"Voices in my head!"

After walking around in the streets and back alley markets of Vinh, we sat in the hostel to let the lunch digest. We were to meet up at the hotel at 6 PM, but we were there at five. At six they told us to wait for the receptionist who sold us the ticket; she should be there around 7 PM. We tried some street food, hoping not to get sick on the bus ride. I had a good feeling about the bus, but there was no way to tell weather it would leave that day.

At 7 PM the receptionist arrived on her motorbike. She said the bus would be there in five minutes. We waited. About ten minutes later she drove off to the bus station to see what was going on. This made us feel like the percentage was increasing in our favor. The receptionist thought the bus was coming. A few minutes later she was back, and again she said: "five minutes". And she was right. five minutes later the bus was there. It was empty, and we had a hard time choosing seats. You never know what will be the best.

As we headed out on the road, we were in great spirit, looking forward to sleeping on the bus. However, five minutes later, we drove in the big gates to Vinh University. The large main building lit in a light show of different color light bulbs reminded us that the Spring Festival was about to start.

Laos is a much poorer country then Vietnam. Therefore there is a lot of work migration from Laos to Vietnam. University students are no exception. As we drove around in the large campus we saw people packing up their bags, getting ready to leave school and go home to their families. The bus stopped in front of a large dorm, and the next two hours went by quite fast, as we watched all kinds of weird packages and bags being loaded up on the roof of the bus. Before we left, the whole aisle in the bus was full of bags, there were three people in most double seats, and many were sitting on the bags in the aisle. I had two guys practically on top of me, one of them resting his armpit on my knee, trying to find somewhere to place his feet. When we got out on the road again, the crew in the bus got out small pieces of wood that fitted right between the seats, creating a bench in the ale. We now understood why the bus was delayed. They were waiting for all the students who were going home to Laos.

There were a lot of things going through my head as I was sitting there, cramped up and warm. And even if this was a very interesting experience, the equilibrium on the positive / negative graph, was dangerously far off from the center. Voices in my head, mostly my own I guess, kept telling me to push some people away to create enough room for myself to breath.

About an hour down the road we pulled over next to another bus, and all the people in the aisle were allowed to go over to the other bus if they wanted, and since they brought their luggage, there was finally some room for my legs, and some room for my lungs to expand more than half way. But this was not enough to make the ride comfortable, because right above my head they had placed the sub-woofer and whey were playing these horrible songs so loud that all of us westerners were going mad. At times I just wanted to pull out the cords, and Mohan started looking for his pocket knife to cut out the speakers. When we asked them to turn it down, they wold turn it back up again as soon as the next song started. Every song had a dance beat, but was a ballade with some electrical guitar solo. Horrible combinations!

Around 4 AM we arrived at the border to Laos. There was no one there. The road was closed, and it turned out that the border would not open before 8 in the morning. So what should have been an 11 hour bus ride, turned into a day and night of nightmares. This probably showed as we came up to the border guards, tired and ready to get back on the bus. They were slow in the processing, but did not bother checking our bags to more than the minimal extent. The guy in front of me in line at the Vietnamese side of the border was wearing a Manchester United over coat, and a machete! He could just walk right across the border with a huge knife tied to his waist. I wonder what the airport security is like in this part of the world.

We had to buy our visa at to Laos at the border, and after filling in a form that was a piece of cake. It did cost me 35 USD, despite my protests and claims that I should only pay 30 USD.

The landscape changed dramatically as we got across the border and the bus started climbing up into the mountains. There was now Jungle everywhere, and the people in the villages we passed looked poorer.

Despite the horrible and loud music, I to some extent enjoyed the last few hours to Phonsavan.