Vang Vieng + Vientiane, Laos

At the bus station in Vang Vieng, we ran into a group we shared the boat ride with to Luang Prabang, and together found a guesthouse for our first night, negotiating a deal for the three rooms our party would need. Will and I walked around town, exploring the little city during a short walk, and settled in for dinner and 'Friends' reruns at one of many bars in town where my best friends Rachel, Monica, Phoebe, Chandler, Joey, and Ross play nonstop. Will had to pry me out of there.

Unfortunately, our room was extremely disgusting. Will and I slept in the same twin bed because mine was covered in bugs (luckily, they weren’t bed bugs, but regardless, so gross), so Will and I spent the next morning searching for something better. We found a much more comfortable room for a comparable rate, and funnily enough, ran into that same group at our new place, as well. I wasn’t the only one uninterested by the bugs running all over the beds, and Will finally believed that there WERE indeed bugs when 4 other people confirmed my complaints.

Will got sick again, so we stayed in Vang Vieng longer than planned without doing much. Timing worked well for me, as I was able to get quite a few wedding suites worked on while Will rested, and we had working HBO, which always helps for days when we’re laying low. We spent a few hours in the evenings watching 'Friends' before heading back to our place to rest.

The day Will was feeling better, we ventured on what ended up being the worst 30km bike ride I’ve ever embarked upon. Albeit stunningly beautiful, the incredibly rough terrain made for an unbelievably painful ride. We powered through, but my tailbone hasn’t been the same since. At one point, I couldn’t hold my tears back any longer. Warm drops falling on my shirt, I yelled “I’m not having any fun right now!” to no one in particular. I felt better once the Advil set in.

The only thing we really missed in Vang Vieng was tubing or kayaking down the river through the karst mountainside, which we experienced by bike ride instead without the risk of pink-eye and intolerably drunk tubers. Wiki Travel has an entire paragraph dedicated to surviving the river, and we watched many a drunkard stumble through the small town, returning their tube incomprehensible or led by a more sober counterpart. We experienced epic enough river tubing on the Salt River in Phoenix. One floating journey while my BFF Jamie was visiting, we noticed our friend Felix had abandoned his tube. So naturally, Jamie, who is a lifeguard, jumped out of her tube to save him. Realizing now Felix and Jamie were in the water without tubes, I, not a lifeguard, abandoned my tube to save Jamie. Will, also not a lifeguard, did not abandon his tube, and just watched the three of us splash in the water. Don't worry, we all survived. So although appealing, we avoided the odd high-risk of river pinkeye or death by drunkard drowning and enjoyed the beautiful views by land.

Feeling better again, we booked a bus ride to the capital city, Vientiane, a must stop to obtain our visas for Vietnam. We quickly got settled and ventured to the Vietnam immigration office, where we learned the upcoming New Year holiday meant we’d either be stuck in Vientiane for over a week waiting for our visas to be procesed, since the office would be closed, or we could pay 100 US Dollars each and poof! magically the offices would be opened. With little alternative but to pay the extra, we handed over the cash and our passports with the promise our visas would be processed the following day.

The couple behind us took some amazing photos!! We are working on broadening our photo-pose horizons...

We explored the city, walking around Patuxai, or 'Victory Gate,' in the city center and wandered the river-front market, filled with great street food, knock-off sunglasses, and plenty of clothes. It was a market still popular with the locals, a place not just for fanny packed tourists, which is fun to experience. Families ate the same food we did and shopped for new clothes and electronics. The place was packed, and we eventually abandonded the crowded market aisles to head home.

We rented a motorbike the following day to ride out to Buddha Park, where 200+ giant Buddha statues rest among the trees. Songkran, the New Year holiday celebrations, continued on here, where families enjoyed picnic lunches would sprinkle water on the Buddhas, cleansing their sins away to start the new year fresh.

On the way home, we were stopped by numerous partying Laoations, completely drenched with water, tossing water and and shooting waterguns at every passerby. There was no avoiding it, it was basically a country wide water fight (actually, many countries in Asia celebrate Songkran), so we played along and had a fun (and safely slow) ride home.

On the way to Buddha park, we stopped by the bus station to buy our tickets to Vietnam. Due to the holiday week, our option was to take the 5:30 bus that night or wait 2 days for the next overnight bus (we exnayed the less comfortable bus the following day that did not have a bathroom... the ride to Vietnam would be 30 hours, we needed all the comfort we could get). There wasn't much in Vientiane we wanted to see. In fact, outside of Buddha park, there wasn’t anything that excited us about the city. Our visa wouldn’t be done until 5:00 that same day, which made it extremely tight for us to get from the visa office to the bus station in time. We weren’t even sure the guy at the office would have our visas for us, it seemed a little sneaky to us. But, we took a gamble and booked 2 seats on the 30 hour bus depoarting at 5:30 that night, hoping the stars would align and our timelines would work out.

We made it back from Buddha Park drenched with a little time to kill, so we went back down to the river front, getting caught by the parade, and walked through the market. I was determined to get a new pair of shades (and opted for the Ono-esque pair that Will wasn’t in love with: “they look weird.” “Oh whatever, I’ll lose or break them in three days, don’t worry.”) and find a flower crown like all the other girls had. I’ve loved flower crowns since I was never allowed to get them from fairs when I was little (ok, that may be an exageration that I was never allowed, however I am certainly sure I always pleaded for them and happen to never recall ever having one. Mom, maybe you can clarify this horrible childhood memory...). My girlfriend, Alyssa, even made me one out of pitty when we were in junior high (well, pitty and love, of course). I marched all over that market and ran out of time before finding the perfect crown. Still no flower crown for Sara.

Still trapped by the parade and were running out of time, we got a little nervous; we still needed to get the electronics charged and grab snacks for the ride. 30 hours without entertainment and food was not on our too-do list. Not only was the parade casuing some traffic issues, finally dried off, we were getting RE-soaked by travellers enjoying the festivities. “YOU’RE TOO DRY!” westerners would yell as they doused us with buckets or shot us with waterguns and hoses, participating in the party. Feeling a little stiff, we avoided what damage we could (thankfully, the phone made it), and dripped all the way back to the hostel, where we attempted to dry off while our stuff charged. Had we not booked the bus that day, we would have felt much more excited to continue celebrating. But soaked was also not on our agenda for the grueling ride.

We still had the motorbike (which was a pain to find a company to rent to us during the holiday), so we planned for Will to drive me and our bags to the visa office, where I would wait for the GENEROUS man to come and hand over our passports with the new Vietnam visa intact. Will would ride back to the rental office to return the bike and take a tuk-tuk to the office, pick me and our passports up, then continue on to the bus stop. Our hope was the ride would be cheaper since it was only Will, not us both, but again, we had to pay much more since it was the holiday.

As I nervously waited at the office for the doors to open, I saw a few others join the line, too, settling my nerves that we had been taken advantage of. Looks like they made plenty of extra cash I thought as the same man who took $200 from me opened the door. He wouldn’t let me take Will’s, but I grabbed my passport and started rearranging our packs for the night bus (we like to keep our valuables and nighttime necessities with us in the day pack, while our packs ride under the bus with the weird smelling bags and boxes filled with who knows what). After getting our packs settled and nervous Will still wasn’t back, I glanced at the visa sticker inside of my Passport.

“Excuse me. My visa says valid from 4/16. But I’m going there today. Today is 4/14. I'll cross the boarder before the 16th.”

“You go Vietnam today?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, this no good.”

OF COURSE this is no good, I thought, as I smiled politely and repeated myself.

“Well, we are going today. My husband is on his way, and our bus leaves at 5:30. Will I be able to enter Vietnam?”

“No.”

He picked up one of his cell phones (every tour agent, bus company, office official, etc. seems to have numerous cell phones) and started yelling into the phone, finally handing it to me.

“Hello? Yes, I need the date of my vsa changed to today. I am leaving in 20 minutes to Vietnam. My husband’s also needs his changed.” My heart pounded... Did we really just pay $200 for a bad visa and waste 2 bus tickets?

10 minutes later, a woman ran in, grabbed our passports, and left. She returned just before a soaked Will arrived with the waiting tuk tuk driver, and we grabbed our passports and ran. I explained the story on the road between dodging the buckets of water being hurled at us from all directions.

Our $200 Visa’s ‘because the office was closed’ ended up being whited-out and then hand written in, with a little asterix and a signature, as if to state “approved! No problem’s here, Vietnam.” The man at the office let me know that normally they charge extra for changing the date, but ‘he no charge me.’ Luckily, my ‘thank you’ dripping in sarcasm was missed in translation.

We made it to the bus with plenty of time to spare, since a ticket stating a 5:30 departure really means “probably an hour later if not more but basically whenever we feel like departing” and we boarded the bus to embark upon our 30 hour ride from Laos to Vietnam.

If only I knew then that our little visa conundrum was an indicator of what was in store for us in Vietnam…

From Laos, with Love,

Sara + Will