We got up which was a good start to the Saturday and had our last breakfast at the small cafe up the road. Then got our stuff together and got a taxi to the airport. We were an hour early for check in which was fine, we sat outside and watched the craziness. When we checked in we had to sign a disclaimer to say if we got refused entry to Laos because we didn't have visa it was our fault, oh well.
Eventually we boarded a bit later, total chaos as they started boarding a maynamar flight at the same time , a bus to the plane which was a turbo prop where the luggage was stored behind the pilots in a cage, interesting! It was a nice flight flying low enough to see the land and jungles we might crash in ! we got a soft drink and offered a snack eat your heart out BA ( but we had just pigged out on a burger at the airport.)
We landed an hour later and the visa thing wasn't a problem, we had to fill out a form and give them a photo ( lucky we had one ) give them 40usd each and then we went through passport control. Easier than we thought, after that we got a sim card and took out some money. You can only get loation Kip in laos, the good news was they took Baht and USD.
Then we got a taxi which turned out to be shared with a large family, Fi and I ended up in the boot with the luggage, I was happy when we got dropped off but not so happy when we found out it wasn't our hotel! To be fair the guy from the wrong hotel went and got a truck taxi thing who ended up dropping us in the vicinity of our Hotel, very tired and sweaty when we got there , no suitcases on wheels just carrying big bags on our backs. My initial intro to Laos ,not so good.
As always a day flying doesn't cheer me up but after a wash and an hours rest we felt ready to go out. A really nice restaurant near us and after a meal and a beer and a blether with a couple from France who we invited to share a table ( they were getting turned away as it was full )
We withdrew 2 million Kip from the bank which was around £70, and the bill came to several hundred thousand Kip, I left the lassie a tip but she said it was too much, nice, I still left a tip which I'm sure was a few pence. The area we are staying in seems quite upmarket, when we got a ride into town I was thinking "my god" but it's really quite nice. We ended up in a bar where we had a singleton whisky and a French red wine respectively.
Awakened at 4am by the monks banging a big drum next door, it sounded like someone was kicking a door in and just before I got up to go outside and tell them to Shut the fuck up I realised what it was.
Sunday today and a wander then a tut tut ride to the bike shop to introduce ourselves (200,000 kip fare around £7 including him waiting half an hour) , we pick the bikes up on Tuesday for the next riveting adventure.
Leaving Chiang Mai
It must scary and fun at the same time to travel to a country where you don't know what to expect. I would be freaking out thinking I could get stranded there.
ReplyDelete