YA LEUM.9 — A new start in Laos. Time to say goodbye to Thailand. It was…
By: Patricia Assis
Tags: Backpack, Travel, Thailand, Laos, Traveling

Now, a new country is waiting!

The excitement of traveling in a new country is like the preparation work for your birthday party. You know something great is about to happen, you imagine as much as possible how it will be, and when the first guests arrive you are a mix of nervousness and agitation.

The next country to go to was Laos. I had some big expectations for Laos since I am a forest lover! I imagined green everywhere and dense bushes everywhere. It was like this, but of course not everywhere. Lao people are known by their shyness, generous souls and the trait of roaming through life in an unrushed and unworried way.

We took the bus thinking we would go directly to Vientiane (capital of Laos). The 3 hours bus was a very pleasant ride, the view over the Mekong river while crossing the bridge was beautiful.

Just when we were about to arrive, we realized the bus was just taking us until the border (Nong Khai) and then we would need to sort out a different transportation to arrive in the capital. Starters!

Crossing the borders can be uncomplicated, but sometimes happen to be an incredible nightmare.

So that was the case. This border is not the most difficult one, but we could have prepared better…

To start, the bus left us far from the border so we had to walk quite a lot to get there not knowing whether we were doing the right thing! The moment we got off the bus, a flood of people surrounded us convincing us to take a taxi with them until Vientiane, with a stop at the border to get the visa.

We knew this by heart, it is barely a good idea to take this unofficial taxis, because most of times they are way more expensive.

We decided to walk.

First we had to stamp ourselves out from Thailand. Just that took us 2 hours — they were not giving us good instructions of what we needed to do. Then we had to arrange pictures which we did not have, then we needed to wait 1 hour for the counter to open and lastly the payment was also not smooth.

Once this was done, we had to find out how to get to Laos immigration 2 kms away. Either walk or take a bus. We took the bus, but again was also not easy to find it.

Get the visa in Laos was easy, although we had to wait quite some time too. What was next? Find out how to get to Vientiane.

Outside of Laos border it was already a new world. It is always somehow shocking to me how a country changes so much just because of group of offices.

Less neat and clean than Thailand, buses were arriving from everywhere with non-related numbers and names. We asked some people and eventually we found out what was the bus and particularly important, the stop to get us to Vientiane. As always, we were never sure whether we were taking the right transport or if we understood the right stop. This gave me an unrest feeling, which later I learnt how to cope with.

I also learnt about trusting strangers and their ability to understand us.

I got on the bus, I believed people told me the right number, and I trusted myself I understood correctly where to stop.

Now, time to enjoy the ride because there is nothing else I could do. So I did.

I was excited to get to a new country! I was genuinely happy. Smiling inside, listening to good music, and seeing the roads and sceneries of Laos for the first time in my life.