Eventually the taxi arrives at 6.30 to take us to what we thought was the bus station. Turns out its a 15 minute ride to a hotel where we meet all the other travellers. At 7 o'clock we leave with all bags in the back of the bus. We were told VIP with airconditioning. Turns out the airconditioning was keep the window open.
Next we stop for over an hour after 2 stops picking others on the way while they load the bus with crates of things, coconuts. The back is covered, the bag space, the roof everywhere. Where we thought we had seats to one person we now didn't and we had to move. This takes a couple of hours and we set off again at 9 o'clock after deciding siod it Brenda and I will spend some dollars and drink beers on the bus. We watched this american guy buy some which looked good.
The american guy from florida was travelling with carlos a guy he met from chilli. Dan the american was blaintantly working on the bleach swede. He is probably the most irritatioing guy I have met so far. Short dark curly hair, immature and full of himself. It was going to be a long journey. After drinking our beers Brenda and I try to get some sleep. She sleeps in the aisle and I have the two seats to myself. Great I thought initially but an under the sheet shagathon was going on to my right with dan and the swede. I didn't mind as not a prude but the only comfortable postion was facing them both so obviously I couldn't . So I try listening to my walkman sitting up straight sleeping as I managed to get to sleep the bus stops to pick someone up or a toilet stop.
Next I hear the american "lets play some games", oh god its going to be a long night.
I finally get some sleep while the shagathon goes on (trying Not to listen is the hardest thing to do as it makes everything more obvoious).
The chair is now beginnign to feel like the speed boat.
Finally at about 5.30 we stop and wait for the border toat a near by cafe. Then we move on to the laos border crossing where we have to pay a dollar to get out of laos. Its up in the mountains and cold, raining and damp with mist all over. The pace is dirty and there's a young boy about 1.5 years old whose lost his mum and has just gone to the muber 2's in his trousers. I go to help him but a laos guy comes to the rescue.
Next we go 50 yards on ths bus after waiting at the border and hit the vietnam side.
We get our hand-luggage checked dort control where we have to declare our health... any headaches, diarrhea, shortness of breath (all of which I am suffering from at that moment, but the fear of being shot on the spot if you tick a cross makes me put no to evereything (as I discover so does everyone else).
We have to pay 2000 dong then another 15000 dong to get in (Ed: £1 = 28602.4816). Brenda and I go to the bus then we wait andother hr the bus moves 50 yards and we have to take our big bags and small and put them through x-ray (our passport has alreday been checked 8 times at this point).
After this process we wait another 2 hrs while the bus gets searched thoroughly (carlos's cocaine smuggerling jokes don't go down too well at this point) another two checks of our passport and we our off through the most beautiful country side I have ever seen.
I have to say at this point on the laos side of the border there were 3 vans all containing about 4 levels with over 250 dogs caged on top of one another ready to be shipped to vietnam for what I can assume is food. I took a picture cos I couldn' the smell and state of the dogs plus their howling was horrific. I supposse no different to chickens.
Well not much more to say about bus trip except the one stop of food was revolting and we arrived around 10 outside Hanoi. That was from leaving at 7 the night before.
It looked a beautiful city but ted us off with only a mini bus in the area to take us to a hotel we didn't know what it was like. No choice as we didn't want to be stranded.
The hotel turns out to be ok. The room a bit damp but for $6 who can c got to the street market for food but the choice of dog or frog cooked in different ways is not appealing so its order pizza from the hotel and yes again a couple of beers and see how things look in the morning
In the morning it actually looks rather good so off to explore now bye!
Posted by alexd at March 28, 2004 09:14 AM