Vientiane to Luang Prabang by taxi, bus, van

Driver was very friendly, has good experience driving a bus in slippery conditions. Bravo !

It is not a tourist bus. Some locals bring live stocks on board. Seats are too small even for asian size. AC is not cold and I was even sweating. There was a landslide an hour drive near luang prabang and buses and lorries couldnt go as half of the road was covered with mud. Only small vans were able to go thru. Had to hitchhike a van to get to luang prabang.

Waited 2 hours to get on the bus, wasn't even told when it was leaving

Nice scenary. Bus ok-lah.

Comfortable van

The actual bus was absolutely fine - actually slightly better than expected. There was a complete mess up with my pick-up - it wasn't available from my hotel so I had to go to another hotel for pick-up which is fair enough, but it didn't arrive and the phone number I had didn't work. I was fortunate that the hotel I was being picked up from, although I wasn't their guest, were really helpful, found an alternative contact number, and sorted things out. The pick-up driver then got me to the bus station (still in good time) got my ticket sorted and got me to the right bus, which is why I have still given 3 stars as it was all sorted out in the end despite some stress.

Good, careful driver, spectacular scenery but a loooooong trip. Not for the vertiginous. You spend a LOT of time very close to a sheer drop. The A/c didn't work so bus was a sauna, windscreen wipers didn't work (and it was raining). No communication, no head count. A Spanish girl was left behind at the lunch stop.

It was cheap overnight bus travel and ok for the price, I guess. There wasn't much room for getting some good sleep though because the seats were not wide enough to turn on the side. But probably that's what comes at this price, I don't have much experience with overnight traveling in buses yet, so can't say anything for sure. One area where I probably would like some improvement though is providing more accurate departure times. In this case, the departure listed in the voucher was 6pm (so we all reached the ticket office before 6pm) but after we were dropped at the bus station we were told that the bus will depart at 8:30pm. That's over 2.5 hours of time that we could've used for sightseeing etc instead of spending it at the bus station. But then again, this was my first experience with overnight buses, so I don't know how it all realistically works.

Ticket printed 6am and asked me to appear 1 hr early, so I showed up at 5am... Turns out the actual bus is at 8am and the pickup only comes at about 6.30am. Other than that the pickup guy was helpful and spoke English, showed me where the bus was and explained that the ticket could be exchanged for a meal. It's more expensive than getting a ticket at the bus terminal yourself or through other sellers, but I felt that the premium for the service was worth it.