To get back to the city just wait outside the park for another bus number 14.
Take a Tuk Tuk, this is very simple, go out of your hotel or hostel and find a Tuk Tuk driver, show him a picture of Buddha Park -hotels and hostels always have brochures with tourist spots- and agree on the price
A round trip by Tuk Tuk will be around 90,000 Lao Kips, the Tuk Tuk driver will wait for you outside the park and take you back.
I don’t think the price is crazy expensive, plus if you’re with 1 or 2 other friends you can all share the fee, and it’s a very good way to see more of Vientiane.
Ride a Scooter, if you’re more adventurous then this might be a good choice for you.
All you gotta do is rent a scooter somewhere downtown -there are plenty of places- and make your way to Buddha Park.
Renting a scooter for one day should not be more than 120,000 Lao Kips.
Note: Budha Park is close to Laos and Thailand’s border checkpoint.
If your next destination is Thailand, you could go directly from the Park to the Border checking point and take a 10 minutes train ride to NongKhai in Thailand.
And from Nongkhai take the 7 pm overnight train to Bangkok or head to Chiangmai which is way closer.
Do I Have To Pay To Enter Buddha Park?
Yes, the price is around 5,000 Lao Kip, if you are carrying a professional camera they’ll charge you an extra 3,000.
What Is The Best Time To Take Photos?
Definitely in the morning as you’ll have better lighting due to the sun’s location.
Are There Souvenir Shops Inside The Park?
Yes, you’ll find a little souvenir shop inside the park with little statues and the traditional souvenirs such as magnets and key holders.
A place where you can find many souvenirs is Patuxai.
This takes me to the second place to visit Vientiane, Laos.
Patuxai
So what is Patuxai?
Patuxai can be translated into English as Victory Gate.
It’s a war memorial built to commemorate all of those who died fighting for independence from the French rulers, the structure is similar in shape and concept to the Arc De Triomphe in France.
Patuxai is rich in Laos style decoration, which makes it a very popular landmark visited by all tourists who decide to pay the city of Vientiane a visit.
The whole structure looks like a beast of concrete from afar and is because the monument was actually never finished.
The reason was Laos changing political environment at the time, the construction started in 1957.
Once you’re close to it, you can start appreciating the beautiful Laotian details.
The monument opens every day from 8 am to 4 pm, there are two concrete staircases that allow you to visit the floors inside, where you’ll find souvenir shops and a museum that’ll give you a better understanding of Laos history.
All you’ll need is your passport, fill out a form, passport size photos and pay a fee.
If you want to read more about this please click here
Cost of Living in Laos
Laos is another Southeast Asian country where the living costs are cheap compared to developed western and Asian nations.
The average daily cost of traveling in Laos is 29 USD
For food, on one day you’ll spend around 13 USD
The average price for a hotel room for 2 is 22 USD
In the following tables, you’ll find more information about the cost of traveling in Vientiane, Laos.
So, as you can see, going to the places you must visit in Vientiane Laos won’t break the bank.
Conclusion
Vientiane is a very laid back city, is not as crowded with foreigners and backpackers as other cities and towns in South East Asia.
However, there’s still a lot you can see in this nice and small southeast Asian City, plus is the perfect point to cross to Thailand and start a beautiful Trip
Is there any other place you think I should include in this “places you must visit in Vientiane Laos post”?
In this post I’ll tell you all the basics you need to know to start organizing a crossbordering South-East Asia trip, using one backpack only.
I’ll take you from Singapore to Vietnam by plane, then by bus to Laos, after that we’ll take a Train to Bangkok.
Next we’ll catch another bus to Cambodia and finally a plane to Malaysia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWOspTURuo8
The route I just described above is the one I did in the summer of 2016, it was the most convenient way for my needs and desires.
There are many other different routes you could follow, and you’ll equally catch a very good glimpse of all of southeast Asia.
Start Organizing a Cross Border Trip in South East Asia
The first thing you need to decide, for this cross bordering southeast Asia trip, is how much time you’ll have available to go on this crazy adventure, that for sure will give you some of the best memories of your life.
I am based in Taiwan, I decided I was gonna go to South East Asia for 1 month and 2 weeks during my summer break of 2016.
I believe this is enough time for you to get a good look at this part of the world, some might disagree and say you need more.
It all depends on how deep you want to explore each country.
These are the countries I wanted to go to
Vietnam
Singapore
Laos
Thailand
Malaysia
Cambodia
Here is a map of South East Asia
As a first time traveler to all of these countries everything was gonna be new to me, so I decided to visit only the capitals or more touristic cities.
Honestly, if you wanna go deep into the culture of one specific country you could spend months in just one of them, and see and experience a lot.
And of course you could do a cross bordering southeast Asia trip for months or years if you want to.
Find the Best Airfare Deals
First thing I did was to start checking for the cheapest airfare.
I found a Cheap Flight from Taiwan to Singapore and another one from Singapore to Vietnam, both flights one way, I bought them.
If you look at the map of South East Asia you might tell me that logistically it doesn’t make sense to do that, but hey the tickets were really cheap.
Then I thought, Okay, How will I get back Home?
I searched for cheap flights from South East Asia to Taiwan and found something that worked for me.
A flight from Cambodia to Malaysia and another one from Malaysia to Taiwan – they were cheap- I bought them.
So I was all set with my flights, I had a way out of Taiwan and one in.
Just like that I already had on the schedule 4 countries, I still needed to figure out how to include the other 2 and how to get to 3 of them.
If you’re in the USA or in Europe, I recommend you to make Singapore your gateway in and out of Asia.
Singapore has one of the biggest international hubs in the world, there are tons of flights in and out of Changi Airport every day.
At this point, this is what my trip was looking like
So I was all set to depart from Taiwan on June 1st and start my cross bordering southeast Asia Trip.
First I’d spend 5 days in Singapore and then fly to Hanoi-Vietnam.
From that moment on all I knew was that I had to be in Siem reap Cambodia on July 7th to catch my flight to Malaysia.
So now it was time to figure out how I was gonna go from Hanoi-Vietnam to the next country on my list, Laos.
If you take a look at the map, that’s the one that made more sense to go to geographically speaking.
After doing a lot of research I found that the only way to go from Hanoi in Vietnam to Vientiane in Laos –traveling cheap– was by taking the DEATH bus.
It wasn’t really that bad believe me.
From Vietnam to Laos by Bus
The name of this article is cross bordering southeast Asia and this is where the fun begins.
So why is it called the DEATH or nightmare bus? Let me tell you about it.
It’s because is a freaking long bus ride, it took us around 24 hours to be done with the whole thing.
Definitely horrible, and even though you’ll have a lot of space to sleep
Being on a bus for that long is just exhausting.
If you do a bit of research on this you’ll find some bloggers sharing really horrible stories about these buses.
I know I read them before taking this bus and I was a bit scared, but honestly, it is doable and you shouldn’t worry about this too much.
The bus I took had a bathroom, although I recommend not eating after breakfast time on the day you take the bus, those bus bathrooms might get nasty.
The bus also had wifi from the city center in Hanoi to the border with Laos.
This is also the first leg of the trip, I remember it took us around 9 hours to get to the border with Laos.
We departed at around 8:00 pm, the border opens at 7:00 AM so when we got there we still had to wait a couple of hours for them to open.
Once it was open we had to get out of the bus, go to the Vietnamese checking point for departure, pay US$1 for stamping fee or its equivalent in Vietnamese Dong.
While you are doing this the bus will move forward as it has to be checked before entering Laos.
All your luggage will remain on the bus, so remember to keep essential things in a hand-carry bag with you.
After you’re done with the process on the Vietnamese side, you have to walk for about 1 km to reach the Laos checking point, where you’ll pay for your visa.
Don’t forget to take passport-size pictures with you.
Don’t worry if all you see around you while walking is mountains and bushes, that’s what crossing the border between these two countries looks like.
Just follow the paved road and you’ll reach the Laos immigration point, follow the crowd you won’t be the only one there.
Crossing the border between Laos and Vietnam
What Does Laos Immigration look like?
Going through the Laos immigration point might take a while.
Once you are done with this, the bus will already be on the other side waiting for all its passengers.
In the Laos checking point, you’ll find little bazaars selling snacks and you’ll get a chance to go to the bathroom if you need it.
But beware, if you need to go to the toilet to do number 2, you will likely run into one of this.
And voila! You are standing now in Laos territory. After that is gonna be another 6 or 7 hours to reach Vientiane, the bus I took made a stop at a big sideroad eatery station, it was a good chance to have a proper local meal.
Once we reached Vientiane, I took a TUK TUK to my hotel
Arriving at Laos Immigration
How to book the Bus? Where is the bus station in Hanoi? How much?
I paid US$25 for the bus from Hanoi to Vientiane.
I was staying in a nice little hotel in the old quarter of Hanoi, one day before I had scheduled myself to depart I asked the receptionist to help me book the bus.
She made one phone call and got me on a sleeper bus, I paid her the US$25 and she told me to be ready the next day at 5:00 pm, they’ll come here and pick you up she said.
Check out was at 2:00 pm, so I left my bag in the lobby, they took care of it, I went for a walk and got back to the hotel lobby to wait for the “Pick Up”
A crazy tourist in Hanoi Story
A guy shows up and the receptionist tells me: That’s him, go with him, and I’m like ok, I stepped out and I see the guy is riding a motorcycle, the receptionist tells me, you have to follow him.
The bus can not come in here because the lanes are too narrow, and indeed they were.
My reaction was: WTF!!!!!
There were 2 Korean girls next to me who were taking the same bus as me, the guy asked them to hand him their luggage to carry it for them and they agreed, I held onto mine.
The guy starts riding away and there we go doing some fast walking trying to stay behind the guy.
We followed him for around 7 blocks until we reached a minivan, he told us to get in, my reaction was: WTF!!!
This guy is telling me to get in a random van, this doesn’t look good, but then I saw that there were other tourists sitting in the van so I said ok this looks legit.
Then the guy went to find and guide other tourists to the van, after it was full they took us to the bus station.
I must say things got a bit chaotic here, they just dropped us there and we didn’t know exactly on which bus we had to get in.
After asking around we got to the right bus and started our trip.
There are two major cities in Laos, Vientiane and Luang Pra bang, so make sure you get on the right bus. I was heading towards Vientiane
Bus from Hanoi to Vientiane
From Vientiane, Laos to Bangkok, Thailand, by Train
Let’s keep cross-bordering Southeast Asia
After enjoying some days in Laos I was ready to move toward my next destination, Thailand, more specifically Bangkok.
It’s very simple to go from Vientiane to Bangkok, all you gotta do is take 2 trains, and the first one is a very short ride. Here’s how it works.
From Vientiane, you can take a taxi or tuk-tuk to Thanaleng Railway Station, also known as Dongphosy station.
This station is already super close to the border with the north part of Thailand.
There, you’ll go through a little immigration process, you’ll fill out your departure card and pay a small amount –500 kip– to stamp out of Laos.
You’ll also have to buy a ticket towards Nongkhai in Thailand which is around 500 kip too.
Train from Thanaleng station to Nongkhai
The ride from Thanaleng/Dongphosy station to Nongkhai in Thailand only takes around 15 minutes, very quick and comfortable.
Once you arrive at NongKhai station you have to go through a little immigration process and just like that you’re now in Thailand.
I had already processed my Thailand Visa so all I did was show it, you can read more about visas further down in this post.
Buying a Train Ticket from Nongkhai to Bangkok on the Same Day
You’ll be exactly on the same platform where the train from Nongkhai to Bangkok departs, you’ll see a ticket office where you can buy your train ticket.
I didn’t book my ticket in advance.
So when I got to the ticket office they told me that all they had available on that day was 3rd class seats, in a train departing at 7:10 pm, it was just 11:00 AM when I arrived there-.
What could I do right?? I bought the ticket and decided to wait for the train.
What to do in Nongkhai?
Nong Khai Town
I did a little tour of Nongkhai and also spent a lot of time just chilling in a hotel right in front of the train station, the name of the hotel is Nongkhai Resort.
They allowed me to stay by the pool as long as I was buying from the restaurant.
This is me doing what they told me
Now, it was 7:00 pm and it was almost time to get on that 10 hours overnight train to Bangkok- in 3rd class.
My advice DON’T GET THIRD CLASS.
It was the most uncomfortable ride ever, the bus from Hanoi to Vientiane was a luxury compared to the 3rd class seat on that train.
The train was very dirty, the seats were very uncomfortable to sit on.
Weather was hot, so I pulled down the rusty windows to get some air, next thing I know there are bugs hitting my face as they get suctioned into the train as it moves.
If you are lucky, when you arrive at Nongkhai station you’ll still be able to buy second or first class tickets, which I heard have sleeper berths and AC, if you wanna play it safe you should book your ticket online
Timetable for Trains from Nongkhai to Bangkok
In the infographic below you can find the timetable and ticket prices for different train class.
Timetable and prices
I took train 26, 3rd class. I paid around 300 THB
So, after a long overnight train ride, I finally arrived at Hua Lamphong train station in Bangkok, and then I took the metro to my hotel.
The last part that actually counts as cross bordering southeast Asia
This bus ride is not as intense as the one from Hanoi to Vientiane, and it will only take around 8 hours and is a direct bus ride.
There are many bus services that will take you to Siem Reap
But some of them make you switch buses once you go through immigration at the border.
The one I took was the one managed by Natakkan Transport
Inside of The Bus from Bangkok to Siem Reap
When you take a direct bus, yes you’ll still have to get out of the bus and go through immigration and then the bus will be waiting for you on the other side, but you can leave your luggage inside the bus.
The process is very similar to the one crossing from Vietnam to Laos.
Border Thailand and Cambodia, Poipet
You will first go through a departure process from Thailand, right after that, you’ll have to walk for a bit and enter a little building where you apply for your Cambodia visa.
After that, you walk some more and go through an immigration process in another building where they check your passport and visa.
The bus takes around 3 hours from Bangkok to the border and then another 3 from the border to the center of Siem Reap.
Once I got there I took a tuk-tuk and was on my way to my hotel.
Where do you buy the bus ticket? How much?
The ticket price for this bus is around US$35
To go from Bangkok to Siem reap you have to go to Mochit Bus Terminal.
Also referred to as Chatuchak bus station
One day before I wanted to leave Bangkok I went there morning time and purchased my ticket to depart the next morning. They asked me to show them my passport to buy the ticket so remember to take it with you.
After visiting the amazing ruins of Siem Reap I was all set to go to my last destination on the list.
From Cambodia to Kuala Lumpur by Plane
This was very straightforward.
I just took a tuk-tuk from my hotel in Siem Reap to the Siem Reap International Airport and took my flight to Kuala Lumpur.
The process at the airport was just as common as in any other one.
Siem Reap International Airport is pretty decent, you can find places to eat and different retail stores where you can get some last minute souvenirs.
Siem Reap International Airport
After being done with my visit to Kuala Lumpur I just took my flight back home and that was the end of my South-East Asia trip adventure and god I wanna do it again.
In the end, this is how the whole trip turned out to be
VISAS
Okay so in this cross bordering southeast Asia trip you’ll visit quite a few countries, so will you need a visa? It depends.
Singapore
All I have to say about his is that most nationalities do NOT require a visa to enter Singapore, so you shouldn’t worry too much about this.
If your country is not on that list (The link) then you do NOT need a visa to enter Singapore.
Vietnam
There are only 24 nationalities in the world who can enter Vietnam Visa-free, the rest of us have to apply for one
For the full list of countries that can visit Vietnam visa-free click here
Applying for a Vietnam visa is really simple,first, you have to make an online application prior to arriving at Vietnam, once the Vietnamese Government approves it you’ll receive a PDF file that will look like this
Approval letter
They call it the approval letter, you have to make an online payment to process and receive this.
You have to print that out and take it with you.
Once you arrive at Vietnam you show that printout and fill out a form, provide passport size pictures and US$25 for visa fee and that’s it.
I must tell you I did not use the link above to get my approval letter, I used this one , it’s NOT a government website, and for whatever reason it is, they only charge US$8 and it worked for me, I got my approval letter and I had no problem at the airport in Hanoi.
Laos
Most nationalities can obtain Visa on arrival at Laos, so there is no need to worry about any online procedure.
To check the list of travelers from Nationalities that can NOT apply for a visa on arrival please check here
All you need to get a visa on arrival is, your passport, fill out a form, passport size photos and pay the fee, is around US$30.
Thailand
There are only some nationalities that can enter Thailand Visa-free or that can apply for a visa on arrival, for a full detailed list please go here
If your country is not on that list and you need to apply for a tourist visa. You have to head to the nearest Thai embassy and apply for one.
Pretty much all you need to apply is
Fill out a form
Show flight tickets to prove you’ll get out of Thailand
One passport size picture
Pay for the visa fee which is around US$40
Since I was entering Thailand through Laos by Train and leaving by bus to Cambodia.
I had no flights arriving to and departing from Thailand to show.
So, I explained my situation to the embassy personnel, they told me it was okay.
They asked me to show that I had a flight from Cambodia to Malaysia and another one to Taiwan.
It usually only takes 1 business day to get the visa. More info here
Cambodia
Pretty much everyone can apply for a Visa on arrival, so there is no need to worry about any online process, the fee is U$30 and all you have to provide are passport size photos and fill out a form.
All countries on a yellow and greenish color can apply for a visa on arrival
Most nationalities can enter Malaysia Visa Free or can apply for an e visa
Countries in red require a pre approved Visa to enter Malaysia
Please remember it doesn’t matter where you travel, your passport must have at least 6 months of validity left.
CURRENCIES
In this crossbordering south east Asia trip you’ll also need to think about different currencies.
Singapore
Official currency: The Singapore Dollar
US$1 is S$1.38
You can exchange money at the airport
Vietnam
Official currency: Vietnamese Dong
US$1 is 23,411 VND
You’ll be a millionaire in Vietnam, don’t be surprised if after taking a taxi from the airport to the city center the charge is 500,000 VND !!!! that’s only U$20
You can exchange at the airport
Laos
Official currency: Lao Kip
US$1 is 8,572 LAK
This is another currency with big numbers
There are banks and other spots in the city center where you can exchange your money.
Thailand
Official currency: Thai Baht
US$1 is 33.05 THB
You can exchange your money in banks or other exchange spots in the city
Cambodia
Official currency: Cambodian Riel
US$1 is 4,071 KHR
You can exchange your money in banks in the city center, but if you’re carrying USD you don’t have to, all retail stores and restaurants take USD.
Malaysia
Official currency: Malaysian Ringgit
US$1 is 4.18 MYR
You can exchange money at the airport or banks.
YOUR BACKPACK
This is a very long trip you wanna make, and you might be thinking about what to pack? you might be even making a list of all the different things you want to put in your backpack, but hey remember something, keep it simple.
I took one and only one backpack only. It’s great to travel like this as you only have to care about one piece of luggage, easier to move around on the streets, and easier to get out of an airport.
My backpack was small enough to fit in the cabin of the planes, I took it as a carry on in every flight I took, what did I pack?
10 T-shirts
5 shorts
1 jeans
10 pairs of socks and underwear
Deodorant
Toothpaste and toothbrush
Cellphone Charger
Small camera
An envelope with some documents and passport size photos
A little flashlight
Flip flops
Sunglasses
Tanktops
Basic toiletries like shampoo, in small bottles of course.
Hat
You’ll have the chance to do some laundry from time to time. If you’re staying at a small hotel they might have a laundry service, or there might be one nearby, and they’re not that expensive so don’t worry too much about clothes.
Here is a picture of the backpack I used
If you are into activities like camping or diving then definitely you’ll need a bigger backpack and you’ll have to check it in at the airport.
I would recommend you to look for posts about this topic.
So there you have it, a basic guide about how to do a crossbordering south east Asia trip.
To finish this post I just wanna say, THANK YOU for reading and whatever route you decide to take through South East Asia always do it with a good attitude and you’ll have an amazing time.
