Getting from Si Phan Don to Vang Vieng

A sign welcoming us to a temple in Pakse

Leaving Don Khon

After a week in Don Khon back in 2015, we decided it was time to leave. I probably could have spent my entire 30-day visa period there, just swinging in a hammock, reading books and watching the sunsets over the mighty Mekong. But the constant stream of tourist food was starting to get to us. How many meals of French fries and pork omelets can one eat?

So we started asking around about the price of getting away. Our problem was that we were in the far south and wanted to get all the way to the north, to Vang Vieng. That was a fairly significant journey, one that would take a day and a half to complete.

Our hotel owner had told us he could book onward travel for us, so we talked to him first. The plan was to first go back to Pakse (not because we wanted to, but because we had to in order to catch a bus to anywhere), do an overnight bus to Vientiane, and then a minivan to Vang Vieng. And we wanted a package that included the boat ride off the island as well.

Our hotel owner told us that the cost was 400,000 kip (US$50)!!! He assured us that the government had recently taken control of the transportation routes, and that no matter where we went the price would be the same.

There was no way we were paying $50 per person for 30 hours of misery! We decided we would hit the town and ask around. If that was truly the price, we would simply head to Vientiane and get a visa for Vietnam and leave Laos.

But the first place we went to offered us the exact same package for 250,000 kip (US$30). She also assured us that the government had recently taken over the transportation routes and that the price would be the same no matter where we went.

We thanked her and moved on. $30 was better, but now we were thinking about the food in Hanoi, and ditching Laos for Vietnam was still a possibility. An attractive one.

Finally, we stopped at a quirky little shop along the main strip. At this shop, the owner had set up a movie room, a medium-sized room with a projection screen and cushions on the floor. You could rent movies from his shop and have your own little theater. We had been thinking about having a movie night every night we were on Don Khon, but inertia is a powerful thing on the island and watching a movie just always seemed like way too much work.

But the shop was also a travel agency, and the guy who ran the place was a likeable fellow, so we stopped and asked him about transport to Vang Vieng. He quoted us 170,000 kip (just over US$20). We were almost bummed. Our second trip to Vietnam would have to wait. We bought the tickets to Vang Vieng.

Getting to Pakse

The next day, we went back to the movie house/shop at about 10am to catch our boat from Don Khon back to the mainland. The boat was about 10 minutes late (which is actually almost 45 minutes for a boat in Laos). The boat whisked us and several other passengers back to the dock on the mainland.

Once you get to the mainland, you simply walk down the only street there is. You keep walking until you start to wonder if you have walked too far, and then you will find the bus station (near the only ATM in the area—at least in October of 2015).

We walked up to the window at the bus station and waved our paperwork around until someone told us where to wait. There are places to buy snacks and drinks at the bus station and we stocked up. We waited about 20 minutes until several minivans pulled up.

At the sight of the minivans, all the backpackers and tourists waiting in the area launched into full-on travel frenzy madness mode, running and pushing and biting.

I am not sure why. There was plenty of space in the minivans for everyone. But since everyone else was going crazy, I went crazy too, using my bag of snacks as a weapon to batter my way through the mob to the nearest minivan.

Once I got there, I put our bags into the ample space in the back and climbed in to get a seat. Snooze mode: three hours to Pakse.

Once we got into Pakse, we were able to stash our bags at the travel office the minivan dropped us off at. They told us to be back at 8pm for a ride to the bus station.

It was about 2:30.

Killing time in Pakse

How to kill five and a half hours in Pakse?

We walked down to a wat along the river and stood there for a while. There was nowhere to sit, but we had just been sitting in our minivan, so we stood happily. For a while.

And then we stood unhappily for a little while.

And then we left.

Walking down the main street we found a café with overpriced western food and AC. The AC won out, and we sat there, with expensive but tasteless hamburgers, for four hours.

Finally, we went back to the travel agency, picked up our bags, and caught our bus to the bus station.

Getting to Vientiane

It is no secret that I hate busses. Busses suck. I am a train guy. Or a boat guy. Or a minivan guy in a pinch. Never, never a bus guy.

But our travel from Pakse to Vientiane was on a bus. A sleeper bus. We had used sleeper busses in Vietnam and survived, but we rarely got much sleep on them. This would be no different.

At the bus station in Pakse we once again waved our paperwork around until someone issued us tickets, told us which bus would be ours, and told us where to wait. The tickets were in pairs. My wife was paired with my middle daughter. My oldest and youngest were paired together. And I was paired with . . . hmmm. Who would I be paired with? That could be awkward.

We walked over to the bus and checked out the layout. Each berth was basically a cushion the size of a twin mattress. That meant my wife and middle daughter would be snuggling pretty closely for the night. So would my other two daughters.

And who would I be snuggling? A stranger? No one? I hoped for the answer to be no one, but tried to mentally prepare for reality to be something much, much worse.

In the end, I did get a berth to myself. I have no idea if they always put a single traveler by him or herself, of if sometimes strangers are forced to share. I would ask before you book tickets if you are not part of a group with an even number.

And how was the sleeper bus? Well, if you are able to sleep with your bed shaking so violently that you are tossed completely off the mattress from time to time, then you will do just fine. Otherwise, be prepared for a long night.

Finally, shortly after dawn, we pulled into the large bus station of Vientiane.

The wife and daughter 2 on the sleeper bus

Getting to Vang Vieng

There is a pattern here: we got off the bus, collected our luggage, went to the main waiting area, and showed our paperwork to anyone who seemed remotely like they might work there. Then we sat down and waited. After about 40 minutes, one of the people we had showed our paperwork to ushered us to a minivan which took us to a travel agency. We were told we would wait about an hour and another minivan would come pick us up for the ride to Vang Vieng.

I took a short walk along the Mekong to kill the time. My family napped at the travel office or used their wifi.

Right on time, a minivan came and picked us up.

Imagine this: you have now been traveling for almost 24 hours. You barely got any sleep the night before, because your bed rated an 8.2 on the Richter scale. Now you are in a minivan for several hours. You are as tired as you can ever remember being, but you can’t go to sleep because the minivan driver is shooting for some kind of speed record, tearing through the twisting roads that head up into the mountains. If you fall asleep, you will probably be thrown out of your seat, and likely end up in the lap of the large Bulgarian man who has been giving you a resentful stare ever since you nabbed the seat with the best leg room.

It was a rough trip.

But we made it. Because travel, we were now ready to check out Vang Vieng.