April Fool!

So first things first: Luang Prabang turned out to be a really nice town, very clean, friendly people allthough the whole place felt a bit artificial where every shop, hotel and restaurant had signs made by the same company and nothing really seemed genuine. The weather didn’t treat us too well but we did manage to get one nice day out by some wonderful waterfalls. After our time in the UNESCO listed town, Josh and I had different plans for our trip so we decided to both go at it alone for a while, Josh traveling to southern Laos whilst I would travel north to eventually reach Vietnam. The solo travel on my part started at 07.30 AM with a 16 hour ride in a minibus. This turned out to become the bumpiest ride I’ve ever experienced, and the bumps made everything from sleeping to reading and even drinking water impossible. Also the loud South-East Asian pop music and loud South-East Asian women throwing up didn’t make any of this easier. The minibus had seats for 11 but at one point we were 19 human-beings, 1 pig and several chickens crammed onto the vehicle (luckily the non human beings traveled on the roof after some discussion.) After 16 sleepless hours we reached Sam Neua and I decided to check into a guesthouse to catch 4 hours sleep before heading back to the bus station to catch a sawngthaew (glorified pickup-truck) for three and a half hours to get to the Vietnam border, this ride was free of live-stock but I’m pretty sure the stuff being transported in plastic sacks was alive at one point but had now been dead for at least a week. When I got there I would find out whether or not my gamble had worked out, the previous 28 hour journey could all be in vain as I had not yet acquired a visa, but I had heard rumours that Scandinavian citizens do not need visas to enter Vietnam. Luckily this was rumour turned out to be true… however I did not have a ticket out of Vietnam so I was denied access to the country, despite desperate attempts to convince bordercontrol. My only choice now was to head back, not the whole 28 hours but back to Sam Neua. At the border I met fellow Swede Anders and the Danish Josefine who both had the same problem, so we have now arrived at an internetplace and are scheming on an escaperoute out of Laos...