At this point in our travels, Zenia and I had been on quite
a few trips. We had travelled from Thailand to Laos, Pakse in southern Laos,
Luang Prabang and Vang Vieng in northern Laos, all over Cambodia, and to Hanoi,
Vietnam. On each occasion, my packing skills would improve and my bags would
lighten. I learned how to pack and travel light, getting down to simply 7 kg (about
15 pounds) for a five day trip (and trust me, based on how I usually pack, that
is incredible). Each trip to another place would see me taking less and less,
lightening my load. What I didn’t count on, however, was the fact that on each
trip my bag home would be just a little bit heavier and all that new weight,
the result of souvenirs and other items bought, would add up when it came time
to go back to Thailand and then home.
As the time to return to Thailand got closer, I began to
look at the shear amount of stuff that I had accumulated over nearly three full
months in SE Asia and I realized that I had a serious problem. There was
absolutely no way I could pack all of it in my backpack and the purse I had
brought with me. I would need more bags. In preparation for packing, Zenia and
I began to pull out all of our stuff to lay out on our beds to consider packing
options and the piles just kept growing and growing, soon resembling Mount
Everest. Even going through my clothes and discarding those items of clothing
SE Asia had clearly ruined (SE Asia eats your clothing and then spits it back
up after you have been there for any length of time) didn’t reduce my
belongings to the point that I could make it home without needing another bag. So,
I headed down to the Talot Sao Mall in Vientiane and bought a knockoff Ralph
Lauren roller bag, the size you would usually use as a carry on to help tote
home all my newly acquired belongings.
By the time Zenia and I finished packing, we were going to
have to carry four bags a piece. We each wore a large hiking backpack, filled
to the brim and reaching over our heads, had a sling purse filled to
overflowing, carried a separate smaller duffle bag by the handle and dragged a
rolling bag behind. Imagine giant turtles walking upright, trying to drag a bag
of deadweight behind, ready to topple over at any moment and you’ll have some
idea of how we looked. To say we were an amusing sight would be a vast
understatement. We must have looked absolutely ridiculous and on the morning of
July 29th, as we travelled from Laos to Thailand, that fact was
driven home.
Now, the easiest way to travel from Laos to Thailand is
definitely by air. It’s a simple process to travel by tuk tuk to the Vientiane
airport and then fly to Phuket. But, by this time, Zenia and I were severely
low on funds and traveling by air from one country to another in SE Asia is
quite expensive. When planning our final adventure, Zenia and I discovered that
it would be significantly cheaper to take a tuk tuk to downtown Vientiane, hop
on a bus to cross the border into Thailand, and then take a red truck from the bus
depot in Udon Thani, the first large city across the border into Thailand with
an airport (and the city we stopped in on our original trip to Laos), to the
airport and then fly to Phuket within Thailand. Travelling in this manner would
save a great deal of money, but it presented certain problems in terms of
logistics as Zenia and I now had a ridiculous number of bags. But, we were
willing to take the chance in order to save a bit of money and so, on July 28th
we hired a tuk tuk driver to pick us up at our house in Vientiane first thing
in the morning to take us to the bus station downtown.
When our tuk tuk driver showed up on July 29th I
don’t think he knew what to think of the sight of us. Two girls and eight bags –
we managed to overload that tuk tuk. At first he stared in amazement at the
shear amount of luggage, but in the end simply shook his head in disbelief,
said something about farang (white
people or Europeans, but pronounced “falang”), and loaded us into his tuk tuk
to drive downtown. He drove us down to the bus station and unloaded our luggage
onto a huge pile, much to the shock of all the other people waiting for buses.
As Zenia left to get our tickets from the counter, I stayed with the bags on
guard duty and watched as the local people stared in wonder at the shear amount
of baggage we had compiled, pointing to us, chuckling, and muttering farang to one another. At first it was
slightly humiliating, but after a while Zenia and I simply started laughing,
enjoying our notoriety as those crazy foreigners who seemed to have bought all
of SE Asia to take home. Our bus left at 10:30 am for the border, carrying more
luggage for the two of us than any other passenger (and perhaps all the other
passengers combined).
When travelling across the border, bus is by far the easiest
method and one I highly recommend. Travelling across the river border between
Laos and Thailand requires first stopping on the Laos side and exiting the country.
You go through passport control and receive an exit visa from Laos, then
reboard the bus, which travels across the river to the Thailand side. It is
possible to walk across the bridge, which is probably about ¼ mile long, but it
is much simpler to simply deboard and reboard a bus, which drives you across.
When you reach the Thailand side, you go through the same process, deboarding the
bus and going through passport control, this time to receive an entrance stamp
and visa for Thailand and then reboarding the bus for the final journey to the
bus depot at Udon Thani. At each stop you can leave your belongings on the bus,
something Zenia and I were very grateful for as I’m not sure we actually could
have made it through the lines with all of our bags (at the very least we would
have been knocking people over right and left).
The process of travelling to Thailand was actually
surprisingly easy, which perhaps should not be such a surprise as the bus
companies have travelling between countries down to a fine art at this point.
We arrived at the Udon Thani airport with plenty of time to spare for our 4:15
pm flight to Phuket and were able to enjoy the luxury of a Thailand airport,
one with padded seats, quiet air conditioning, and a variety of food options.
To say it was exciting would be a vast understatement. We had made it to
Thailand, checked our bags, and were on our way to Phuket for some island
adventures, our final trip in SE Asia!
Now, it would probably be helpful to say a little about
Phuket. Phuket is the largest island off southern Thailand in the Andaman Sea.
It is surrounded by dozens of smaller island, some simply 20 feet across, but
rising much higher out of the sea and topped with trees and other plant life.
Flying into Phuket is a revelation. As you get closer to the island you are
greeted with beautiful, clear oceans a stunning shade of blue-green, and the
dots of green islands poking out of the water everywhere. The island of Phuket
is not exceptionally large from the air, but creates an exciting and entrancing
sight as you come down, a beautiful island retreat.
We arrived on Phuket just at sunset and by the time we had
collected our bags and arranged for a taxi to take us to our hotel on the
opposite side of the island, to the main city on Phuket, it was fully dark
outside. The drive from one side of the island to the other takes about an hour
as the roads wind their way through mountains that run along the island from
north to south. When our taxi reached Phuket, Zenia and I were quite tired from
our long day of travel, but the sight of the city soon revived us. Phuket is a
serious destination location for travelers from around the world and it can
certainly be said that it is a city that never sleeps. The streets are lined
with shops, restaurants, and clubs that stay open almost 24-hours a day, a
sight we hadn’t seen for a long time. At that point, however, having been away
from a noisy and bright city for a couple months, we probably wouldn’t have
been able to sleep had we chosen a guest house downtown, so it was lucky for us
that our guesthouse was located just on the outskirts of the downtown area and
at the top of a small hill, affording us a measure of peace and quiet at the
end of each day in Phuket.
Our taxi dropped us off at our guest house and we quickly
checked in and were shown to our hotel room. Our room was one of the most
beautiful sights I had seen in a long time. Our beds were double beds with
regular pillows, sheets, and comforters (no plastic sheets beneath or odd,
stiff sheets here). But the bathroom was the best part. At each place we
stayed, no matter how nice, we had been forced to make do with SE Asian
showers. This could consist of anything from a mere showerhead attached to the
side of the bathroom wall, pointed toward the toilet and sure to spray the
entire bathroom with water whenever it was turned on, to a step-in bathtub
complete with shower curtain, but with a spray so weak it could barely wet your
hair and produced only cold water. But in Phuket, the bathroom was a marvel –
it boasted a walk in shower with glass doors and a showerhead that produced a
wonderful stream of hot water. A true Western shower and never has a shower
felt quite so good. Immediately upon finding such bounty in our room, Zenia and
I took advantage and took long, hot showers, then changed into two of the
dresses we bought in Cambodia and walked down the hill from our hotel to grab a
red truck to downtown Phuket.
Upon arriving downtown, Zenia and I set out to find some
dinner and stopped at a local outdoor eating area, almost like a food court,
ordering a simple meal of pad see ew (my favorite Thai dish, but which turned
out to be a huge mistake – more on that later). Following dinner, we strolled
along the beach front, taking our shoes off to walk barefoot in the sand, and
ordered some delicious crepe-like deserts from a cart bordering the beach. The
air was warm and sultry, the water clear and warm as well, and we enjoyed our
time just strolling along the beach, free of all cares. It was incredible and
as we walked I could feel the worries draining away and I was ready to enjoy my
island adventure. All too soon, however, our long day caught up with us and we
headed to the main boulevard paralleling the beach to catch a red truck back to
our hotel, ready to get some rest for the night and for more adventures the
coming day.
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