23 Hour Bus Drive to Hanoi
Vientiane (Laos) -> Hanoi (Vietnam), 8th & 9th May 2002 (Part 1)
On my final day in Laos, I just passed the time quietly and then the hour finally
came. At 6pm, I was standing outside with 2 other backpackers, bags
all ready. A nice car drove up and picked us up. It was a really
strange feeling, sitting inside a nice, plush, comfortable car,
enclosed from the outside. I've become too used to being crammed
into beaten up, old sawngthaews, open to the elements! The car took
us to the other side of town and dropped us off outside a shut cafe.
He then drove off, and reappeared after 10 minutes with another
group of backpackers. He repeated this a few times until a motley
crew of falangs were standing around waiting. 30 minutes later, our
bus pulled up...but the fully air-con bus with nice, reclining seats
that we'd been promised didn't. It was quite a good bus, it just had
no leg room, was packed tight Lao style and the seats didn't recline
at all. It's going to be a fun 23 hours on this coach! I find it
difficult to sleep when sitting upright. Also, unfortunately, I
found myself sitting next to a rather large American guy. These
seats are designed for 2 small Asian bodies, not large falangs.
Looks like I'm going to spend this journey with only half a seat to
call my own!
After a quiet few hours spent reading and enjoying the views, we
reached a small restaurant in the middle of nowhere at about 2am. We
soon managed to work out that we were going to wait here until 6am
(4 hours!), and then continue on to the border, about 30 minutes
away. (The border will be closed at the moment).
A few of the locals took this time to get some sleep, but I couldn't
find anywhere comfortable, so I passed the hours playing cards with
the other falangs.
The hours passed slowly, and just as we were running out of games to
play, we heard the driver shout So, zombie-like, we all clambered on
& took our seats. The driver pulled off, but we noticed someone was
missing. The driver didn't care too much, so we all shouted till he
stopped. I ran the short distance back to find the Japanese guy we'd
left behind just about to climb onto a motorbike to chase us. We
then pulled off again, this time with a full load.
The journey passed quite slowly, everyone was either asleep or very
tired. One interesting thing, was when I helped the guy across the
aisle from me open his briefcase. He was stuck, he wanted to get his
glasses out of his briefcase, but the case was locked with a
combination lock he couldn't read in the low light without his
glasses! They say that English is the international language, but I
managed to communicate with this Vietnamese guy using the little bit
of Lao that I knew. After he told me the combination (in Lao) I
opened the case for him. Amazing how learning simple things like
numbers come in helpful!
When we reached the border, we all filled out and walked up to the
small building on the border. It was a pretty quick & efficient
process getting out exit stamps from Lao. They'd even put an
exchange desk in the building so we could get some Vietnamese Dong.
A few months ago there was no where to change money officially on
the border, so everyone had to use the black market until they
reached a nearby city.
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