The tuktuk pulled up a good half kilometer shy of the Chinese built highspeed train station. The driver hopped out, pulled our loyal rolling duffel out and deposited it on the side of the four-lane concrete road, smiled and with a flourish said, “Train.” We got out in the searing Laotian sun and realized that to go any farther he would have to cough up another 10,000 KIP (.50 US) at the guard desk. We turned back to protest but by that time he was already in second gear. Resigned to our sweaty hike, the guards smiled as we slowly trudged by. They’ve seen it before.
The station facade had an austere Chinese take on Laotian architecture. The expansive parking lot was nearly empty.
Barely through the front door we found ourselves queuing up in a pre-security passport check, the kind where they really stare at your picture then your face and then back and forth for some time. This is interesting because the train doesn’t cross a border. After that we were scanned and frisked.
Soon we were off to the X-ray machines where they found a small pair of blunt nosed scissors buried deep in our duffel. Truth be told we were warned they are wizards at finding sharp objects, confiscating them is job #1, and you can kiss them good bye if you bring them. For that reason, we had left every pointy item back in the van in Ireland, and figured these small blunt scissor would make it through. If not they were designated sacrificial. And they were sacrificed.
The security people proceeded to regard everything we had with suspicion but other than having to repack all of our belongings and losing those contraband scissors our record is unblemished on the Chinese highspeed train system. All this for an hour-long ride.
I’m not sure why we were advised to show up three hours before departure but from this moment on time stood still.
It seems the train operators don’t consider the traveler to need constant entertainment or retail sales temptations and experiences as do airports. This huge hall is nothing but business.
Suddenly we sensed a slight commotion, like when hundreds of birds in a tree go silent at the same time and suddenly all of those birds take to wing at the same time in a great whoosh. We found ourselves caught up in an avalanche of pushers and shovers and the lines broke down into more of a scrum gathered around the ticket takers.
Any discipline was enforced by the purple shirts with bullhorns and attitude. Of course we had no idea what they were saying or what they even wanted, but it soon became obvious to us that they would rather everyone line up like adults according to our assigned car number and stop creating impromptu lines. At least we found out what the purple shirts are for.
A young woman in a purple shirt with a bullhorn directly in front of us seemed quite angry. I just hoped she wasn’t yelling at us, but then again how would we know? I couldn’t look at her. Her barking instructions kept everyone in line until the train entered the station and came to a stop. As soon as the doors opened all hell broke loose and we were caught in the crush of fellow passengers with luggage clambering to get settled before the train took off again.
I honestly think they took pity on us as foreigners and soon we found our seat and we settled down for a nice scenic high speed ride.
The shiny pants train imperceptibly pulled out and we were plunged into darkness where we stayed for quite a while then suddenly we were blinded by bright sunlight for three seconds and then plunged back into darkness for a good while. This is the pattern of high speed train travel in this mountainous part of the country as we zoomed in and out of near continuous tunnels. The digital speed readout at the front of the car confidently read 145KPH (90+MPH) but the carriage barely jiggled for over an hour until we glided to a stop outside of Vangvieng.
Leaving the platform we were herded in a reprise of the earlier scrum just to prove to the purple shirts that we were in fact paying customers. Blinding bright sunlight greeted us while we instinctively searched for the taxi controller guy who always seems to have a clipboard. We were packed into a Hiace van jammed with young backpackers for the 30 minute drive into town, dropping off passengers along the way. Our first look at Vang Vieng revealed a rundown dusty town. Honestly, it could have been Tijuana but without the tacos.
Finally with no one left but us, we pulled up to our hotel. After four flights of stairs, schlepping the duffel all the way, we were shown our room with a balcony that had the most incredible mountain view that I could imagine. Score big for Marce, who worked hard to find the best room in town.
Directly in front of us were several dozen narrow long-tail boats moored side to side along the Nam Song River.
A few were sightseeing, running up or down the river and we could see the occasional motor glider lazily putting past our eagle’s nest.
The craggy mountain range filled me with wonder. I see us spending a lot of time absorbing all this incredible beauty.
Marce read about a Kiwi-centric restaurant located across the river not far from us, which is good because I was quite leery of eating at anything I’d seen so far. Sure enough, we found a rickety old bridge a mere two blocks from our hotel. Before stepping past some mementos courtesy of Tricky Dicky and his sidekick Henry the K, a man who deserves no peace, a woman told us, “Just stay straight in the middle, don’t stop, watch out for those damn scooters and pray.”
Turns out the bridge mainly consists of old rotten bits of left over wood and holes.
We didn’t fancy picking our way back across the bridge in the dark but Yours Truly sussed out a steel pedestrian bridge about three hundred meters further down stream. It even has lights and no scooters.
The following morning I broke out our Aeropress coffee works for the first time this trip and got busy. The day’s master plan featured a Jack brewed cuppa tableside out on the balcony and that’s just about the sum total of it. I opened the door to our balcony and almost dropped our carefully crafted coffee.
We knew there were hot air balloon excursions somewhere in the valley but this felt like our own private show.
Turns out Vang Vieng is an adrenaline tourist’s Mecca, from zipline or motor-gliding, to hot air balloons, caving and rock climbing, If you want to risk it, they’ve got it. The large number of bandaged young backpackers we saw around town attest to the willingness of youth.
Every morning after the sky show we make the rounds looking for an edible breakfast, but it’s always the mountains that drew us back.
One morning at our early show, we had a surprise guest drop in due a shift in the breeze.
Unfazed, they dropped lines from the balloon and with six men hanging on they dragged the rogue balloon back to the wharf where they could exchange new paying customers for those whose time was up. A tricky bit of ballon handling.
They turned up the wick and she popped up like, well like a balloon.
Our last night here we spent with slowboat friends Simon and Karen at a place they found tucked away a kilometer from our hotel. They were staying at a cabin on the island in the river so I showed them the steel pedestrian bridge that I discovered. It was dark and they were relieved to not have to negotiate the rickety monster at night.
In the morning we were continuing our journey on the early highspeed train to Vientiane in an effort to accomplish an adventure two years in the making.