The journey

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TYhe journey - Vientiane, Laos to Danang, Vietnam.
Estimated time of arrival (according to the man at the bus station) - 5pm Wednesday
Actual time of arrival - 1am Thursday

I got picked up from my hotel at 4.30pm on Tuesday afternoon to start my journey to Danang and taken to the bus station where there seemed to be some confusion whether I was able to get on the bus or not but they eventually conceded and let my put bag on board. It seemed that we wouldn’t be leaving for another hour or so but the bus was very stuffy so I had to hang around in the bus terminal (I was the only falang around). Eventually at 7.30pm we left and the Lao certainly know how to make the most of the space. I was lucky and actually had a seat (I later found out that Cat only had a paint tin to sit on!), at the back they had removed a couple of rows of seats so that they could squeeze lots of people in on the floor and then gave about 10 people down the aisle plastic seats to sit on - it was very crazy but luckily I had just enough leg room. The reason for it being so busy and why I hadnt got a seat on a VIP bus was because of the Vietnamese new year - Tet being just after arrival in Vietnam. I had been told that we would arrive in Danang at 5pm the following day - 22 hours I thought was manageable. But oh no - I didn’t end up arriving in Danang until 1 am on Thursday, over 30 hours from when I had left my guest house.

It was not a pleasant journey and a really infuriating one because we stopped so many times and for long periods of a time without really any particular reason. Not only that but as I was nearer the back of the bus there were more men there who would poke, point and laugh at me and they don’t really have any concept of personal space either so I would be fending off people trying to lean and sit on me. Not only that but they don’t mind where they are spitting so I got a good bit of that too! I was the only white person on the bus and although I never felt threatened I cant say I would ever repeat the journey but I did eventually arrive. I headed to the first hotel that my motorbike taxi could find for a couple of hours sleep before I headed to Hoi An were I knew that Cat was - I was looking forward to seeing a friendly face!

The border was quite interesting too - on the Lao side you got off and left the bus in the queue (we got there before the border opened) and went to try and get stamped out of Lao. It was a bit of a free for all with everyone crowding round the one window frantically trying to get their passports through the tiny hole. Thankfully there was a group of 7 Irish girls who were already at the front so they passed my passport through and quite surprisingly got it back pretty quickly. Considering the number of people and the journey so far the border seemed to be a bit of a breeze - especially the Vietnamese side - I was through in no time at all. Which just left a couple of hours waiting for the bus to come through (which btw I coultn remember what it looked like and there were lots of buses! Managed to find it in the end though).

Oh and another thing about local buses - they use their horn ALL the time and the horns over here and really loud and of a pitch which shoots right through you which doesn’t help the journey pass any quicker. Plus my feet/ankles decided to swell up to the size of balloons (slight exaggeration maybe) but they did swell quite a lot because I could not change the position of my legs - Hoi An had never seemed so welcome!

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