Two Bus Tickets To Possible Death Please Sir!

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Armed ready with a mug of steaming Lipton tea hoping to get some creative juices flowing to explain part deux of our slightly less than comfortable journey into Vietnam! Although drinking hot tea in 30oC heat is far from ideal, but listening to a guy playing acoustic guitar is making it much more bearable. I'd much prefer to be curled in front of my dads open log fire in my fave hoody, slouchy jeans and my feet all snug in a pair of pink fluffy socks while tickling Baxter's tummy (the dog)! Grass always being greener and all that jazz, but I'm not complaining, were still enjoying every single second and wouldn't change it for the world!

If I remember right, I cut the blog short last time as it turned out to be quite a lengthy read so I'll pick up where I left off...

Boat journey number seven on our trip was spectacular as always with the usual stunning scenery along the way, do all these boat trips and lush landscapes ever get boring? I don't think so, breathing the clean fresh air and marvelling at each new sight as we steadily chug up-stream is the perfect way to travel! We paid a little more than what we expected but it turned out there was only four others leaving that morning too; a Spanish couple and two French dudes, all having to pay the maximum amount to get the husband and wife duo to take us the six hour trip up-river to Muang Khua. It was an uneventful journey excluding the part where Scott took an accidental slip and trip and very nearly took an early morning dip over board after asking the captain to pull over on a sand bank at the rivers edge for a quick pee pee! The engine started to cough and splutter, it was most definitely on it's last legs at the half way point but we we made it fine and later wished it had conked out and drifted right back to Luang Prabang.

Man, this place was a crap hole - in my personal opinion! This is exactly what we didn't need with still having 3 full days until we were allowed to cross the border into Vietnam. We had read this place was an up an coming trekking destination and with the border not being too far we imagined there to be a few restaurants, a few decent but simple accommodation options with lovely surroundings. We were so so wrong! We popped our head round the doors of a couple of places but if I'm being honest I wouldn't have let a farm yard animal sleep inside. I've seen cleaner pig pens, a total hole! I mean how long has a room been left before spiders start to spin their web over pillow cases? We managed to find a room after declining four others, the best out of a bad bunch I'd say even if the 1 meter square bathroom housed the shower directly over the toilet, it was cleaner than the rest.

Funnily enough after parting at the dock those on the boat ended up in the same place we were. We got chatting to Demitri & Ramon who in the end gave us the best news we'd heard in days! Apparently they had met someone earlier in their trip who was able to cross the border 3 days previous to the commencement date stamped in their visa, bonus! We weren't even sure how long the journey would take to get to the border but it was a chance we were willing to take to escape our hell! After having a wander round the village including a knee trembling bouncy bridge crossing to the dark-side and laughing at the local kids making whirl pools in the river then jumping in to catch the current we forced a bowl of awful tasting rice if that's even possible and gingerly climbed into bed for an early night. We needed to catch the 5.30am water taxi across the river for a 6am bus to the Laos/Vietnam border and onto Dien Bien. As you can imagine with 100+ plus bites, my skin was still crawling - I'm not even sure if it was psychological or not but it was the worst night's sleep yet and couldn't wait to jump out of bed when the alarm went off.

The ride on death express started here...a handful of backpackers congregated on the slope at the rivers edge where we would be catching the canoe across, in the meantime enjoying the colourful orange skies as the sun rose from behind a mountain shrouded in the early morning mist. There was the same party making the same journey we had made the day before plus two others. The rest of the 4x4 bus included roughly 30 other locals with only seat for about 20. It was cramped to say the least. Luggage was rammed into the smallest of crevices both on the roof, in the rear view window area just behind our heads and under our feet. Huge rice sacks and fruit bags lined the central walkway, it was definitely a new take on the whole crammed like sardines expression!

It had rained all evening and the weather looked dodgy right from the get go which didn't fill us with confidence as we set off and nerves about what to expect ahead started to set in. Three words to describe the five hour journey to the Loas border would be, hmmm - treacherous, heart-pounding and totally bonkers, think that about sums it up! To set the scene, it's as rural as it gets, no paved roads so the rains had created endless puddles of mud and sludge. Roads were still in the process of being carved out of the mountains like round orange pyramids and passing huge machinery busy trying to clear rocky landslides from above didn't instil us with the greatest of confidence! I vividly remember a trip once when younger living in Cyprus, we went on a family trip up Troodos Mountains and passed a landslide at the side of the road. Dad being quite the adventurer himself drove round a boulder the size of the Jeep which had dislodged from the earth leaving literally millimetres of dirt left before it too crumbled. I can still recall the utter terror and fear as we passed and even now whilst typing my hands are getting clammy! This was 10x worse however! The edges didn't even seem robust enough to support huge vehicles. I was sat at the back and to my horror could see absolutely everything out of the window beside me! We were so high that at times I couldn't see over the edge as the clouds were hiding the valleys below which I guess thinking about it now was probably less nail biting and a break from constantly panicking about falling to our to death! You start to wonder in these circumstances about the possible facts and figures of lives lost in this area due to this sort of thing and my brain was literally running at one million miles an hour, thinking of all the different scenarios we could find ourselves in, I couldn't help it.

Our nerves were totally shot and by the time we reached river number one with no bridge or footpath and a waterfall cascading just a few meters beside us, I knew it was about to get a lot worse. We both looked at each other with wide eyes and bemusement, even the locals looked slightly edgy! What would we do now, surely we couldn't go back? Sophie a girl we'd met on the bus explained that she had tried to cross two borders in central Laos a few days earlier but due to the monsoon they had all flooded and none were open, great! We were more than half way at this point and to be honest I actually got to the point where I saw life flashing before me! It's times like this when you start planning a possible escape route and thankfully our window opened just enough to squeeze through if needed, that was if the rice sacks and backpacks didn't kill us before being drowned! Lining the bus up the driver pressed his foot to the pedal and before we knew it the water was up to the windows! It felt like forever but he made it across with a few wheel spins and up the other side! Let me tell you, sweaty palms doesn't even come close and if there had ever been a time when we were both scared absolutely shitless - more than ever before, it was then. I think the words thank fuck sprang to mind, a lot! Thankfully when we got to the third river we were ordered off the bus to cross the dodgy rope bridge to wait for it and our luggage to join us at the otherside. He made it just about, we all clapped at the acheivement of our now trusty driver managing to cross and watched for the half hour it took for him to change the air filter, have a bite to eat and a celebratory cigarette, he deserved it...Whoop whoop!

So we made it alive, a few less finger nails never the less. The Vietnamese Immigration called out my name in the waiting room waving my passport and beckoning me over for a "chat!" Time to flutter the eyes, turn on the charm and pray that we would be allowed early entry! It worked - He explained as an offer of good will and gesture he would allow us to enter but we must leave within the 30 days. I'd quickly learnt the Vietnamese word for thank-you just before and so smiled sweetly as I returned with our passports to jump on the bus to Dien Bien another two hours away. The roads were paved so it was time to breath a sigh of relief!

We rocked up at the bus station, grabbed our packs from behind our head whilst batting off the touts that had jumped onto the bus before we had even stood up. Vultures springs to mind! Us backpackers agreed to stick together, safety in numbers! We decided which night bus we would all be jumping on later that evening before heading off to find food and wandering round a museum to kill some time. The over-night bus was okay, less traumatic than the previous journey but to be honest I was just glad it was dark out so I couldn't see him whizzing round the corners.

We managed to grab a few hours sleep before arriving at 5am and getting totally ripped off from the taxi driver into Hanoi. We'd heard about the scams and were really weary but we needed a ride so had no choice. We were expecting to pay a few quid between us but as he insisted the meter had an extra couple of zero's on the end. We knew we had being totally skanked, refusing to pay the price and arguing for ten minutes didn't solve anything and by that point a crowd had started to form. We cut our losses paid and checked into a fancy hotel vowing never to get another taxi in this city! I was beginning to get seriously frustrated and angry and with that a little teary, we were both desperate to shower and couldn't wait to lay our heads on fluffy pillows and relax in crispy clean bedsheets! Bliss! We both agreed from this day forward, for foreseeable future at least, we would where possible stay in flashier hostels until we we no longer had a choice or the money was starting to run short.

Even though this was the most mentally challenging part of the trip it's been the most talked about yet and we wouldn't have changed anything?! Bugs and wacky races aside, they were all experiences we'll never forget.

Next up - Hanoi & Halong Bay...

Chow for now :-)

x

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