Traffic is OK in Laos so there is no problem driving a motorbike. Rental prices greatly vary by location. Very important to realize that you will be driving on very curvy roads, with many villages on the way. People tend to “live” on the road they use the paved road for walking, kids playing on the road, cattle, chicken and all sorts of animals can appear any time. Not to mention that some villagers use the road for drying chilli 😀
Luang Prabang: The rental cost for a day ( 8.00-17-00 ) is $18 for a manual motorbike and $25 for an automatic. You can rent a motorbike from every travel agency on Main Street. Roads are in a good condition in this area.
Phonsavan: The rental cost for a day is 100.000 Kip and there are ONLY manual motorbikes available due to the hilly surface and the bad roads. The strange thing is that there is no clutch on these bikes so I suspect it is kind of semi-automatic however you change gears similar way to motorbikes sold in Europe without using a clutch 😀 The exhaust pipe is not covered with anything on the manual bikes so if you have a passenger make sure that he or she doesn’t get a lovely burn mark while getting off the bike.
The best place to rent a motorbike is the “Happy Motorbike Rental” right next to the minivan station on Main Street. The owner is a very nice guy, speaks many languages and gives you a map of the area for free.
Vang Vieng:
Motorbike rental prices vary between 30.000 and 60.000 Kip and you are give a free map ( photocopy ). Road conditions suck, if you would like to drive up to the Lagoon or the waterfalls you really have to prepared for an extremely bumpy ride. Traffic however is OK and locals are helpful.
Vientaine:
Vientaine is a very easy city to drive in. There isn’t really much traffic around not even in the city center. Roads tend to be the best quality in Laos and there is even a 2 lane road you can take to drive around or get to Buddha Park.
Renting a motorbike is easy you can get either automatic or manual motorbikes for around 80.000 Kip / day. We were very lucky with this one as we managed to get a brand new 125cc suzuki motorbike 🙂 The funny thing was that it was that new that it didn’t yet have a numberplate on it. It seems it is OK to drive in Laos without a numberplate until the government issues one…
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