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Samakomlao -> Samakomlao Main -> General -> Do NOT travel in LAOS. So who is wrong or what is wrong with Laos?
Post Info TOPIC: Do NOT travel in LAOS. So who is wrong or what is wrong with Laos?
Anonymous

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Do NOT travel in LAOS. So who is wrong or what is wrong with Laos?
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IF YOU ARE TRAVELLING TO LAOS YOU MUST READ THIS.

We left Vang Vieng at 1:00 in the afternoon on the 11th. We paid 220,000 kip each (about $22) for an air-conditioned VIP bus to Vientiane, then to cross the Lao-Boa boarder crossing and on to Danang, Vietnam. After all of the shady dealings that every single Lao national dealt us, we had a pretty good feeling we would get royally screwed, but just wanted to cross at that boarder crossing, and go to Danang, prefferably not in a chicken wagon.
It is important to know who or where you buy the ticket from, or how much confirmation you get in writing.

Here is what actually happened:


We board a small 'ghetto' plastic seat bus with air conditioning. We depart 25 minutes late. We stop for fuel. 20 minutes away from Vientiane, we stop at the family restaurant, for half an hour. We arrive in Vientiane... but not at a bus station. We are told that to go to Danang, a mini bus would pick us up at 5:00 and take us to the station. It is 5:05. At 5:30 the bus comes and takes us to catch our 6:00 bus. We get there and the VIP bus is 'overbooked' and we cannot board. We are directed to the filthiest bus I have ever seen (SF muni full of pissing vomiting drunks at 4 am has nothing on it...) no air conditioning. No one speaks English. I throw a fit. I demand the driver of the mini bus to clear things up. He called his boss, who came down on a motorbike to apologize. He said we could board the bus to Vinh, and change at the boarder. Doesn't that sound shady? I called him a liar, told him I didn't trust him and that he ran a bad business. Why I didn't get the police and demand my money back... I'm still kicking my ass over that. I would've paid for a taxi to Vietnam if I had any sight into the future.


We deliberated for a while. 2 other couples were in our same situation, they decided to take the **** bus because it actually said 'Danang' on it, and that's where we wanted to go. We stuck together. Ah, regret.
The woman in charge came into the back with two ten dollar bills and a twenty. Todd and I said, "Hey, thanks, our money back?" No. She was demonstrating that we were to give her ten dollars each. She did not speak English. I told her to bite me. Eventually she got out of our faces. Everytime she demanded money we laughed at her.


We left at 7:00-7:30. Everyone on the bus was smoking. There is a buddha shrine with disco lights in the front, and it is CONSTANTLY burning incense. The back is filled with baskets, that smell like 3 week old sheep stall hay, and are full of 'fruit'. Our backpacks were not permitted under the bus, so they sat with the baskets. We stopped several times for food and various other reasons (side of the highway at midnight for pee breaks etc). We still had our sense of humor.

 

The two men in front of me are reclined fully and crushing my legs. I couldn't put them on the floor because it was covered with sandbags. Todd and I each took up two seats. After a long time, I climbed into the back of the bus to lay down across the rear bench seat. I thought I could sleep that way. Every bump in the road, I flew in the air. I landed on backpacks and fruit baskets.

 


Cows were always in the road and requiring braking for. One time the driver braked so hard the whole bench flew off. I returned to my seat. Todd went to lay in the back. We came to a road block. So we just turned off the engine. Still thinking we were going where we wanted to go, I paid no attention and made a bed out of fruit baskets and backpacks. We started driving again after some time, but stopped about 20 minutes later. I thought we were at the friendship boarder, waiting for it to open. I slept. When I woke up I had mites, fleas, spiders, ants... in my clothes, my nose and all over my body.

That was not our first bad Lao experience, in fact, everyday we dealt with similar but less extreme scenarios, but it was by far the worst. Certainly the last. The country is gorgeous and I would love to explore it.. but I will never go back. I have nothing kind to say about the people there. http://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/thread.jspa?threadID=1604326&start=0&tstart=0

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Anonymous

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Sorry to hear about your bad experience. Hey it does happen. On the other hand I have just finished my second 30 day trip in Laos and experienced no transport difficulties apart from the obligatory getting crammed into chicken class.

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Anonymous

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The main mistake was buying a ticket all the way to Danang from tourist-dump Vang Vieng. Any kind of "package" ticket like that is dodgy and you cannot expect accountability anywhere beyond the first leg of the trip, although yours is an extreme example of it going wrong. At least now you have a cool story for the campfire. Next time take your holiday in Switzerland smile.gif

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Anonymous

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The joys of travelling. You'll look back on those experiences with fond memories. By the way, Laos was one of my favourite countries when I travelled the world. Fantastic people and stunning scenery. Definitely go to Laos everybody.

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Anonymous

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Is this some kind of bad joke? I suggest you just go home.

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Anonymous

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They may think they are now in the LA (not Laos, but Los Angeles), so they expect this expect that ba ba ba... Laos is one of the poorest country in the world, so please study about Laos before coming to this country

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TSP


Senior Member

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Posts: 287
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Do doubt, when we firstly saw this comment, we felt sad to hear this comment: "Don't travel in Laos". It seemed to us our country is the really bad place for people to travel. We are not happy to hear that, and we got angry with such a comment as well.

In fact, if this person was able to use the VIP bus, probably he would not have complaint with such comment. He would have said something nice about Laos. But it was not the case.
 
No doubt, this bad case might also have happened to other tourists as well. If the case happens to me, I probably I would say the same thing similar to what he had said and probably some of us would hate me as well.

I think, it is a good feedback for our authorities concerned both public and private. This would only help us to improve our business. What they need to do, I think, is to be realistic, investigating the case and accepting the truth, although sometime the real truth is really not nice to hear.
 
This problem is not too difficult for our authorities to solve and help our guests to travel, I suppose. The additional VIP bus can be added, probably if needed. 
Banning any buses that have no right to serve foreign tourists is a must, otherwise everything may happen to our guests. 

Making our guest being happy is a right of our people who are the hosts. This would only make Laos being an heaven for our tourists, no doubt.

-- Edited by TSP at 10:13, 2008-05-16

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Anonymous

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I don't believe 100 per cent a true story. The writer is probably made up some fake stories in there. Read the story carefully.  

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Anonymous

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follow the link to the forum where it was copied from...you'll see the response from other travellers...

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