Our journey from Don Khong involved a short long boat ride across the Mekong followed by a minibus to Pakse Bus Station - very strangely our driver refused at first to stop at the bus station for us and insisted that he would only drop us in the town centre. Then when I offered him small tip to change his mind he agreed but refused the tip - very Lao?
The VIP bus service to Ubon Ratchatani (in Thailand) is run by a Thai/Lao joint venture and unfortunately we ended up on bus no 2 which was the Lao contribution -not the safest nor the most comfortable 2 hours on the road. When we reached the border we were turfed off the bus to walk through the two immigration offices and across the border and a clear demonstration of the difference between the economies of the two countries.
The bus station at Ubon was very busy and a long way from the town centre. We avoided the entreaties of the Tuktuk drivers and picked up an airconditioned pickup truck for the journey to the hotel. Ended up with dinner in the hotel - which was surprisingly good - as we couldn't find anywhere else open on Sunday night. In addition to the great food we had a great conversation with a French couple who had been on the same bus from Laos. He was a diplomat - currently stationed in Bangladesh - who had first been posted to Laos in 1975 just as the communists took over. They had some amusing stories about the changes they had seen and we had a very entertaining evening.
Taxi ride to the airport the next morning and our first AirAsia flight which left ahead of schedule, got us to Bangkok on time and a very speedy taxi trip meant we were in time for lunch. A 24 hour journey whic included 7 different vehicles - would have been easier to fly direct from Pakse but the Lao airline ticket prices were five times those of AirAsia and we'd have missed all the fun of the border crossings!
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