Journey from hell: Luang Prabang to Bangkok in 50 hours Part II

In Bangkok at last!

It was 10:00 PM, we were tired from 27 hours that we had already endured on the road and we were stranded in front of the Lao-Thai border crossing. There was only one thing we could do: hire a tuk-tuk to take us to a guesthouse in Vientiane to spend the night.

We got up early the next morning and took another tuk-tuk to the bus station where we boarded the international bus that should take us all the way across the border to Nong Khai. We would try to exchange our pre-purchased sleeper train tickets that we weren't able to use the previous night for seats on the day train. The train tickets were non-refundable, but we thought we would at least ask if they might honor them.

The international bus took us to the border where we were now proudly able to get stamped out of Laos since we had transport for across the bridge to the Thai side. We had to descend the bus to go through Thai immigration and customs along with all our luggage that had to be inspected.

After completing the formalities we waited patiently for our bus on the Thai side of the border. Tuk-tuk drivers were annoyingly offering their services but we brushed them off since we had our bus for the short trip to Nong Khai. They insisted that there would be no bus but we are seasoned travelers and have heard such tales before so we just ignored them.

Time passed and after a while we started looking for our bus that was nowhere in sight. We didn't see any of the other passengers from our bus either. Where was everyone? Another bus pulled over and we inquired the driver for the whereabouts of our bus. He told us that our bus had already gone. What? How did we miss it?

Almost on cue the tuk-tuk drivers approached again because it was obvious that they knew that we now knew that there really would be no bus. We also noticed some local vendors gossiping and pointing at us falang and laughing which confirmed our suspicion that we were scammed and everyone except us was in on it. What probably happened was that the bus waited around the corner and all the local passengers who knew that boarded it but we didn't and the bus just pulled away without us. We were really pissed because buses typically don't leave passengers behind, not even in southeast Asia. This was obviously a deliberate scam, forcing us to hire a tuk-tuk instead of going on the bus. Yes, we fell for the scam. It happens. We were still pissed.

We lost so much time again that it was already 9:25 AM when we got on the tuk-tuk, too late to catch the morning train to Bangkok. We had to go to the bus station where we bought tickets for the 11:00 AM bus.

We hadn't had breakfast yet and there was plenty of time until the bus left so we strolled the nearby market and bought food that we were going to eat at the bus station. Matej and I returned to the bus station quickly while Marko and Martina went off to look for fruit.

As soon as Matej and I showed up at the bus station, the conductor motioned to us frantically to get on the bus because "the bus is leaving in 10 minutes" and "where are your friends"? I was confused because my watch showed 10:00 AM, an hour until departure time. I didn't think there was a one hour time difference when we crossed the border. I went to the information booth to ask what was going on and they gave me some crap about the roads being closed and the bus must leave immediately.

Matej went off to search for "our friends" while I tried telephoning them. In the meantime, other passengers on the bus were frantic as well. I saw another woman running off with a roll of toilet paper. I hoped she would make it back before the bus left. When Marko and Martina finally returned, we were all rushed onto the bus.

The conductor checked everyone's tickets but the bus still hadn't pulled away. Wasn't there some kind of emergency that we had to leave immediately? Whatever, the conductor leisurely started distributing plastic stools along the isle and local people continued boarding the bus with all their stuff and commotion until the bus was packed. It was 10:45 when we finally left the station. There was no sign of closed roads or any other reason why we had to leave in such a hurry. Ah well, at least we managed to buy our breakfast that we then ate on the bus.

Thai buses are more reliable than Lao buses and Thai roads are much better than Lao roads so we pulled into the Bangkok Mo Chit bus station, our final destination, at 21:00 PM as planned and without any breakdowns. We piled onto a tuk-tuk to take us to the Sky train station and rode the Sky train to our guesthouse.

Our journey of 50 hours was finally over. We were tired and fed up. I never would have believed all that happened if I hadn't experienced it. But why travel if not for such travel adventure stories?

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In summary, we switched between 12 different means of transport:

1. Tuk-tuk from our guesthouse in Luang Prabang to the bus station 
2. VIP bus from Luang Prabang to the middle of nowhere 
3. Pick-up truck from the middle of nowhere to Vang Vieng 
4. Songthaew from Vang Vieng to Vientiane 
5. Tuk-tuk from Vientiane to the Lao-Thai border 
6. Tuk-tuk back from the Lao-Thai border to Vientiane (because we weren't allowed to cross the border on foot)
7. Tuk-tuk from our guesthouse in Vientiane to the bus station 
8. International bus from the Vientiane bus station to Nong Khai 
9. Tuk-tuk from the Thai border to the bus station in Nong Khai  (because our bus scammed us)
10. VIP bus from Nong Khai to the Bangkok Mo Chit bus station 
11. Tuk-tuk from the Bangkok Mo Chit bus station to the BTS Sky train station 
12. BTS Sky train to our guesthouse in Bangkok