Hours of research consistently told us two things about transportation in Laos: 1. It is painfully slow and 2. extremely underdeveloped. We mentally prepared ourselves for the worst and weren’t surprised when it turned out to be just as others have described. Actually, what shocked us the most is that the system actually works somehow.
Even after spending 25 days in northern Laos, we never completely learned the ropes of transportation but along the way we got more comfortable with the organized chaos of it all. From boats to motorbikes and minivans to buses; our learning period included a lot of confusion, trust, and pure luck.
Here are some key takeaways for using transportation in Laos:
Measure Your Trip in Hours Not Distance: It once took us 8 hours to drive a painful 150 kilometers (93 miles). Needless to say, if you measure your travel in distance, not time, you’ll be on the bus for hours longer than you anticipated.
Be Happy That Your Bus Leaves on the Right Day – Don’t Worry About the Time: Often, buses in Laos don’t leave until they are full. This means that the bus or minivan will wait at the bus station until enough people buy tickets – sometimes not leaving at all. Since we frequently wandered off the heavily traveled Banana Pancake Trail, we were often waiting for our buses to fill – our longest wait was a hot, miserable 3 hours. But thankfully, we always left on the correct day. Somehow our buses always managed to fill up.
You Will Experience Car Sickness: Up, down and around mountains with endless sharp curves and potholes every 20 feet – It’s impossible not to feel nauseous during any given ride. (Northern Laos is all mountains). Even if you’re fortunate enough to not personally experience car sickness, you will be a witness to someone who is. Almost all of our trips included a car sick local who spent the entire duration of the ride battling nausea. The buses don’t stop for anyone to throw up outside, plastic puke bags are distributed before every trip and once they are used, they just get tossed out of the window.
Chickens Ride For Free: Live chickens (and other livestock) are often loaded onto the bus on the roof or in the below-the-bus luggage compartments. It’s not uncommon to see squirming packages and hear squeals or clucking from the cargo.
Perfect Your Squat: Along more remote routes your bathroom breaks may only include a squat behind a bush on the side of the road. Male or female.. all bushes are available.
When the Vehicle is Full, You Can Fit Five More People: On countless occasions, we got picked up by a rickshaw to go to the bus station and then spent the next 30 minutes driving around town to pick up more people. Packed beyond capacity, we would continue to ride around picking up even more people until grown adults occupied the laps of strangers and people hung on to metal bars outside of the truck. Our record: 18 people in a standard truck bed.
You Will Be Hustled By the Tuk Tuk Mafia: Conveniently, bus stations are always located 10+ kilometers outside of the city, usually forcing you to take a Tuk Tuk the rest of the way to your final destination. They see you’re foreign and they know you’re stranded so they hustle you. We once paid $6.00 for a 10 km ride (an outrageous fare). We were the last bus to arrive at the station, it was dark, and needless to say the driver had us right where he wanted us.
If the Tuk Tuk Breaks Down You Are Expected to Push: Even though the Tuk Tuk driver just hustled you to pay triple what the ride should cost, if his Tuk Tuk breaks down he will expect you to push it and unload baggage while he disappears to “find help.”
Every Trip in Laos is an Adventure: It’s not perfect, it’s not always pleasant but it is Laos and this is how it’s done here. Have a good attitude, don’t lose face, and be amazed that somehow you got where you needed to go despite all the setbacks.
