Udon Thani, Thailand - Vientiane, Laos ( Day 8 18-Feb-2010)

It's a big day today as we are heading to Laos for the first time in our life! Morning call at 6.30am and we proceed to the bus terminal opposite our hotel at 7am to purchase our bus ticket to Vientiane. The bus ticket cost us 100bath each and departing at 8.30am. We had our very first Issan breakfast at a small stall inside the bus station. I was puzzled as the breakfast is something I've never try before in my life.....half boiled egg with pork meat & sausage, Toast bread with banana & sausage & black coffee. Nevertheless we enjoyed our breakfast so much. The Thai-Lao bus arrived on time and soon after we are on our way to Laos....approximately 2 hours from Udon Thani passing by Nongkai which is famous for it's Naga fire ball!

Our breakfast in Udon Thani

The Thai-Lao International Bus runs regularly between Vientiane & Udon Thani

We arrived at the border around 10.30 am and clear the immigration without much hassle and soon after we reached the capital city of Laos, Vientiane. After the bus stop at the bus terminal we hiked a tuk-tuk which is the preferred local transportation to our pre booked hotel (Aroon Residence). We arrived at the hotel at about noon time and it was a small yet cozy hotel with relatively good service. We check in and have some rest in our hotel before proceed to visit some local attractions as we will be in Vientiane for less than 24 hours! Therefore every minutes count and precious to us.....waste no time and we rock Vientiane!Tomorrow we will be heading to the backpacker's heaven town of Vang Vieng.

Remarks:- Its relatively save and easy to walk around the town area. If you don't mind walking around, most of the local attractions can be visited by foot. if you are lazy, hired any of the tuk-tuk available and the driver will act as your personal driver cum tour guide. If I am not mistaken we paid roughly 500 bath to hire the tuk-tuk from noon till evening. 

Siem Reap,Cambodia to Udon Thai, Thailand ( Day 7 17-Feb-2010)

This was probably the longest league of our journey in this entire TransIndochina 2010. We wake up early in the morning and get ourself ready for a long and tiring day. We had our usual breakfast at our hotel restaurant at 7 am sharp and to our amaze our pre-arranged car was already waiting for us. We will move north west to Poipet( Gambling heaven for rich Thai Chinese & Cambodian) in a 2 hours car journey before we could cross over to the town of Aryan, Thailand. From here we will take a bus to Korat for a pit stop before taking another bus from Korat to Udon Thani by pass Khon Kaen with a mind of crossing into Laos on the same day! We did our lunch break at 12pm in the sleepy town of Aryan.....we had some simple fried rice and coffee. We boarded our bus to Korat at 1pm sharp.

Border Crossing in between Cambodia & Thailand

Bus Terminal in Aranyaphet, Thailand

Our bus from Aranyaphet to Korat at the Korat Main Bus Terminal

Nothing much to say about the bus journey as we all try to catch as much sleep as possible realizing that it would be a long day. True enough we arrived at Korat Main bus terminal at about 4.30 pm and staright away we bought another bus ticket to Udon Thani as we understand that we would not be able to cross the border to Laos today........so we choose to make a non schedule pit stop at Udon Thani. Our bus schedule to Udon Thani is 5.30pm and we had our toilet and ciggie break at a small cafe located inside the bus terminal. We departed from Korat as evening fall and our journey to Udon Thani is a far and boring one with the bus making quite a number of stops in between to pick up and drop off some passenger.Our dinner was a quarter of grilled chicken(40 bath) shared among 3 of us.We reached Udon Thani about 10.30pm and check in to a motel opposite the Udon Thani bus terminal 1. We will rest for a few hours before we take the early morning bus to Vientiane, Laos. 

Udon Thani Bus Terminal 1

Our hotel in Udon Thani

Street in Udon Thani at night

We did a quick tour of Udon Thani at night after our dinner(Braised Pork leg Rice@30bath per plate) at a street stall nearby our motel. Udon Thani is quite sleepy at night and the weather is chilling.....we don't even need to open our fan at our room.We called it a day at about 12.30 am as we need to board the earliest bus tomorrow at 8 am to the capital city of Laos, Vientiane. End of day 7 the longest day in the entire TransIndochina 2010 journey. 

Remarks:- Udon Thani is the last city in Northeastern of Thailand before you will reached the Thai/lLaos border. My personal preference is you stay here for 1 or 2 days to discover the city but I don't have the luxury of time during my trip. Drop by here if you are doing the same journey as me.....Udon Thani will surprise you with its charm!