Thakhek to Vientiane: Bus Journey

After completing the Thakhek Loop we had a leisurely afternoon walking around the town of Thakhek. We also bought a bus ticket for the 09:30 bus to Vientiane the next day from Wang Wang where we had rented our bikes.

Where to buy tickets from Thakhek to Vientiane

We went to the bus station which is about 5kms from the centre of Thakhek before returning out moped. The price between buying the tickets yourself and buying through an agent were marginal.

Wang Wang gave us an ok price and also a private pick up to the station which arrived exactly on time. We would normally organise the tickets ourselves, but for once we were lazy.

There’s also a bit of a tuk tuk mafia who ask a lot to transport to and from the station.

Bus from Thakhek to Vientiane

The bus looked quite fancy and the AC worked reasonably well. The legroom was really cramped on the bus and my legs were splayed out in the corridor.

We bought grilled bananas and filled baguettes before setting out and this kept us going for the day. Other food was also available and at one point when we stopped some vendors came onto the bus.

The bus did stop for lunch at a noodle shop and three times in the middle of nowhere so you could get off and use the toilet in the bushes.

There was quite a bit of construction work going on so the trip took 7.5 hours to cover the 330 Kms.

How to get from the Vientiane Southern Bus Terminal to town

The Southern Bus Terminal which is located in the north of the City is an inconvenient 13 Kms from town.
There’s an infrequent bus which runs past the Southern Bus Terminal to the Central Bus Terminal, but we took a tuk tuk.

We were quoted some crazy amounts of 200 -250,000 kip. After some negotiation, including walking away we settled on 100,000 kip.

The journey took abou 40 minutes because we hit ‘rush hour’ traffic.