Vientiane 2

I am now back in Luang Prabang after taking a trip down to Vientiane. Saturday at 7 am I met my travel partner at Scandinavian Bakery to buy breakfast to take with us before we took a tuk-tuk down to the bus station. The trip down to Vientiane was pretty routine I would think, except for an extra vomit-stop. To the vomiters' defense the first couple of hours are in the mountains, with many many curves and turns on the road. The scenery is beautiful though. 11 hours later, we arrived in Vientiane. The second guest house we looked at was good, so we checked in and went out and grabbed some dinner. Apparently, there was a birth party going on at the hotel so when we got back from dinner we were invited to have a beer. We said one beer. I had to stop them from filling it up more than once, and then we went to bed.

Our day in Vientiane was spent like this: Since Niclas, my travel partner, needed to cross the border to stamp in his new B2 Visa, I went as well, mainly to see how everything worked but also to get a new visa and 30 more days in Laos. We took a cab to the Thai border, crossed and came back with our new visas. The rest of the day was spent walking around touristing and checking out the city. My conclusion is that if you don't need to go to Vientiane, skip it. The city is not really anything to see. If you still want to go there, don't spend more than a night, maximum two.

The bus-trip back was interesting though. When we got to the second half of our way back, we entered the hilly parts if the country. It was raining. And the sun had set. I thought we were going to crash and it was one second I really thought I was going to die. Also, the bus driver was driving insanely fast. We changed the tires right after lunch which was lucky, I don't know what have happened if we were driving with the old ones.

Once I think the new tires started to smell burnt,
And once I think the engine started to smell like smoke,

But after 12.5 hour we finally got to Luang Prabang's bus station. We left Vientiane at 8 am that morning and 9.30 pm I got home, stepping inside my door with my brain feeling like mush.