Chow to Laos

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As I mentioned in my previous blog, everything in Laos runs on Laos time...if everyone back in Canadania thinks that the new early switch to day lights saving time threw people off, then you'd be shocked to visit Laos. Locals simply judge the time based on where the sun is in the sky. This can pose quite the problem when its cloudy...or especially at night time.

After becoming adjusted to Laos time, we decided it was time to see if Viet Nam ran on the same type of clock. Well, to get there, we opted not to fly up to Ha Noi, but rather press our luck with the bus. The 5 of us (Josh, Sylvia, and the 2 English Blokes (Tim and Justin (we'll call them T&J for future reference))) opted to book our bus ride thru our overly friendly guesthouse representative.
- On a side note, the people that work in guesthouses here are incredible. When you come home at 2 in the morning and see nobody behind the reception counter, its not because nobodys there, its because the guy working there is sleeping on a matress on the floor behind the counter and you just cant see him. You wake these guys up in the middle of the night and they can pull any rabbit out of any hat. You could request a banana milkshake (the new milk over here) and they'd have it ready for you by the time you could take off your coat. Ofcourse you're not wearing a coat because its 35 degrees over here....but I'm just trying to help relate it to all you back in chilly Canada.

The bus ride would take us from Vientienne to Ha Noi. He showed us a picture of this bus we were to ride and it said "V.I.P" on the side and had nice plush reclinining seats. The estimated duration of this trip was to be 24 hours. The cost of this trip, was a whopping $18. (I've now made a rule to myself, anytime that the number of hours of the trip exceeds the cost, I remain skeptical and expect the worst!) We excitedly signed up for it and prepped ourself with lots of goodies to take on board.
The next day we had our Vietnamese Visas dropped off (an hour later than they promised. Luckily our shuttle bus was 1.5 hours late) and we headed towards the bus terminal. On our ride towards the terminal, we all joked about what movies we'd get to watch and the concensus among us was that Ace Ventura would be the perfect choice. Allllllrighty then, we get to the bus station and as we deboard the shuttle bus, our driver points us in the direction of a bus and in broken English says "thats your bus". Looking at the bus, it was (for lack of a better word) POOOCHED! It looked very much like the one pic of the bus in my last blog, except that it had a sign in the window that was falling down and hanging by a thread saying "Ha Noi". Sylvia immediately said..." no, no. Our bus is a V.I.P bus. I'm going to go and find it" So, we searched for another one and unfortunately, much to our dismay, our destiny had been decided the night before when we had paid $18 for a 24 hour bus ride. Someone said "I assume they wont be playing Ace Ventura". We half heartingly laughed and grudgingly boarded the bus.
At this point the bus was about 75%!f(MISSING)ull and we knew it was almost time to leave. I had an open seat beside me and was looking forward to making the most of this added leg room. The bus driver started the engine and we thought we were off and running. All of a sudden another shuttle bus pulls in right infront of us and about 15 more people are herded onto the bus and we hear bags being thrown on the roof. 2 of these 15 were our friends T&J. We had saved them seats and boy were they glad we did. As we heard the final bag being thrown onto the roof and with people still standing in the aisle, the bus driver slams the door shut and guns it out of the parking lot. T&J had their bags thrown on the roof, but remembered that there was no overhead compartment up there, nor was there enough time to net any of the bags up....needless to say, they were very worried. As the bus sped off 4 people remained in the aisle without seats. After about 2 minutes, they realized what was going on. The number of passengers exceeded the number of seats. They started screaming at the bus driver to stop the bus and let them off, but the scene played out like a bad horror movie. With the crazy bus driver just doing this psycho laugh at them and hitting the accelerator. With T&J fretting about their bags not being strapped in and the people in the aisles without seats and our psycho driver, seemingly enjoying it all, I had no clue what was going on....I looked over at other passengers to see if they shared the same confusion that had found me. Many of them were pinching one another to see if this was all just a bad dream, or should I say, NIGHTMARE. It was at that point that I realized we had all been taken hostage on a runaway bus in Laos. It was just like the movie Speed 2, except on a bus instead of a boat.

After about 15 minutes, the bus pulled over and we heard footsteps on the roof of the bus. One guy had been laying spread eagle on top for the previous 15 minutes making sure bags didnt fall off the top. They proceeded to spend the next 5 minutes fixing up the bags to ensure they wouldnt fly off. At this point, one Israeli girl went up to the front and positioned herself in the doorway, so as not to allow the bus driver back on the bus until he could ensure her a seat. His psycho laughs turned to screams and even became a little bit physical with her. The thought of stepping in continued to cross my mind. But I just read this book (called "The Damage Done" about this guy who spent 12 years of his life in a Bangkok Prison. To give you a quick idea how this book goes, there is one part where a man in the cell beside the author is yelling uncontrollably, like no human should ever scream. After pleading with the guard to unlock the man in desperations cell, the author suceeds and enters to check on this mans condition. He sees a huge welt in the guys kneck as the man continues to scream out in agony. The man is completely oblivious to the author having entered his cell at this point as he is in such pain. The author and his friend, quickly get a razor blade and cut the mans kneck open where the welt is. Hundreds of little maggots come oozing out of his kneck and sprawl and squirm all over the ground. What had happened, was a cockroach crawled into the mans kneck and laid hundreds of eggs. As the eggs grew, the man complained and complained of pain, but the guards all ignored him. That night all the eggs hatched simultaneously. This was just the PROLOGUE to the book and things didnt get any better). So, lets just say I didnt want to do anything to put me in a position to find out whether the Laos prison standards were any better.

Along with myself, everyone on board was terribly worried. This was not just a morning ride from Bay and Bloor to Union Station that you could tell your co-workers about , this was a 24 hour ride crossing into Vietnam. After a hard fought 5 minutes of planting herself infront of the driver, the poor girl, returned to her seat....I mean the plastic aisle stool that they so kindly provided. Unfortunately at this point my comfortable aisle seat was not only being hindered by Tim on my left, but now this girl beside me on my right. She wasn't making my trip too uncomfortable, it was more of her boyfriends guitar who kept falling on my leg throughout the trip, JUST as I was about to fall asleep on several different occasions.
At this point, nobody really knew what to do. So....we did nothing. I tried to make the most of it by reclining our seats and enjoying the air con. It was at this point that I realized that my PLEATHER seat wouldnt recline and simultaneously the airconditionning turned off....for good. The bus heated up like a furnace and whenever there was a break between songs on my Ipod, all I could hear was the sound of sweaty skin peeling off the pleather seats. 6 hours into the journey, I was still not asleep and we stopped for a usual 15 minute break...or so we thought. After about 45 minutes on the side of the road in the middle of who knows where, it occured to us that we may be there for a while. We were given no information about the duration of our stop, as none of the crew spoke a word of english. 4 hours later, we made moves towards the Vietnamese border.

The border crossing was another entry all initself. The Laos people have no clue what the word "lineup" means. They push, climb and crawl their way to the booth, regardless of how long you've been standing there. This was especially annoying to Cameron, as the majority of them were a foot shorter than him. Trying to maintain his position in line, was like watching someone try to swat mosquitoes all over the place. After being processed, you had to walk 1km from Laos to customs in Viet Nam.

We waited in the bus for 3 hours as customs refused to let a Kiwi girl into the country and were telling her that she had to make a 12 hour bus journey back to the capital of Laos. Fortunately, they finally allowed her in and the bus driver demanded that she pay him $40 for holding the bus for her....what a nice guy.

Everyone on the bus at this point was looking forward to the improved infrastructure in Viet Nam (and by improved, I mean paved roads). While the roads were great, the horn started going off every 2 seconds. We all assumed at first that it was broken, but as we looked, we noticed that the horn directly correlated with each time that our bus driver swirved into oncoming traffic and passed another vehicle. This was not just our bus driver, but everyone in Viet Nam. Nobody waits for anyone and most bus drivers spend more time in the oncoming traffic lane than they do in their own.

I could go on and on about this trip, but I'm sure most are tired of reading about it...I know I would be (my fingers are tired from typing). Anyways, 28 hours later we finally made it safely to Ha Noi and the funny thing is this...while this trip was the worst and yet most entertaining mode of transportation, there are numerous ones that come a photo finishing second, you just have to learn to expect and accept it.

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Comments

[D.Shaw]

Hey don't count on that fist place finish just yet bro... I'm gunning for ya. Looks like you've been having a blast... when are you going to be in Cambodia? I'll be there the beginning of April in Sihanoukville. BTW Pope and I won't be back to Phuket until the April 29th