TAKING A TRAIN TO NEXT COUNTRY?

How long is the train journey, roughly?

Around 5:00 PM, I arrived at the station Krunk Thep Aphiwat. Finally, we all gathered here to head to the next country, which is Laos, and we’ll be staying in its capital, Vientiane.

While waiting for iftar, we just had a casual chat, talking about what we did in Bangkok yesterday.

At the station, I felt a bit emotional because it was the last time I’d be fasting this Ramadan. Alhamdulillah, I made it through. Finally, around 6:30 PM, it was time for iftar. At first, I was worried about breaking my fast while traveling because I thought it would be exhausting, but in the end, everything turned out to be much easier than I expected!!

Our train was scheduled to depart from Bangkok to Vientiane around 9:00 PM, and the journey would take approximately 12 hours. The ticket price was around $35 per person, and I purchased it through 12Go. Here’s what the train looked like—it was quite comfortable, and I noticed that it was really cold, but luckily, they provided blankets.

Around 3:30 AM, in the middle of the journey, I started feeling really uncomfortable with a bloated stomach, so I kept going back and forth to the toilet. Luckily, I had my trusty balm with me to rub on my stomach. Tonight, it was actually the night before Eid in Indonesia.

Around 8:00 AM, we had to get off at the border for the immigration process (Thailand). It took about 1 hour here. Make sure to have your passport ready!!

After that, the train moved forward again for about 15 minutes, and finally, we arrived at the station Khamsavath Station Laos. At the station, there were many officers in purple uniforms handing out forms for entering Laos. Back in Indonesia, people were busy celebrating Eid, while I was in another country dealing with immigration paperwork. Haha!

After filling out the forms, we queued up at Laos immigration, where we were asked to pay a "passport stamp fee" of about 20 Baht, which is around $0.60.

And yeah! Welcome to Laos!! There were many travel stands here offering rides to the city center. We bought a ticket—although I can't remember the exact price, it was definitely under $3. We took a comfortable minibus, and the journey took about 30 minutes. The trip to the hotel really felt like being in Indonesia.

Finally, we arrived at the terminal around 10:50 AM and were ready to head to the hotel since it was only about 750 meters away. And to our surprise, the weather here was cold!! Let’s go to the hotel!!!

To be continued . . . .