Getting a bus to Luang Prabang in Laos

After the Gibbon Experience in Laos, my friend Richard and I wanted to get to Vang Vieng for the tubing river as fast as possible. We thought we had it all under control, with an overnight bus booked for us as soon as we got back, and then we'd take a shorter day bus to finish the trip after sight seeing for a few hours in Luang Prabang.

The fun started after we came back to the small border town of Huay Xia to get our actual bus tickets, which we were told were for a 5pm VIP sleeper bus. The lady we bought the tickets from said the 5pm was full now, but the 6pm was available. We were fine with that, so we paid the rest of the money and were told to be back at 5:15pm. We ended up going back a few minutes later to ask her something and suddenly the 6pm bus has broke down she says. She says now we can't go until tomorrow, hmmm. We demand she calls back and gets us the tickets, since we had already booked 3 days in advance and that this was bs, and supposedly she tried but she kept telling us that we must be so tired and we should stay there the night (she also ran a guesthouse). I think what really happened is that someone else paid more money than us to get on the bus and so she (or some other travel agent) took their booking instead of ours. We could see her evil plan, and after getting nowhere we got all our money back and went to the next travel agency literally 30 feet away.

We asked him about a bus to Luang Prabang and he said "No problem 6pm we have!" We negotiated a price (about 180,000 kip each) and then demanded that he call first to make sure it really wasn't full. We told him the other lady said it was broken and he said "Bullshit" with a smile on his face. After the phone call, however, he told us it was full. Now I told him bullshit, I didn't know what was going on but it seemed like everyone was lying to us. After some back and forth he started to say that he could help us. We were confused for a while until he said that if we pay 200,000 kip each he can get us on the bus. Finally we had an understanding! We agreed to pay the extra cash (about $2.50 USD each) and got on the bus no problem. It's full alright, but with us on it too. It seemed there was only 1 guy sitting in the back on the steps without a seat. On the bus now, in seats that are exactly like every other bus (aka not vip sleeper seats or whatever they tell us), but at least the a/c works!