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Published: August 7th 2006
We arrived back in Hanoi and booked up our bus to Vientiane in Laos. We had previously considered flying after hearing horror stories from several people about the bus journey between to two cities. After checking our bank balances we found that we really couldn't afford it, also we had received an email from Kiwi Paul to say that his journey was a reasonably comfortable 21 hour trip.
The bus was due to pick us up at 6.30pm and we were to arrive at Vientiane at 3.00pm the following day amounting to around 20 hours. We spent the day doing not very much at all, just preparing ourselves mentally for what deep down we all knew was going to be a disastrous trip! At around 6.15pm we were finishing off some dinner and saying our goodbyes to the others when a Vietnamese guy started rushing us, telling us the bus was going to leave! We had to cancel orders, leave half of our dishes or have them packed into polistyrene boxes to eat on the way. We hurried outside, wrestling with our rucksacks and saw that the Vietnamese guy was actually a moto driver. We all had to climb on
the back of these bikes, rucksacks on backs. It turned out that after all that rushing around we were taken about 300 metres down the road to a different travel agent where we had to wait around for another 1/2 hour before being picked up. This wasn't a great start to the trip as we were all now sweaty, smelly and generally agitated before the journey had even begun.
Eventually the mini bus arrived and surprise surprise, it was full. I ended up having to stand up, squashed between the window of the sliding door and a large pile of rucksacks. We were pleasantly surprised to be dropped off and board a reasonably luxurious VIP bus. Also, as the travel agent had told us we would be on the same bus all the way from Hanoi to Vientiane, we were pleased to be the first to board and claim the back seats that had extra legroom.
Off we went, reasonably comfortable, boredom being offloaded by watching the crap American teenage comedy that was playing through the on-board DVD player. I nodded off and woke around 2.30am when the bus stopped at a restaurant for a break. We were
then told by our driver that we were 15km from the border and we would have to wait here for half an hour for another bus that would take us into Laos and on to Vientiane. Our frustration at losing our good seats rapidly transformed into down right anger when after the original bus left we were told that the next bus wasn't actually arriving until 8.30am, meaning that we would have to wait around at the cafe until then. Luckily our good friends Phil and Tyla kindly donated us a bottle of vodka to ease the pain of the journey (cheers guys!), therefore we cracked it open and proceeded to get drunk to take our minds off the situation at hand. I must admit we actually had a great time talking to the locals, designing ourselves fake tattoos and rolling each other around in lorry tyres (we really were bored out of our skulls!!!). One of the waitresses also took our camera and proceeded to take loads of strange photos of her friends, which added to the comedy when we looked through the pictures the following day.
At 9.00am our next bus arrived. I walked aboard and saw
Me Jimbo, easing the pain with Vodka
Not really sure what is going on here, or why it is black and white. This was taken when the Vietnamese girl had accosted our camera!nothing but Vietnamese faces looking back at me. It was a local bus with zero Westerners aboard, and zero free seats. The whole of the back quarter of the bus was stacked right to the roof full of boxes of blenders, water filters, crockery, matresses, not to mention whatever other dangerous or illegal cargo they were smuggling across the border! They tied our rucksacks to the roof (which later got completely soaked when it started to rain) and we set off, sitting in the aisle on sacks of rice, or plastic children's furniture. After travelling a funny 15km that actually took all day (when they told us the restaurant was 15km from the border they were actually lying through their teeth - we were, in fact, at Vinh which is the opposite side of the country!) we arrived at immigration. As we already had our Laos visas, we sailed through reasonably painlessly and had a half an hour rest whilst waiting for everyone else.
When walking through the border to Laos immigration we could hear a distant yelping sound. We continued on, a little puzzled. As we got closer I realised that the three lorries in front of us
were filled with hundreds of dogs. These dogs were not just loaded into the back of the lorries, they were packed into these tiny cages, each holding around 5-10 animals. It was so cramped inside these cages that they literally couldn't move, legs poking out, heads squashed up against the rusty metal, what dogs were alive were yelping in pain and fear, knowing that if they did not suffocate en route, they would face ending up on some hungry Vietnamese person's dinner plate. There were a number of men loading and unloading the cages by hand. picking them up and throwing them across the ground, each time the cage jolted you could hear yet more yelps as a leg got crushed, or a face was buried in the dirt. They were also separating the live dogs from the dead ones, discarding the carcasses on the side of the road as if rubbish. It was a pretty horrible sight, considering how us Brits hold dogs in such high regard, but the Vietnamese guys just wandered past without even giving a second glance. To them it is as normal as us seeing a truck load of cows drive past on their way
to the butcher's.
Got back on the bus at 3pm (according to our travel agent we were supposed to be in Vientiane by now!). By this time the hang over had kicked in and my head was thumping, but we soldiered on wishing the time away. After what felt like the longest 3 hours of my life the bus stopped in the middle of nowhere and they started unloading our bags. It was at this point that we all got a little bit pissed off. We asked the driver where we were, in reply he pointed to a bloke standing outside offering to take us to Vientiane in a taxi for $25. I had heard stories about people being stranded half way across Laos and being stung for a taxi fare, but was adament that this would not be happening to us. We refused to leave the bus and after shouting at the driver for around 5 minutes, he eventually said OK and nodded us on. This time however, they couldn't be arsed to load our bags onto the roof and piled them in the aisle instead, meaning that we spent the next 2 hours of the journey standing
up.
Arrived at a small town where the bus took a good hour or two making various stops to unload all of the cargo squeezed into the back. Luckily a lot of people got off here too, freeing up some seats and allowing us relative comfort for the next leg of the journey. At 10pm, we finally arrived at what we were told was Vientiane. When we asked the driver where we were on the map he couldn't answer. In fact no-one could answer, the cheeky bastards just laughed in our faces.
We had no idea where we were, it was what looked like a small town in the arse crack of nowhere! Then, as if by magic the same bloke popped up, still offering to take us to Vientiane for the same price! We promptly told him to suck balls and wandered down to a petrol station nearby to see if they could help us. About an hour passed whilst we tried to communicate with the non-English speaking owner. It turned out that we were about 10km outside Vientiane. He made a call and got hold of his friend who had a converted Rascal pick-up and would
take us into the city for 2 bucks each. Exhausted, we agreed to load ourselves and our bags onto the back of the van and pay the money, as we were all in dire need of a shower and a comfortable bed (I know $2US is not a lot of money, but it was the principal of the whole situation!).
Thinking we were home free, we relaxed in the luxury of a wooden bench seat in the back of the pick up (trust me, this was luxury after the past 28 hours) it was then that we got a flat tyre! Can you believe that?!! The best part was that the driver had a spare, but no jack. This meant that myself, James and some other European guy who was sharing our nightmare had to physically lift the back of the van up while the driver changed the tyre. We finally arrived in Vientiane at about 1am to find that the only hotel still open was overpriced (in Vientiane there is a curfew and the city basically shuts down at 11.30pm. In fact, if you are found by the Police wandering around late at night they'll escort you back
to your hotel). We spent an hour or so wandering around knocking on the doors of hotels, only to hear the words "rooms full". By this time everyone present had had just about had enough, so we bit the bullet, went back to the original hotel and paid over the odds for a crap room. Eventually, at 2.30am I had a much needed hot shower, walked over to my bed, exhausted and sat down.............................on my glasses, which subsequently broke. What a fitting end to a truly shite couple of days!!!
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Elly
non-member comment
What a shitty day! What are you going to do about your glasses? I'm sad about the dog thing... poor animals. Who the bloody hell eats dog anyway...? Trying to book a cheap holiday at the moment. Need to get away from shitty Britain ASAP! Hope the rest of Loas makes up for the crap you went through to get there... Love eL* xxx