Jillian's Travels

Laos, Part 3

Day 43, February 9

The first thing I did when I woke up was to check to see if our Myanmar Visas were approved. We were really, really up against the clock being that we were set to be in the country tonight and still hadn’t heard anything and then if/when we did get approved we still had to track down a place to print them out. I just remember how long it took back in Manila trying to print our Vietnam Visas. They were still ‘Under Process’ so we went downstairs to get our last free breakfast at the hostel and then paid our bill for the room.

After we got dressed and packed up, we left our big bags with the hostel so we could go back to Utopia during the day and actually see it. It was so dark when we went the other night we had to use flashlights.

When we got to Utopia my sister sat on the lower deck closer to the water to read but I need wifi so I could try for the millionth time to do my blog. I got an iced Laos coffee and still had a really nice view of the water and of My Dream Hotel where we stayed the first night. Man, I miss that place.

As I was sitting there I checked the visas again and they were approved! I was so happy/relieved/excited. My sister didn’t have wifi so I went down to tell her they were approved so we needed to leave Utopia a little earlier than planned so we could print them out.

We left Utopia around 12:30pm to set off in search of a printer. We saw a place across the street that said print shop so naturally we thought that’d be the place. We were wrong. We found that to be the case with a lot of the ones we stopped into. Either they were out of ink or they just flat out didn’t print even though their signs specifically stated differently. I finally found a nice guy that said he was out of ink but told us specifically where to go. It was an Internet Café right next to Utopia. Somehow we did not see this when we were leaving.

We printed the visas out no problem and paid they guy and headed back to our hostel to grab our big bags. We walked to the main street to find a tuk-tuk that would take us to the airport for cheap. The first guy we came to we were able to negotiate with him for the fee we wanted.

So we hopped in the back of the truck and were off to the Luang Prabang International Airport.

It was a really short drive, probably about 20 minutes. We were really enjoying the scenery and didn’t want to get out to go wait in an airport.

We were able to check in without waiting like all the rest of the flights we’ve had. We checked in, checked our bags, went through immigration and security all within about 30 minutes.

I wasn’t feeling all that great after the BBQ from last night so I spread out on the chairs while we waited. The flight was delayed a little but it really didn’t matter to us because we had a layover in Bangkok for a few hours.

The flight to Bangkok was a really short hour and 20 minutes. Even though we had a continuing flight, once we landed we had to completely leave the terminal to go through customs and immigration. Then we got our bags and had to find departures so we could check in for the next leg of our flight to Yangon, Myanmar.

We did the same thing all over again; check-in, check bag, immigration and security. Finally we were in and had about an hour to grab food and find our gate. My sister got McDonald’s and I got Subway. We decided to have our first real Thai dish elsewhere and not at the airport in Bangkok.

Our flight was delayed by 10 minutes for some reason. When it was time to board we had to do the usual shuffle of taking a bus to our plane and then boarding.

This flight was also a quick hour and 30 minutes. We landed and breezed through immigration with our printed evisas. Then we grabbed our bags and converted money.

Our hostel seemed to be nearby so we initially decided to walk instead of taking a taxi until we couldn’t find our way out of the airport.

The taxi guys are very aggressive. It was a bunch of yelling “lady, lady taxi, taxi, TAXI”. It was all a little too much so neither one of us were looking forward to having to negotiate with them. The airport help desk quoted us a fee so we had a good idea of where to start with the fee. However, they all were quoting way over what we were saying so we’d say no never mind and walk off. Some would let us walk and some would run after to make a deal.

This was probably the most overwhelmed I’ve been when leaving an airport and having to try to get a taxi. A lot of the guys have this red dip in their mouth so when they get in your face to talk to you, it looks like their mouth is bleeding. I had no idea what it was at first and was a little taken back by it. I honestly didn’t figure out what it was in their mouth until the next day. I was still thinking it was blood.

After we negotiated with a driver to come down to our fee we loaded up and I pulled out my maps on my phone to track our whereabouts, just in case. For some reason I felt it was necessary here.

We safely got to our hostel and were less than warmly welcomed in. The guy that checked us seemed like he was not in a good mood. I found out the next morning that that’s just his personality. He was very short and difficult to work with. When he was reading my name he said that my middle name, Shea, sounded Jewish. I thought that was funny.

He showed us to our room and told us not to lock the door. It was a bed with a hot shower and free breakfast so that’s really all we can ask for in a hostel. But I was very thankful that it’d only be one night because we’d be on bus first thing in the morning to Mandalay, Myanmar. I can’t imagine having to interact with the guy anymore than we already had.

I showered, laid out my stuff for tomorrow since we’d be waking up at 6am and getting ready in the dark so not to wake the others in our room up. I was in bed by midnight.

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