Lazing in Laos and Gallivanting a Wee Bit Around Asia

January 29, 2020February 21, 2023 Koen 0 Comments

This is the introduction of our ‘Lazing in Laos and Gallivanting a Wee Bit Around Asia’ trip report, in which we will travel to Laos and a few other destinations in Asia.

A trip to Laos

Some trips look perfect on paper at the moment you book them but might not be as good of a plan at a later point.

This was the perfect example of such a trip.

Laos is one of the few countries in south-east Asia which I haven’t visited to date, so it made for a logical destination. There are some great sights and wonderful nature to see in the country – and the food should be equally superb.

To get to Laos, I booked a one-way ticket from Bucharest to Athens, from where I booked a great 350 EUR one-way journey to Kuala Lumpur on the recent Saudia business class deal. For a lie-flat bed all the way to Asia that is an unbeatable price.

From Kuala Lumpur it is then a short hop on low-cost airline Air Asia to the Laotian capital of Vientiane (40 EUR one-way).

saudia 787 business class — *Business class on a Saudia Boeing 787 from Jeddah to Kuala Lumpur. ©Paliparan*

China stopover

The return journey looked excellent on paper too.

I had booked a business class ticket on China Eastern from Luang Prabang to Dubai with a 24-hour stopover in Kunming, China, using a chunk of my Flying Blue miles (74,000 miles plus 233 EUR in taxes).

Although not a particularly good value for miles, it wasn’t that bad either – and a paid business class ticket would have set me back well over 3,000 EUR for these flights.

More importantly, it gave me the opportunity to fly on a new airline (China Eastern’s excellent Boeing 787) and explore Kunming for a day as China gives visa-free access to many cities if you have a stopover en-route to a third country.

From Dubai I would then head back to Bucharest via Istanbul on Turkish Airlines in economy class (240 EUR one-way). Itinerary decided and settled for, you would think.

Then came the Wuhan corona virus outbreak.

bucharest laos trip otp vte map — *The trip to Laos as originally booked, with the return journey passing through China. ©Great Circle Mapper*

Rebooking the ticket

As most countries suddenly came with a negative travel advisory for China and doctors warned that it is perhaps better to rethink all non-essential travels to the country, I decided to cancel the return journey.

Luckily, most airlines issued special waivers at the start of the COVID pandemic which allowed you to cancel any booked trip to or from China for free.

Although even in normal circumstances I could refund my China Eastern ticket as I booked it using miles, Air France as the issuing carrier was this time also waiving the 50 EUR redeposit fee which the airline normally charges to redeposit the frequent flyer miles of a cancelled award ticket back in your account.

As the Dubai-Bucharest ticket was now no longer needed, I decided to cancel this too.

Unfortunately, that ticket was only semi-flexible so I had to pay a 120 USD cancellation fee for this, which Turkish Airlines deducted from the refund.

bangkok departures — *Cancelled flights to China due to the corona virus outbreak in Wuhan. ©Paliparan*

Alternative travel plans

Although I didn’t feel comfortable travelling through China at the time, I was however still fully set on travelling to Laos.

The outbreak of the novel corona virus did cause some last-minute stress (and admittedly, also a wee bit of fun puzzling together a new itinerary!) but in the end I managed to come up with an alternative way how to get home from Laos.

My new travel plans were perhaps even more exciting than the original route when it comes to airlines flown and places visited on the way!

Japan Airlines

In the end, I thought it would be a fun idea to route my travels through Japan instead of China.

Even though there were quite a few corona cases in Japan too, at least there wasn’t the danger of being quarantined, which was probably a worry as big as the actual disease itself.

The reason why I ended up choosing Japan was that I somehow found an excellent mileage redemption to fly in business class from Bangkok to Tokyo on Flying Blue partner Japan Airlines (JAL).

I could have taken the direct Bangkok to Tokyo flight, but as that flight is relatively short I would not really get the most out of the business class experience.

For the same amount of miles – and only a fraction more in taxes – I could route the trip through Jakarta, first flying on Garuda from Bangkok to Jakarta, where I would connect to the JAL flight to Tokyo Narita Airport.

As the Jakarta to Tokyo flight is a seven-and-a-half hours overnight flight, it was a much better opportunity to try out Japan Airlines’ new Apex Suites in business class on the Boeing 787 – and I got a cool Garuda flight thrown in for free as well.

For both business class flights on Garuda and JAL I only paid 55,000 Flying Blue miles plus 115 EUR in taxes, which I thought was excellent value for money (err.. miles).

And as I had never been before in Japan, it would be an excellent opportunity as well to explore Tokyo!

jal japan airlines sky suite apex — *The forward business class cabin on the JAL Boeing 787-8. ©Paliparan*

Booking the last few flights

I still had two minor problems at this point.

First of all, I needed to find a way to get from Luang Prabang to Bangkok. Second, I now found myself stranded in Tokyo and still required a flight back home to Europe.

Luang Prabang to Bangkok was relatively simple as the route is flown by four airlines.

I settled for an economy class ticket on Thai Smile (95 USD) as it was the cheapest and had the most reasonable departure time.

Japan to Europe

Finding a flight from Tokyo to Europe was a bit more difficult than I initially expected.

There was a cheap flight on Aeroflot when I started rebooking my flights, but when it actually came to buying this flight the cheap fare classes had already disappeared.

In the end it left me with no other choice than to buy a relatively expensive one-way economy class flight home on Turkish Airlines (550 EUR).

From a financial point of view it would have probably been better to ditch the whole Japan idea completely and just fly home from Bangkok for half the price, but as I was now dead set on flying JAL in business class and seeing Tokyo, I didn’t bother cancelling the miles booking again and decided to just bite the bullet.

As a bit of silver lining, at least the Turkish Airline flight was in a booking class which earned me a full 100% mileage, which would all but guarantee re-qualification for another two years of Star Alliance Gold status in Turkish Airlines’ own Miles&Smiles frequent flyer programme.

With the last flights decided on, the final route map looks like this:

laos itinerary — *The final itinerary of my trip to Laos. ©Great Circle Mapper*

Highlights

In this ‘Lazing in Laos and Gallivanting a Wee Bit Around Asia’ trip report, you can expect the following highlights:

– Business class flight experiences on Aegean Airlines, Saudia, Garuda and Japan Airlines.
– Exploring the night markets of Kuala Lumpur, Vientiane and Luang Prabang.
– Biking and tubing fun in the gorgeous backpacker town of Vang Vieng.
– Spending three days between the temples, food markets and French cafes of the UNESCO World Heritage-listed city of Luang Prabang.