10th January: Luang Prabang, Laos to Vientiane, Laos

After one last wander around Luang Prabang and another industrial strength coffee taken whilst overlooking Vat Souvannapoumaram, we checked out and left this beautiful town. The minivans all wanted way more money to go back to the station and their times didn’t line up very well with our train. Fortunately, we’ve got the secret weapon of Loca, the Uber/DiDi/Grab equivalent in Laos. This cost us the same as two minivan tickets and got us to the station in comfort at the time we wanted. The roads out of town are bumpy and pothole-ridden. Given this is a relatively wealthy and well-touristed area, I wonder what the rest of the infrastructure in the country is like.

Luang Prabang high-speed station is designed as if it is a temple to high-speed rail, following the tradition of Chinese built railways taking inspiration from the local vernacular for their stations.

Getting onto the train was comical. There were 3 queues (one for each desk) which formed a few minutes before check-in, then as check-in opened 4 additional queues either side of these were formed by Chinese tour groups! They don’t act like this at home when the check-in procedure is the same but seemingly anything goes once they’re outside of the country. Of course, there are plenty of rude travellers from other countries too, not least the UK, but they aren’t here right now for me to comment on.

This was our final Chinese high-speed train of the trip (Vientiane is the end of the Chinese-built rail network for now) and our first time travelling backwards. Whilst the seats were the type which could be spun around, that doesn’t seem to happen on the Laos-China Railway. An astonishing 45% of this route is in tunnels but we did emerge more regularly as we headed south and were able to witness the spectacular karst pillars around Viang Veng. We wished that we’d planned a stop here, but the landscape was at least similar to that which we saw around Yangshuo in China.

Our journey from the out-of-town station into the city was on a mosquito ridden, but otherwise convenient, bus. Despite it being 28 degrees outside and warmer on the bus, I dug out a jacket and buff to try to cover as much skin as possible! Traffic was quite heavy and the journey slow in the Friday afternoon rush hour. The walk a kilometre or so to the hotel wasn’t too fun either along main roads with parked cars blocking the pavements.

At first glance, Vientiane doesn’t feel like a capital. You could tell me we were on the edge of a nondescript provincial town, and I’d happily believe you. The journey was surprisingly mentally exhausting, so we chilled out until dinner. Around sunset, thousands of tiny birds gathered in the trees and began to make a cacophony audible from hundreds of metres away. It’s great to see so many birds and insects here in Laos compared to the ecological desert which is the sad reality in many places these days. Dinner from a spot around the corner was pretty decent. We shared fresh spring rolls with a peanut dip. I ordered a vegan version of the Laos speciality of larb Lao, which had vegan ‘meats’, a hearty amount of heat, and freshness from an assortment of herbs. Kaja had a homely fried tofu and mushroom dish with various vegetables and a delicious umami sauce.