's taken care of.
Travelling across the border to Laos from Thailand we were going to be taking a boat along the Mekong River. The journey from Chiang Mai in Thailand to Luang Prabang in Laos was going to take us three days. We got picked up from our hotel in Chiang Mai by a mini bus to take us to Chiang Khong for night one. On the way we made a stop in Chiang Rai to have a look around Wat Rong Khun or The White Temple as it's also known.
Our guesthouse in Chiang Khong was included in our Bamba package. It was pretty basic but clean which is always good. The owners cooked us Thai green curry for tea which was just what we needed after a day of travelling. The guesthouse was right beside the river with lovely views we looked out on to whilst having tea.
The next morning we also got breakfast included which was an omelette sandwich. Sounds a bit bland but it was great. The owners had also made everyone Pad Thai for lunch to take on the boat.
It was pretty handy at the guesthouse as we were able to exchange US dollars into Laos KIP so we had some currency for when we arrived in Laos and didn't need to pay ATM fees. We got a million Laos KIP - the only time we could feel like millionaires! It works out at about £90.
The first challenge of the day was to conquer the Laos border control which as we thought was going to take a lot longer than it needed to. It was probably best for our first border crossing to do it in an organised group so we knew what was going on. We got a bus from the guesthouse to the Thailand immigration so we could get our passports stamped to say we had left Thailand. Then we got on another bus to the Laos immigration office. We had a couple of forms to fill out, to handover over a passport photo, our passport and pay $45. You need dollars to pay for all visas. They do let you pay local currency but prefer you pay in US dollars.
After everyone in the group was through we got on another bus to take us to the boat dock. It was going to take us 6 hours to arrive at Pak Beng, our next stop. The boat was quite nice with comfy seats. There were two rows of seats with an aisle up the middle.
You could buy drinks and some food on board and there was also a toilet thankfully as we didn't stop during the journey. The journey was ok but it just felt really long! The scenery was beautiful to look out to the hills and at the occasional animals along the way. However, it was the same view for the whole 6 hours which got slightly dull.
We got picked up at the boat dock in Pak Beng which was good. Pak Beng is pretty tiny with a small market and then just hotels and bars. It only took us two minutes to get from the dock to our hotel. Our hotel was beautiful I was actually gutted we were only staying one night. We had a balcony in our room with two lounging chairs that we sat and relaxed on whilst looking on to the river.
We had tea just in the hotel restaurant and it was pretty good. As part of my meal I had cold croquettes with it. I wasn't quite sure about them being cold but they were actually really tasty!
Mid meal a bat flew around our table causing Rory to jump out of his seat and have everyone look at him wondering what he was doing. It was pretty funny, I just continued eating my meal!!
The next morning at breakfast we got to watch elephants being bathed across on the other side of the river from the hotel. That was amazing to see!
We had about 7 hours left to go on the slow boat from Pak Beng to Luang Prabang. I was so looking forward to the boat docking in Luang Prabang so we could see where we were staying for the next few days. Thankfully the boat ride went pretty quickly. The surrounding land is very green and we didn't see many people or villages on our remaining journey along The Mekong.
It was such a relief to finally get to Luang Prabang, although we still had to get a Tuk Tuk into the centre of town. It was just a shuttle one so it just dropped us in the centre not at our guesthouse. We asked the driver of our Tuk Tuk if he knew where our guesthouse was and he had no idea. Someone flyering for a hostel advised us to go to a cafe with wifi and download Maps Me (the greatest app ever!) to get a route to our guesthouse. I don't know how I didn't know about this app before. You need wifi to download the country's map then you can search for places and routes without wifi as the app uses your GPS. I could still have my route to our guesthouse up when I was way along the road out of wifi. It said the route should only take us 12 mins which didn't seem too bad until you add the fact in that it's so roasting and you have a massive backpack on! We had to cross a bamboo bridge to get there which was my final straw. I had my first real mood of the holiday as I was just fed up of the heat and walking with the bags. This was made worse when Rory started to take pictures of me raging - this did not go down well!!
All I wanted was to be at our guesthouse and was so relieved when I eventually saw the sign pointing to it! We had finally arrived after our 3 day journey from Thailand!! We were so excited to start exploring our second country of the trip.
Recommendations -
Bamba Bus - http://www.bambaexperience.com
Pak Beng Sanctuary Lodge - http://www.sanctuaryhotelsandresorts.com/english/
Travelling across the border to Laos from Thailand we were going to be taking a boat along the Mekong River. The journey from Chiang Mai in Thailand to Luang Prabang in Laos was going to take us three days. We got picked up from our hotel in Chiang Mai by a mini bus to take us to Chiang Khong for night one. On the way we made a stop in Chiang Rai to have a look around Wat Rong Khun or The White Temple as it's also known.
Our guesthouse in Chiang Khong was included in our Bamba package. It was pretty basic but clean which is always good. The owners cooked us Thai green curry for tea which was just what we needed after a day of travelling. The guesthouse was right beside the river with lovely views we looked out on to whilst having tea.
The next morning we also got breakfast included which was an omelette sandwich. Sounds a bit bland but it was great. The owners had also made everyone Pad Thai for lunch to take on the boat.
It was pretty handy at the guesthouse as we were able to exchange US dollars into Laos KIP so we had some currency for when we arrived in Laos and didn't need to pay ATM fees. We got a million Laos KIP - the only time we could feel like millionaires! It works out at about £90.
The first challenge of the day was to conquer the Laos border control which as we thought was going to take a lot longer than it needed to. It was probably best for our first border crossing to do it in an organised group so we knew what was going on. We got a bus from the guesthouse to the Thailand immigration so we could get our passports stamped to say we had left Thailand. Then we got on another bus to the Laos immigration office. We had a couple of forms to fill out, to handover over a passport photo, our passport and pay $45. You need dollars to pay for all visas. They do let you pay local currency but prefer you pay in US dollars.
After everyone in the group was through we got on another bus to take us to the boat dock. It was going to take us 6 hours to arrive at Pak Beng, our next stop. The boat was quite nice with comfy seats. There were two rows of seats with an aisle up the middle.
You could buy drinks and some food on board and there was also a toilet thankfully as we didn't stop during the journey. The journey was ok but it just felt really long! The scenery was beautiful to look out to the hills and at the occasional animals along the way. However, it was the same view for the whole 6 hours which got slightly dull.
We got picked up at the boat dock in Pak Beng which was good. Pak Beng is pretty tiny with a small market and then just hotels and bars. It only took us two minutes to get from the dock to our hotel. Our hotel was beautiful I was actually gutted we were only staying one night. We had a balcony in our room with two lounging chairs that we sat and relaxed on whilst looking on to the river.
We had tea just in the hotel restaurant and it was pretty good. As part of my meal I had cold croquettes with it. I wasn't quite sure about them being cold but they were actually really tasty!
Mid meal a bat flew around our table causing Rory to jump out of his seat and have everyone look at him wondering what he was doing. It was pretty funny, I just continued eating my meal!!
The next morning at breakfast we got to watch elephants being bathed across on the other side of the river from the hotel. That was amazing to see!
We had about 7 hours left to go on the slow boat from Pak Beng to Luang Prabang. I was so looking forward to the boat docking in Luang Prabang so we could see where we were staying for the next few days. Thankfully the boat ride went pretty quickly. The surrounding land is very green and we didn't see many people or villages on our remaining journey along The Mekong.
It was such a relief to finally get to Luang Prabang, although we still had to get a Tuk Tuk into the centre of town. It was just a shuttle one so it just dropped us in the centre not at our guesthouse. We asked the driver of our Tuk Tuk if he knew where our guesthouse was and he had no idea. Someone flyering for a hostel advised us to go to a cafe with wifi and download Maps Me (the greatest app ever!) to get a route to our guesthouse. I don't know how I didn't know about this app before. You need wifi to download the country's map then you can search for places and routes without wifi as the app uses your GPS. I could still have my route to our guesthouse up when I was way along the road out of wifi. It said the route should only take us 12 mins which didn't seem too bad until you add the fact in that it's so roasting and you have a massive backpack on! We had to cross a bamboo bridge to get there which was my final straw. I had my first real mood of the holiday as I was just fed up of the heat and walking with the bags. This was made worse when Rory started to take pictures of me raging - this did not go down well!!
All I wanted was to be at our guesthouse and was so relieved when I eventually saw the sign pointing to it! We had finally arrived after our 3 day journey from Thailand!! We were so excited to start exploring our second country of the trip.
Recommendations -
Bamba Bus - http://www.bambaexperience.com
Pak Beng Sanctuary Lodge - http://www.sanctuaryhotelsandresorts.com/english/
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