Today is the departure day for Laos, officially known as Lao People’s Democratic Republic.
After reviewing a few blogs on the Web, we decided to chose what seemed like the safest most reliable option: a company called AVT (Asia Van Transfer). We read that they were good at respecting the schedule compared to some other cases. Multiple stories were available where people had to wait hours for transfer and arrive after border or pier closure…
We confirm that they are super good at respecting the advertised schedule. We also confirm that for this to be the case the driver has a very “sporty” way of driving with many accelerations, breakage, rough overtake and some “almost” kill someone… We are still surprised he did not hit any motorbike. Even after 1 month in this region of the world where driving is a crazy subtle art we were all slightly worried… But hey! We are alive!
In any case, I will just give a quick summary of the trip. We’ve been told to be ready at our guest-house at 7:30 for pick-up so we did and the driver was already waiting for us. We went to pick-up someone else that luckily happened to be in the hostel in front of our favorite coffee place so I jumped off to get 2 cappuccinos to go! Yeah! We then arrive to the AVT office where the manager gives us again all the information for the day. At 7:55 we all board and at 8am we leave! Everything went exactly like we were told: a break at 11 and a stop at 13:15 at the other office for lunch.
Departure with another van at 2pm for the border, about 45 minutes away. We then have to cross by foot again. We are almost the only one there, it’s so deserted! Being a group we cannot avoid paying the “stamping fee”, 2 USD requested on both side of the border that has nothing official… yes it is corruption… but you don’t want to miss your transit for 2 USD…
On the other side of the border we wait a few minutes for a new van that will bring us to Nakasan Pier, 15 minutes away. There we go to the ticket office to exchange our ticket for a boat ticket to Don Det. Finally we all make it to the boat without falling! Don Det here we are!
PS: Silviu really liked a t-shirt that said: “Been there Don Det“. We have to find it now…
Hi ! I have read your vacation trip to Laos. It’s nice to be able to visit there. Thank you for sharing your experience and knowledge about holidays.