Vientiane Transportation

Review of thaifocus travel agent, seat61.com and buying train tickets from bangkok..
Came across a website called www.seat61.com which details train travel across thailand. Found it very helpful. It listed a number of travel agents you can use to book your seat on the thai railway system. I wanted a seat from bangkok to the border of thailand where you reach laos. I think its called Nong kai. It recommends one called thaifocus which i decided to use. It stated that the company does charge high commission, but did not basically tell me that the company was a rip off. I bought tickets equaling 150 usd and then found out the tickets only actually cost 75 dollars and they had charged me 75 dollars in commission. Thats a complete farce. Be wary when using the recommendations on seat61 website, and travel agents in thailand. If possible go directly to the thai railway station to buy your tickets to avoid this. Also avoid khao san road travel agents, they too charge extortionate amounts.

To get to the city centre from the Airport, we walked out from the terminal (10mins walk) to reach the exit where it faces the Th Luang Prabang (Luang Prabang Road). Cross over to the other side of the road , flag down a jumbo, negotiated a price of USD2/- for the whole jumbo. After about 15minutes ride, we reached the city centre, near to the Mekong riverfront.

Now getting to Vientiane by budget travel is via AirAsia, the no frills airlines in Malaysia. There is currently one flight a day to/fro KL and Vientiane - on certain days only. Check out the details in the website.

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If you choose to travel by bus from this city to Luang Prabang you'll have a really tiring voyage.
Buses leave from the northern bus station and the journey takes about 12 hours. I travelled using a local air-conditioned bus, but the refrigerated worked only the first hour! Maybe I advise you to use a VIP bus which costs only a little more.
From downtown Vientiane to northern bus station, a tuktuk ride costs around 30000 kips.

Local buses fares:
Air-conditioned - 100000 kips.
Non air-conditionated - 90000 kips.

While the Laotians need only pay 3000 kip for a tuk-tuk, foreigners should be expected to pay 20, 000 kip per trip. Don't get conned if the tuk-tuk driver insists that each person should pay 20, 000 kip. That's bollocks.

Even a trip to National University of Laos, which is a 30-40 minute bus ride from our hotel, costs 45, 000--50, 000 kip per trip.

We took the bus from Luang Prabang to Vientiane - largely because our trip was a little bit too flexible - arrived in LP to find it was much more of a tourist mecca than the previous year, and planes were booked out for several days to depart the city. It actually took us 2 days to be able to get a bus anyway! We chose the 1st class bus, which was barely more expensive than the next one down - and rightly so! It looks good, but it was hot and stuffy, and the ride was VERY slow - by virtue of the heat and the very mountainous conditions. Trip was roughly 8 hours - and we were very pleased to get to Vientiane, and get off the stuffy thing!

Along the way, at a comfort stop, I *happened* to notice a plain clothes person getting off the bus with an AK47 - and was subsequently told that there had been attacks on the tourist buses over the previous few months! I had not been aware of the soldiers placed along the road - but became more acutely vigilant for them! We did not really feel at risk, but it definitelyu pays to be aware of the local news before making travel plans.

Cost was roughly $12.

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There's no shortage of these little vehicles to get around Vientiane - and its ideal, as the distances are not large within the city. We did find that many of the drivers have little English though, and it was often difficult to communicatre where we wanted to go. Therefore, its a good idea to carry a map to show the drivers your desired destination.

I began my trip to Laos from Singapore. My plans were to fly to Bangkok, then from Bangkok to Udon Thani in northern Thailand. From Udon Thani, I took a bus to Nong Khai, where I would then catch the Nong Khai-Vientiane.

SIN-BKK flights are aplenty. I chose to fly Air Asia, one of the budget airlines serving the region, to arrive in BKK late in the evening.

My BKK-UTH flight out was scheduled early morning on the day following my arrival in BKK. Air Asia canceled the flight the last minute, but they were able to put me on another flight operated by Nok Air, a Thai budget carrier.

Both Air Asia and Nok Air fly this route and there are flights in the early morning and in the late afternoon. Air Asia originally put me on the late afternoon flight to UTH, which was what I didn't want, as they couldn't contact me about the cancellation of the earlier flight. Fortunately, I went to their office at the airport and managed to get myself onto the morning Nok Air flight. If this happens to you too, there's no harm trying to contact the airline directly, as they probably would have made arrangements with other airlines to fly the affected passengers out around similar hours.

To get from UTH-VTN, there are mini vans that can bring you to either downtown Udon Thani or Nong Khai. I took the van to downtown Udon Thani to catch a bus to Nong Khai. Like to mention that the mini van doesn't bring you to the bus station where buses to Nong Khai depart. I had to find out from the locals and catch a tuk tuk to the bus terminal.

Once at the Nong Khai bus station, it suffice to get a ticket for the bus to Vientiane and the rest of the journey was a breeze. There are some cheap mom and pop stores around the bus station selling simple but nice cooked food. A good place to have lunch and hang out while waiting for the bus.