Leaving Vietnam

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This is kind of a long story - and a bit of a shaggy dog one at that.

While planning for this trip, I had the usual "bucket list" of places I'd not been to yet ... places such as Angkor Wat, Saigon, Phnom Penh, Hanoi, Halong Bay, Mekong Delta, Beaches, Vientienne, Luang Prabang, Irrawady Mekong River Dolphins, etc. While researching and planning for the trip, I realized that 3 weeks was not enough time for everything on the bucket list, so I compromised to visiting the south east of Vietnam and the southern parts of Lao before finishing off in Angkor Wat. That meant no Hanoi, Halong Bay, Vientienne nor Luang Prabang.

Since the initial travelling was going so well, I changed my original plans from crossing into Laos after Hue to going north to see Hanoi and Halong Bay before crossing in to Southern Laos. I found I'd saved some time by travelling on night trains and night buses, since I was sleeping well while travelling. I determined that Vientienne and Luang Prabang in Northern Laos were still a little too far away to attempt on this trip.

In Hue, I found a regular sleeper bus that went direct to Savannaket in Southern Laos, but only on odd numbered days. The bus did not stop at Dong Ha, which was the normal point of departure for most buses into Laos via the Lao Bao crossing. This crossing was also the easiest of the crossings into Laos and probably the best road too. I didn't reserve tickets for this bus, but figured I could come back to Hue in the morning, get the bus ticket and visit the tombs in Hue that I'd missed the first time around, before heading out to Southern Laos that night. The ticket agent who sold me the bus ticket would let me keep my backpack at the ticket office until it was time to get on the bus.

In Hanoi, I found a travel agent, lets call her Buck_1, who didn't understand much English, but did show me the standard prices and itinararies for overnight trips to Halong Bay. Since I was asking her too many questions about night buses back to Hue and other options she called her boss by cellphone and had him come in. So she passed the buck to Buck_2. I told Buck_2 what I was trying to accomplish and he said there was a direct sleeper bus to Savannaket from Hanoi. I didn't have to go back to Hue. Neither the guidebook nor any other travel agents in Hanoi listed any sleeper buses to Savannaket. But, Buck_2 assured me the bus left Hanoi at 19:00 and arrived at Savannaket at 16:00.

So, I put my trust in Buck_2 and paid him for a two-day, one night trip to Halong Bay followed immediately by the direct night bus to Savannaket. In all this, I was so happy to be able to meet the rushed time line that I didn't even haggle over the ticket prices. I probably paid about 10-20% more than comparable packages. But, price is not everything eh. I got my receipt and made arrangements for pickup between 08:00 and 08:30 the next morning at my hotel lobby. The hotel was not happy that I'd booked through another agency, since they too sold the "standard" package to Halong Bay. But, when I told them about the bus connections that followed, they were OK with it, since they didn't know much about the bus network.

Well, the next morning I was down in the lobby and at 08:15, a small van/mini-bus came, the guide came in, looked at my receipt and helped me load my pack into the back of the van. We picked up a few more people from other hotel lobbies and were on the road to Halong Bay just after 08:30. Wow, Punctuality! Not the first thing that comes to mind when travelling in this part of the world.

About 30 minutes on the road, the guide asked us for our passports, since he had to make up a passenger manifest to give to the Halong Bay Harbour Master. About 5 minutes later, the guide grabbed his head and gave out a kind of shriek and said something like "we're not ... Canadian ... oh no ... what now ..." and the driver pulled over to the side of the highway. Everybody was wandering what was up. The guide calmed down, turned around, and said he's awfully sorry, but he'd picked up the wrong person. There were no Canadians on his planned pick-up list! Well, my receipt clearly noted my nationality, but he'd only looked at the type of trip.

A few minor, but not insurmountable problems here. He had to make contact with his agency back in Hanoi - thank goodness for cell phones - and tell them to find the missing Malaysian passenger. Then, he had to contact the company that was supposed to pick me up and tell them how to find me. And neither boat was leaving without a full complement of passengers. We also were not going back to Hanoi. After several calls back and forth, and an hours wait, a Malaysian guy turned up on the back of a motorbike taxi. The guide said the other company would pick me up at the harbour in Halong Bay. But, the poor guide had to pay for the motorbike taxi, which was probably a weeks pay for him. He said it was the first time he'd picked up the wrong person. Me too!

It was then I started thinking about how much trust we put in others in general, but especially when travelling. We let total strangers come, look at our receipts or tickets, take our bags, jump into a vehicle with them and drive to who knows where. And usually, it works out just fine!

Since the drive from Hanoi to Halong Bay is about 3-3 1/2 hours, there's a scheduled break at the half way point, where a bunch of souvenir sellers try to convince you to buy something, when all you're really interested in is finding the toilets. Well, we pulled up right next to the bus I was originally supposed to be on. So, I simply switched buses. That bus was a little fuller than the van I was in, but there was still a jump seat left.

The new guide insisted on taking my receipt and got my passport from the other guide. Now I had no receipt to confirm my trip to Savannaket. Umm ... note to self ... next time I do anything like this ... get separate receipts.

The Halong Bay boat trip was fully worth it and more comfortable than I expected. The cabins were very nice and each cabin included a complete bathroom including hot water showers. We're not allowed to stay in the cabins while the boat is moving. So, they don't even give you a cabin key until the boat anchors for the night.

Some months ago, it made international news when several tourists died on one of these Halong Bay boats. The boat just broke in two in the middle of the night and sank in under a minute. The cabins are at the water level, and any one on the sinking side, would not have survived.

The government cracked down hard on fly-by-night operators and insisted on safety checks for all boats, life rafts, training, etc. and also barred any "cheap" operations, as they were the most likely to cut corners. Well, all in all, the trip to Halong Bay was well worth it, even though it was a tourist trap ... there must have been over 300 boats, each with between 15 and 20 passengers. OK, some only on day trips, but still, it's a lot of boats and people, especially when all show up at places like Monkey Island at the same time.

When we got back to land, we were passed as a group to a few more guides to our bus back to Hanoi. I told the guide that I was to be dropped off at Buck_2, but he said he knew no such thing, but the bus would drop me off close to Buck_2's office. Good enough. We got to Hanoi around 16:45 which gave me plenty of time to find Buck_2 and have him get me to the bus station, which is about 7 km south of the town centre.

After getting a little turned around, I found Buck_2's office and Buck_2 was there. He remembered me, and I told him I wanted a ticket to confirm my bus ride, since the original receipt was in some guides note book by now. He said no problem. A taxi would come in 5 minutes to take me to the bus station and the taxi driver would get me the ticket to Savannaket. Buck_2 then got on his motorbike and left. As promised, a motorcycle rider, let's call him Buck_3, came in about 5 minutes time, gave me a helmet (a couple of sizes too small as usual) took my pack, and we headed out to what I thought would be the bus station.

Buck_3 was a James Dean wannabe who insisted he had to be the first vehicle in front of everybody else at traffic lights, etc. Well, just go with the flow. We hurried here and there and after a few close incidents he came to a stop at this truck dealers parking lot. No bus station in sight. He got off and said "wait, wait". Umm .. Hurry up and wait is quite common, but why was I in a truck dealers parking lot? About 15 minutes later, a mini-van pulled up to the Ford dealership next to the truck dealership, and a bunch of backpackers got off - conincidentally, some of them had been on the boat with me, just a few hours before!

A couple of Canadian sounding women found out from Buck_3 that there was no direct bus to Luang Prabang ... the bus he would get them onto only went as far as Vientienne and they would have to catch another 6 hour bus to Luang Prabang. After some arguing, and calling whom I presume was Buck_2 on another cellphone, the two were told they could get their money back if they came back to the office. So, they hopped in a taxi and went back into town. Turns out they were really rushed, and were now going to fly to Luang Prabang.

Buck_3 started passing several other backpackers on to another guy, Buck_4, to walk them past the truck dealership. Soon enough, after enough hurry-up-and-waiting, it was my turn. Yup. There's no bus to Savannaket either. But, of course, Buck_4 speaks no English what-so-ever. That's why they play pass the buck.

There was a Japanese guy, Tanda, who was also planning on going to Savannaket. Well, I got my ticket to Vientienne, figuring, it's a place I'd wanted to go to anyway ... and if that's what fate (or is it fait?) wanted to serve me, then I would just go along with it. The rest of the backpackers were all going to Vientienne, so it worked out fine for them.

Tanda ended up getting off half way in Laos when someone on the bus gestured wildly and said "Savannaket" 3 or 4 times and pointed roughly in the Southerly direction. I hope he managed to catch a bus South, because his English was quite poor.

It was supposed to be a 23 hour bus ride to Vientienne ... or at least, people who'd come from Vientienne to Hanoi had said it took them 23 hours. Well, it took us just 14. We left at 19:00 and arrived at 14:00. The other way must involve a lot longer wait for the border to open.

The border itself was an interesting experience. The bus got to the Vietnam/Lao border at 05:00. The border was supposed to open at 07:00. I got a few more hours sleep, found some toilets to refreshen up and I decided to walk to the Vietname checkpoint with my passport and see what would happen. Sure enough, there was a guy there, who for $1 stamped an exit stamp on my visa. He then kind of pointed down the road towards Lao, so I started hiking. I figured the bus would follow. Well ... I'm sure I walked into every building between the Vietnam border point and the Lao entry point which turned out to be about 2km away from the Vietnam checkpoint! Putting a dumb look and big smile on your face with the passport in front was enough to get all the workers who were between the border points to keep egging me on to walk more into Laos. Turns out I'd followed the right protocol, as no one was allowed back on the bus, until they had cleared the Laos immigration (where Canadians pay the highest visa fees ... thank you Mr. Harper, for your wonderful foreign policies) and the empty bus passed inspection too. 2 KM between border points!

So in the end I made to Vientienne, in spite of all the buck passing. Or really, because of all it all.

To be continued ...

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