N 62 Vientiane Part 1

N 62   Vientiane   ( Part 1 )

There are two places I want to visit in Laos . The capital Vientiane and the old city Luang Prabang. I cannot go to Luang Prabang this time , but I decided to take my group of 10 people  (  including me ) to Vientiane within  my trip to Thailand.

   

  After 4 nights in Bangkok we boarded the domestic Nok Airline bound for Udon Thani in the north. The flight took about one hour and we landed at the airport , so different from Bangkok airports because of it’s size and quietness. Our flight is called fly and ride because after the flight the airline will also take responsibility to transfer us to the border by car.

    

After waiting for a few minutes they took us to a ten seater to go to Nongkai which is the border town, and about 34 kilometers from Udon Thani. When we reached there we got off the car and queued at the Thai immigration for scrutiny.

     

I was worried that we will have to walk in the hot sun when we cross the buffer zone like in Cambodia but was much relieved to know that for 20 baht each person a bus will take us to the Lao immigration.

    

   There was not a long queue at the Lao immigration and did not take much long to have our passport stamped because we had already obtained visas from the Lao embassy in Yangon. We can get visa on arrival here but as were afraid this will take a long time we already got them before coming here.

After that a minivan owner approached us and offer to take us to Vientiane for 400 baht. About the currency we can use either the Thai baht or Lao kip . One baht is the equivalent of 250 kip.

    

  It took about half an hour to reach the city and when we reached there it was past time for lunch, so we told our driver to take us somewhere for lunch. We had Vietnamese noodle which he said is the best in the city and then we headed to our hotel which was already booked online.

   

  We told him that our hotel was Douangchan Plaza but he took us to Douangchan Palace, so we had to drive through the city to get to our hotel. It was so quiet with a little traffic that we wondered why a city should be like this. Later we came to know it was like this because it was Sunday. We thought it is like Taunggyi and even then the buildings in Taunggyi are more modernized and higher than here.

     

Finally we reached our hotel which is not situated on the riverfront or in the heart of the city but I should say in the suburb.

   

  Oh I forgot to mention one thing. When we were on our way into the city we came to a bridge when my hubby who had been here once  told me that we were going to cross the Mekong and to get ready to take photos . I became excited to see Mekong once more and took many photos of it.

   

We rested for sometime in the hotel and in the evening went to the riverside thinking about eating there , but what we saw surprised us because the place which had been quiet with a few traffic was bustling now and crowded with people that we can find no place to eat. There also is a night market selling clothing  and souvenirs . So for our dinner we had to drive back into the city and eat at a Chinese restaurant.