Visas and border crossings forum

great border crossing! i got in to kon tum late afternoon and went straight to 'kon tum tourist' office, a small travel agency underneath the big hotel on the corner close to the indochine - forget name of hotel but the tourism office is on the l.p. map. they were super helpful and phoned the bus copany to arrange for the bus to stop outside their office the next morning. (the bus starts in pleiku and only stops in kon tum if you call them in advance). i was staying at viet tram hotel, 3 minutes walk away so the next morning i fell out of bed and walked down to their office and had a coffee with the fellas there and then the bus arrived and i was off to laos. cost was 20.000 dong ($12ish), minibus was overcrowded but fine, left at 9.15, stopped somewhere about 11 for lunch and to load more parcels, arrived at border at 12.15, straight through vietnam side, waited about 15 minutes for laos officials to arrive but when they did they were very smiley,(and stamped me in for 60 days by mistake!!!) left there about 1.25, arrived in attapeu at 3.45. an absolute breeze. no scam, no rip off straight through with nice vietnamese passengers and nice border officials. highly recommended!
the bus stops at thi thi hotel in attapeu which is where you go to buy tickets for the reverse journey.
attapeu is a lovely, sleepy, chilled out place and a great intro to laos!