We bought the 8:30am VIP Bus ticket to Vientiane a day earlier. I woke up at 7am that morning (seriously i haven’t been like me when i was in Laos, i wake up real early everyday) The same friendly attendant/waiter attended to us when we checking out again. I really like him and we tipped him and i told him “You are very nice”. While walking to Scanidavian Bakery, I was telling myself that I will miss this morning walk to Breakfast in Luangprabang. It was really peaceful and the weather was great! and couldn’t wait to have breakfast every morning. We were approached by a tuk tuk driver, but we rejected him. He still followed us all the way to Scanidavian and he told us he will wait for us til we finish our breakfast.
It took us about 4 minutes walk to Scanidavian Bakery. I read about Scanidavian from travel blogs and i was told it can’t be missed. We were not sure what to order, so we both ordered croissants. Mine is Chocolate Croissants and Ken had Ham in Croissants. I think it was really good!! ( i bought another chocolate croissants in KL Airport after a few days, and i tell u the the Croissant in KL Airport is really Sux!) I suppose Scanidavian is a german bakery as it has logo of a pretzel and it also has outlets worldwide. While Louis was out for photo shooting, there was this boy who approached everyone in the bakery to buy his bracelets, but me. I suppose he thought I’m a local. When Louis was back, We were then approached by another Lao Gal. (Does that mean i really look like Lao? or look like Local Companion)
I found this lao gal who approached us very sweet, nice and polite. I spent sometime picking the bracelet and asked for some discount. I really like her so i didn’t ask for much discount. We ended up buying 6 bracelet at 60 000kip (about USD7). I gave her a small notebook with a pen which i brought from Brunei. Soon after she left, a little lao boy came. He asked us how much we got for our bracelet and offered 3 for 10 000kip!! i was totally ripped off by the gal! haha.. So we bought more from him, but i only left goodies for the gals, so i didn’t give anything to this nice boy.
We finished our breakfast at 8:10 am then get into the tuktuk, he waited 30mins and we still asked for discount from him. We gave him USD 2 to him. While leaving the town of Luang Prabang, I knew i will miss this place.
The VIP Bus is a big Yellow Bus, is really big and high up, with Toilet in it. However the toilet room is small and ceiling is really low. When i went in, my head can touched the ceiling. and While the bus is moving, the water in the toilet bowl might wave up and wet you. So i only went in once and i found it real disgusting. Our allocated seat was just right in front of the staircase to the toilet and a tv, and we can rest our feet on to the grip of the staircase. Throughout the bus ride, i have slight car sick, but it was alright, and i would say its comfortable, really worth paying extra for that. They played a Lao Funny show once at the beginning of the ride. The bus conductor first gave each of us a Bun, then followed with a Plastic bag. I suppose the bag is for us to puke or throw rubbish. But when Louis asked him what’s the bag for, the Bus Conductor said is “CONDOM”. haha… Very good PR Skill. During the ride, we saw some nice scenery, rainbow, and a well which reminds me of Plain of Jars. At 1:30, we stopped at Kasi for Lunch. We were served with Mixed RIce (Chak Fan), but when it was my turn all the dishes were gone, so i picked soup noodles. Louis’s Mixed Rice was nice, wondering how come we didn’t get to eat such local lao food in restaurant. The bus stopped at Vang Vieng after 5 Hrs. Some ppl got down and some new ppl came in to the bus. I miss Vang Vieng too!
We finally arrived at Vientiane at 6pm. the feeling was great and we were back to the first Bus Station when we were leaving to Vang Vieng, the very first place we visited in Laos. We were approached by a Tuk Tuk man to drive us to the Central or Guest House. His tuk tuk was already full, so we got into the front passenger seat. and paid 10 000kip per person. We waited quite sometimes b4 he started the ride, it was so packed at the back. We finally see the City of VIentiane, then we stopped at Intercity hotel which is beside the Mekong RIver. We waited for very long time, duno waiting for what. I was about to get down and walk to our guest house as i roughly know where it is. But the driver got back to the tuk tuk when i was about to leave.
We arrived at Saysouly at 7pm. Saysouly Guesthouse (sounds like Say Sorry) is a very big house with 20 over rooms. It cost us USD13 for a aircon ensuite. Our room is on the 1st floor and we had to pass by the shared bathrooms to get to the staircase. Its normally wet outside the bathrooms, we tried to walk as fast as we could to pass by the bathrooms. The room is full of mosquitos and the bathroom wasn’t clean. After dropping our luggage, we went out for dinner. I told the macho receptionist that the room is full of mosquitos and he promised me that he will spray later.
Our GUesthouse is just a minute walk from Mekong RIver. We walked along the shops along the Mekong River then hunting for a restaurant along the river to settle down. We found one with a macho waiter at about 8pm. I ordered tomyam soup with fish, GreenCurry with Mixed Vege, 2 Prawns. There were ladies approaching us to buy their sotong bakar and also children begging for money. I didn’t see any Beggers throughout the whole trip til i reached vientiane. After our dinner, We saw Gabriel and Ah Man!! They were so surprise to see us too! we joined their table and had a long chat. Gabriel and Ah man are the UK + Thai Couple we were in the same tourgroup in VangVieng. Ah man showed us the China phone he bought from the Morning market and recommended us to visit the next day. She told us thailand is just within our sight across the river. Yes.. we could see Thailand! They also told us its been raining after the day we left Vangvieng and the water turns Brown, and a lot of unidentified insects flying around and biting their eye lid. I really felt so lucky that we left Vang Vieng Early.
We then went for Durian Hunt, It was 9:30! A tuk tuk who thought he can understand us brought us to the fountain area where Scanidavian Vientiane is. We told them we didn’t want food, we want Durian, then i drew him a durian, then only he brought us to somewhere near the morning market for Durian. The durians are all thailand durian, not Lao durian. We spent 30 000kip for that durian. Its nice! We then took the same tuk tuk back to the guesthouse, However we didn’t have enuf kip to pay him. So we went to the cyber cafe around for a short while then get the change and paid him.
I checked with the Macho Receptionist about the Monk’s alms. He said the Monks passed by the guest house at 5:30 am and his tip to me is “Must give to every monk” and its about 9 of them.
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