EP.4 Travel Day😭

And then came the day to prepare to cross to Vietnam. The next morning, we let the uncle who rented the car take us to Luang Prabang station to take the train to Xai. Xai is the center of the North. Whether going up North, back to Thailand, or leaving Vietnam, you have to pass through this city. -When we arrived in Xai, hurry up because the train to Dien Bien Phu (Vietnam-Laos border) leaves Xai at 11:30. As for the train from Luang Prabang, we arrived in Xai at around 10:20, so there wasn't much time. -Rent a tuk-tuk and tell Uncle to go to the rest stop of Khao Sien Nam, as shown in pictures 3-4. This point will be a stop for lunch when they come from Bokeo to return to Vietnam. This is the reason why the train will leave at 11:30. -Lao language won't be very effective here because the accent will be unfamiliar. English is also not good enough, so you have to use Vietnamese only. -When the car arrives, get ready to get on the car. If you arrive early, I recommend that you hurry up and choose a seat because there are no seat locks and no counting of people. If it's full, you have to wait for the next day. Who comes first or last doesn't matter. What matters is who gets on the bus first. My girlfriend and I sat in the back of the bus in the luggage storage area because we thought they would call in order of who came first. No, whoever gets on first gets to sit. Plus, we didn't want to wait for the next day because it would waste time, so we had to sit. -Let's go. This route is mountainous all the way. I almost threw up because the air conditioning was hot. Plus, the seats were uncomfortable. But luckily the bus had the windows open. -When we reached the right city, we stopped to pee (on the side of the road). There were no bathrooms or anything. If you're going to come, be prepared. Women walked in to pee. Men stood to pee.🥹 -The next city will be the right city, the last city before crossing the country. The driver will stop at a grocery store for us to buy water and snacks. There is a place to exchange money for dong (Vietnamese). You can exchange baht or kip. It is recommended to leave about 50,000-100,000 kip with you, but we exchanged all of them because there were no more places to use. (But it's good to have it in case because at the Laos exit checkpoint, there might be a fee of around 20-30 baht, depending on whether the officer asks for it or not.) We weren't called. - Once we reached the border, we went through the process of exiting Laos and then took a car for about 5 minutes to reach the Vietnam entry checkpoint. - No need to fill out any forms, just submit your passport and that's it. The officer looked a bit confused because usually only Lao people cross here 😁 We got a souvenir stamp as well. (On the way back from Vietnam to Thailand, the airport immigration was confused about which checkpoint we came from. It was chaotic for a while because we couldn't find the entry checkpoint.) - Once everything was cleared, we got on the same car and went straight to Dien Bien Phu (it took about 5:30 hours from Xai to here). So we chose to stay in Dien Bien Phu for 1 night before traveling to Sapa, the famous city. - The food in Vietnam is all big plates. Nina was so cute and gave us more than 10 bananas, as big as a can of Coke. The next episode will be a Vietnam trip. Stay tuned. #Recommended #MissNature #Vietnam #Laos #SecretPlaces