Pound a pound of tatas! and onions too

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Now this bus trip is worth a special mention, I am sure you are bored of me going on about them but hopefully this will be the last one I have to tell you about (although I doubt it)

Dave and I booked our 20 hour bus trip to Vientiane, the capital of Laos, we booked it at our Hostel and when I enquired if it’s a nice bus, we were assured it was a “VIP”one, happy days.

We waited in the hostel, bus was meant to arrive at 6.30, at 7 a man arrived on a motorbike and took us one at a time to another hostel in the pouring rain, the 10 or so of us were waiting were then loaded into 2 taxis, luckily I managed to bag a front seat but with all the bags and people crammed in don’t think Dave was too happy with the 4 people in the back with him. After a 20 or so minute taxi ride we arrived at what appeared to be an abandoned warehouse, just an old building in the middle of nowhere, Dave and I laughed at the locals already sitting on a shit heap of a bus there and looked around for ours, yes, you guessed it, it was ours!

They kindly threw our bags on the roof and tied them out with a bit of string, not over the moon to be honest as I mentioned it was pouring down!

I was first on the bus out of Dave and I, I was instantly hit by a smell, was disgusting, the front 10 rows or so were taken up by locals and I couldn’t see any seats at the back, I got the last one which was about half way down the bus but was actually the last row, behind this row of seats all there was were onions and potatoes piled up to just about a foot below the ceiling and in that remaining foot were peoples luggage, I also forgot to mention that my seat was a cushion on top of 2 bags of onions, if you didn’t laugh you would have cried but then I realized I had this for 20 hours and Dave and another westerner still didn’t have a seat and there was no more room.

Everyone was kicking off, I was sitting next to a Vietnamese guy that spoke very good English and he was translating with the driver for us, we were all saying give us our money back and we would all get a mini bus together, I was more annoyed about Dave not having a seat to be honest and told the man next to me to ask what she was going to do about it, she replied that she was going to give him a plastic seat in the aisle, I told him, to tell them to F off (sorry mum) needs must and all that, I don’t think he did anyway but think she understood.

We were all laughing to be honest and making sarcastic digs, 2 Aussie lads eventually got the hump and stormed off, got their bags and got a taxi and said they were going to get a flight so me and Dave jumped in their seats, everyone seated now and ready to go!!

Don’t be so silly, they hadn’t put the battery in the coach yet!!! An hour or so we watched them try and fit it in the dark with a torch to help them, finally we were off, it felt rickety and overloaded was leaning to one side, after about 2 mins we hit a dip in the road and was an almighty crash, the backbumper had been smashed off with the weight! 2 more breakdowns in the first hour and we were away!

The stench was unbearable, luckily an English couple had some Tiger balm (very strong Vic nasal stuff) which we loaded up on, actually managed to get some sleep to be fair, god knows how but we did, perhaps the onions knocked us out I don’t know, but after a fun 2 hour border crossing trying to sort our visas, crawling up a mountain road at about 2 miles an hour as the bus struggled and being pulled over by the police for the bus being too heavy we eventually arrived in Vientiane.

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Photos

Abandoned Warehouse
Or our bus stop as it turned out

Storage
Our bags getting soaked

Bumper Cars
If you look closely you can see where the back bumper came off our "VIP" bus.

Proud!
Showing off our flashy motor!

The back row
Although it was half way down the bus, you can see the bags of onions in amongst it all!