Travel to Vientiane Laos; My First Visit in Two Years

A few days ago I needed to travel to Vientiane in Laos in order to sort out my immigration visa for Thailand. I haven't needed to make this trip in a few years so I was interested in any changes that might have occurred in Laos since my last visit.

I left my home here in Lopburi at nine at night and drove the 600 km journey to the Laos border at Nong Khai. I arrived eight and a half hours later and parked the car at the border. The fact that all the repayments have not yet been made on my new car meant that I wasn't allowed to take it out of Thailand; mind you, I wasn't too bothered as I'd had enough driving just coming to Nong Khai. It was six o'clock by the time I passed through Thai immigration and reached the Laos side of the friendship bridge.

The Mekong River separates Thailand from Laos and the Thai-Laos friendship bridge is how you cross from one country to the other. There is a bus that takes you from one side to the other and this is a great improvement on the Burmese crossings where you have to walk and risk sun stroke as part of the process.

Laos's immigration process turned out to be a complete nightmare, and it ended up taking three hours of just hanging around before they managed to stamp my passport. The wait was annoying, but I managed to get talking with a few people. I met this other Irishman who turned out to be an interesting chap, and a French man who couldn't understand a word I was saying; but seemed to have no problem replying to me. Eventually our passports arrived and I hopped in a taxi with my two new friends so that we could travel to Vientiane; or more specifically to the Thai embassy where we joined another queue.

I hadn't been in Laos in over two years and there seemed to be quite a few changes. The first thing I noticed on the way to the city was the amount of new cars around. On my previous trips most of the transport looked like relics that barely held together, but now there was hardly an old model to be seen anywhere. As we reached the city it also became obvious that a lot of building work was going on as well. Obviously things had changed since the last time I'd managed to travel to Vientiane.

In the evening as I walked around Vientiane (or as the Thais and Lao people say Wiang Jan). The early impression of big changes faded slightly when I realized that there was still very little in the way of shops. The restaurants are great, and for those of us who love bread the city is a real treat, but there still is very little else to look at; I think that this is the real failing of communism the inability to supply interesting things to buy. I love bookshops and there seems to be very few in Laos. The one I had used a couple of years earlier had disappeared, so I went back to my newly built hotel bookless. I did spot a bookshop the next day on my way out of the city though.

Apparently the lack of shops hasn't escaped the attention of the powers that be in Laos and there are great plans to build a huge shopping mall. It was explained to me that lots of money is being invested in the country and champagne communism is all the rage.

It was nice begin back in Vientiane again, and there does seem to be a lot of excitement surrounding the city.. Many ex-pats complain about the constant changes in the Thai visa regulations, and the feeling of being unwelcome in Thailand, so for them maybe Laos is beginning to seem more attractive. In fact you get the impression while there that this really is a place where a new arrival could do well financially with the right business. I am already looking forward to the next time I travel to Vientiane.