Erin with the other Edmontonians whose names we now forget
Erin
Several months later in 2014, we decided to head off on a holiday again. I was feeling stressed and like my time was being usurped by a number of things and I really needed to get away. We agreed to go on a holiday somewhere, but with Pete, a holiday is never worth it unless you go for two weeks. Fair enough, but where?
We entertained a number of great places to head off to, Greece, Italy, Morocco again. None of them really clicked. His mom suggested Thailand - cheap, cheerful, beautiful and warm and kind of the perfect option for us. We wanted to spend no more than seven hundred pounds for the whole thing, but the flights alone were seven hundred. I agreed, somewhat begrudging the cost, mainly because I’d been promised that once there it was cheap as all hell.
“Okay,” I thought. “It will be fine. Go have some good times, and relax.”
Pete then said that he wouldn’t go to Thailand and be that close to Laos - his absolute number one country - without going to Laos. I agreed, again, not being too sure about it as Laos had been incredibly bigged up by everyone who had gone. I was worried it wouldn’t live up to the hype, but decided to give it a chance.
So we got to Bangkok, stayed in a nice guesthouse and experienced the bit of the city we could before our flight out to Udon Thani in the north of the country the next day for our border crossing by land into Laos. That in itself probably warrants a whole post of its own, especially on how to do it because there’s a lot of stuff that again, you don’t have to do but the people on the border would have you believe that you have to, like paying $5 for visa photos when you can just give them any old passport style photo of yourself and save yourself the money or just pay $2 and they essentially photocopy your passport photo.
Visas on the Laotian border from Thailand is a somewhat interesting event - akin to ordering in the drive through lane at McDonalds. Pay and “order” at one window, and pick up at another. Except instead of just queuing up and getting your passport in the order it’s been well, ordered, doesn’t exist. Instead you kind of all just mill around and a surly Laotian border guard rips open an obscured window and yells out your nationality. Every time I’ve done this so far there has luckily been only one Canadian, otherwise that could get confusing.
We got into the capital Vientiane and looked around for a guesthouse. We found a relatively run down one which was alright for the two nights we’d be in Vientiane before heading north to Vang Vieng, then further on to Luang Prabang. Located in the centre of town, near shops and restaurants and everything you needed really.
We spent two lovely days in Vientiane, exploring the Mekong river area, and Pete revelling at how much the city has changed in the only 4 years or so since he’d been last. We decided on our second day to go and purchase our tickets to Vang Vieng and got the VIP minibus, which usually is much more comfortable than the local “chicken” buses.
“Chicken buses?” you ask. Again I say chicken buses. Literal buses with chickens on them - as in, being transported on the bus. Many times you will have your luggage in the hold alongside any number of poultry, that is, if you’re lucky enough to get a bus where the hold hasn’t been filled and the chickens ride up with you.
The next morning we got our stuff together and headed to the place we bought the tickets from. The way it works in a lot of the world is you purchase tickets from a travel agency - or even from your guesthouse - and then either meet at the agency to get picked up by the bus or the bus comes and collects you from your guesthouse. We got onto the bus and picked some good seats. Another thing to remember about countries like Laos is that the buses kinda sorta leave when they want and by when they want what I really mean is mostly late, sometimes by hours.
Luckily we didn’t leave too horribly late and we set off with a very empty bus - maybe six people of a possible twenty or so. Never fear though! The bus soon filled up at subsequent stops and we were at capacity, save for some rumble type seats - the kinds that pull out into the aisle. It was getting unbearably hot in the bus, and I prayed to the bus gods that we would finally be on our way for the three hour drive to Vang Vieng, but no. We had to pick some last people up first.
I started getting cranky. It was hot, humid and I was tired. I hoped it wouldn’t take long to find the last couple of people, but it did! I was getting increasingly annoyed and settled in with my ipod in on some loud dance music to try to take my mind off how uncomfortable I was progressively getting.
Finally after what seemed like hours we found these two people, a woman and her husband who climbed on and sat next to Pete on one rumble seat, and in the rumble seat behind. I didn’t pay much attention as I was cranky by this point but grateful we could finally get this show on the road. Someone started talking to them and Pete heard the guy say they were from Canada. Turns out, not just from Canada, but from Edmonton!
He poked me and I took my earbuds out. He told me this and I waited for a lull in the conversation before… well, butting in and saying I was from Edmonton as well. We ended up talking all the way to Vang Vieng, not with just them, but other people seated near us - one of which was a girl from New Zealand who was working with abused children in Chiang Mai doing stuff like art therapy, which was pretty cool.
Suffice it to say, it was an amazing trip up to Vang Vieng, chatting with fellow Edmontonians and other people near us. What are the freaking odds??
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