PSA: The Laos-China Bus Connection

Earlier this week, a friend and I took the bus from Luang Prabang in Laos across the border to Kunming, China. Information about the trip is scarce in guidebooks and online, and even in Luang Prabang there is plenty of misinformation. So this post is in the nature of a public service announcement:

There is a direct bus from Luang Prabang to Kunming, departing at 7 a.m. Tickets can be purchased at some, though not all, of the travel agencies along the town’s main street. Various agencies report wildly different estimates of how long the bus will take: we were told 32 hours, then 36, then 33. In fact, it took less than 24 hours, which is the way you want the mistake to break if you’re going to be on a bus for that long. (Our only explanation for the wild discrepancy: If the bus were an hour late reaching the border, the crossing would probably be closed. In that case, the bus would probably have to park in Laos overnight and then continue into China in the morning, which would mean about a 10-12 hour delay.) Prices also varied at different agencies. We were quoted as much as 550,000 kip and ended up paying 420,000 ($48).

The bus itself actually leaves from the Laos-China Restaurant outside of the main part of Luang Prabang. When the bus arrived promptly at 7, we were each assigned a single berth on the upper level. The ride is very bumpy while you’re in Laos, so try to get a bottom berth. With every jounce, I feared I would be flung five feet down onto the floor. In order to reach the border on time, the bus made relatively few stops (watch your bladders!) until after we had crossed into China, which happened around 4:30 p.m. Laos time. But when we reached Mengla, the first major town in China, we had a luxurious 90 minutes for dinner. After that, it was a straight and relatively smooth ride to Kunming, where we were dropped off somewhere in the suburbs at 6:30 a.m. It was most certainly not the most comfortable transport experience of my life, but for only $50, the price really could not be beat.

Related posts:

1. Border Crossing: Cambodia to Laos
2. The Etiquette of Morning Alms
3. Snapshot: Wat Xieng Thong, Luang Prabang
4. China to Vietnam, By Land
5. Snapshot: Pha That Luang

Tagged as: bus, China, Kunming, Laos, Luang Prabang