Welcome to Vietnam — crossing the Cau Treu border post

We'd already decided which border crossing to use — now it was time to get moving. A direct tourist bus to Vietnam was out of the question; we weren't spending 24 to 48 hours locked in a coach. The obvious and standard solution: we'd do the whole route on local public transport wherever possible.

• From Vang Vieng we went to the Talat Sao bus station in Vientiane on the local bus, which this time took 4 hours and cost 40,000 kips.
• From Talat Sao we needed to reach Vientiane's southern bus station, more than 12 kilometres from the centre. We took a local city bus for just 5,000 kips per person including luggage.
• From the southern bus station we headed to Paksan on another local bus. The journey took about 3 hours and cost 40,000 kips. We spent the night there at a guesthouse called BK — one of the few options in this purely transit town.

Reminder: 1 euro equals roughly 10,400 kips, so the 40,000 kips for the Vang Vieng–Vientiane bus works out at about €4.

The local bus that took us from Vang Vieng to Vientiane

The roof of the bus was in perfect condition

The following morning we set off again:

• We took a songthaew to Vieng Kham (also known as Thang Beng) for 30,000 kips — about two hours.
• From there, another songthaew to Lak Xao for 35,000 kips. Another two hours.
• We spent the night in one of the guesthouses we found in this border town.

A visit to Paksan market worked up our appetites

Forest products on a stall in Paksan

Our last day in Laos — and our first in Vietnam — was when the real adventure kicked off:

• We headed to the bus station near the market, where we found that direct buses to Vinh cost 120,000 kips, buses to Tay Son (known locally as Trung Tam) cost 60,000 kips, and nobody would take us to the border for less than those 60,000 kips.
• I didn't think twice — I told them all where to go and we started walking toward the border, planning to hitchhike and try to flag down whatever bus came our way. After an hour on that road with barely any traffic, we managed to negotiate a passing tuk-tuk for the local rate: 20,000 kips.

Tuk-tuk to the Vietnamese border

Crossing the border was an experience in itself — specifically, an own goal on our part.

• The Laos visa was for 30 days, not 30 nights. When we'd entered the country we calculated which day we needed to leave by counting nights rather than days — or rather, instead of just looking at the date stamped in our passports. As a result, we'd overstayed the visa by one day. That little blunder cost us $10.
• After getting our expensive Lao exit stamp we crossed to the Vietnamese border post, where, just as we'd read online, they charged $1 per person to stamp our passports. The smallest bill I had was $20, so I received my first Vietnamese dong as change.

$1 is roughly 21,000 dong. Near the border everyone uses the 1:20,000 conversion, so I got 360,000 dong instead of $18. €1 is roughly 27,000 dong.

Vietnam entry stamp

Welcome to Vietnam! Now we had to figure out how to get to Vinh. I'd read that the minimum anyone would ask for the journey was around €5 — and that was only if you haggled hard and spoke Vietnamese. The going rate was north of $20.

We'd also heard stories of people being made to pay $100 to get out of there, of passengers being dumped in the middle of nowhere, or of agreeing a supposedly cheap price only to have more money demanded halfway.

• To my surprise, the first minivan driver who approached us accepted, after brief negotiation, my offer of $5 to take us to Vinh. It sounded too cheap to be true, so I already suspected we were in one of the situations described above. Either way, we climbed in without paying, ready to get out in the middle of nowhere if he demanded more — and prepared not to pay a single cent. We could always hitchhike.
• After covering nearly half the distance to Vinh, we arrived at the market and bus station of Tay Son (Trung Tam), where our driver finished his run and demanded his $5 (or 100,000 dong).
• My reaction was not what he expected. I got in his face and confronted him, telling him our agreement was to Vinh and that this was not Vinh. Suddenly his English had shrunk to "money, money" and he couldn't understand a thing. I told him repeatedly that if he wanted money he'd take us to Vinh, but he kept insisting we get another minivan to Vinh and pay him his "money, money".
• During the journey we'd picked up a few other passengers, who had paid 30,000 dong each. So after confirming he wasn't going to take us to Vinh, I handed him 30,000 dong instead of the 100,000 he was expecting, while continuing to shout at him that it was more than enough — making sure the spectators around us clearly understood I was in the right.
• After buying a few bananas in the market I started asking about buses and minivans heading to Vinh. Our driver had been bending the ear of his colleagues, so everyone was quoting inflated prices. Even the public bus was asking 100,000 dong.
• So, just as we'd done in Lak Xao, we walked — this time in the direction of Vinh. Along the way we met a Belgian guy who'd been travelling by bike for 6 months, cycling all the way across Europe and Asia until he found himself crossing paths with us in Vietnam. We swapped stories for a while, then kept walking toward Vinh.
• After a short while a public bus stopped — it was heading to Vinh. For 50,000 dong — probably still too much, but at least more reasonable — it dropped us 10 kilometres short of Vinh.
• At the roundabout where we found ourselves, we flagged down another bus that, this time, was actually going to Vinh. For 12,000 dong we did the last stretch, and we checked into a simple hotel near the train station for 100,000 dong, since the next day we planned to catch the train to Hué.