We spent our last day in Hanoi looking at Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum and house, the ethnology, museum and changing money.

 

We arrived in Vientiene yesterday evening after an eventful 26 hour journey. The words I would use to describe this journey would be: frustrating, long, astonishing, ridiculous, and really just unnecessarily stupid!

 

We had dinner in Hanoi and got to our guest house for 6:30 on Saturday night. we were supposed to be [picked up from there but what they neglected to tell us was that we were being picked up on foot, not in a bus. so we walked round the block a bit to a bus stop (a kind Korean man we picked up on the way helped me carry my rucksack - being one armed and all!) we then waited for the bus which came about 40mins later.

 

So we got on the bus and were told that in about 3 hours we would be changing buses (despite the fact that we'd been told it was a direct bus). 6 hours later we were still on this bus and the bus crew were asleep - obviously we were concerned that they might have forgotten, but they hadn't, and at 2am, 7 hours after beginning the journey, we arrived at the place where we were going to change buses. This is where the fun started.

 

We got off the bus onto a pitch black dirt clearing on the side of the road where there were a couple of restrooms/restaurants which looked pretty closed. The bus then drove off and Claire, me, the Korean man and a New Zealand girl were left with one of the crew from the bus. We then followed him to one of the closed restaurants. After about 10mins he then came over to announce that he was very sorry, but the Vientiane bus had "finished" and we would have to wait until 9am when there would be another one. It was very bizarre, because he announced it as if he was telling us there would be a 15 minute delay - not a 7 hour wait in the middle of nowhere for a bus that probably didn't exist!!! After a few grumbles there was very little we could do - it's not like the UK where you could complain to someone - it just doesn't work like that here. So we began to make ourselves comfortable on the floor of the restaurant for the night - slightly anxious that if the bus at 9am existed and was late, we would miss the Laos border opening times and be stranded in the hills until it opened the following day! The irony of the situation was that the restaurant we had been dropped off at was the one where I broke my arm!! That place is cursed!! They remembered me and I was a great source of amusement as they all poked my arm and laughed! This filled me with joy.

 

So we slept on the floor, flicking off cockroaches and bugs, grateful for our sleeping bags (and my eye mask and ear plus) until 6am, when the restaurant opened.

 

At 9:15 a bus did arrive (miraculously!) - We got on - but it wasn't a tourist bus. Claire and I were concerned by this. Anyway, at 1pm we finally arrived at the Laos border, which was in the middle of nowhere, in the hills (but very scenic). The mountain road was so frightening; we spent most of the time trying not to look at it!

 

Vientiane was supposed to be about 6 hours from the border but what the lovely local Vietnamese people on the bus forgot to tell us was that when they said the bus went to Vientiane, they were lying; it just went "close" to Vientiane. I guess we should be grateful they got the right country!! We could have ended up in china - that would have been a lot worse.

 

So after about 3 or 4 hours (I forget now - we were so tired, the whole journey just merged into one big mass of time) we were told we had to change buses and were ejected from our bus onto a road - again, in the middle of nowhere. This time we had no native speaker with us. A man from the bus pointed in the opposite direction down the road, muttered something about 3km to a bus stop and then drove off. Great.

 

So, it was now about 4:30. We were still with the Korean and the New Zealand girl. Claire and I decided our main concern was getting on some sort pf transport to Vientiane before it got dark, since we were in the middle of no where and anyone around did not speak English. We managed to establish that there was a bus that ran on the road which came perhaps daily and that if we waited for "a bit" it might pick us up. This sounded dubious, so Claire and I decided to hitch hike whilst walking. The New Zealand girl joined us and the Korean man decided to wait for the bus.

 

Fortunately, 10mis later a bus arrived!! It was full of locals, but they were really lovely and let us on - even moved seats so Claire and I could sit next to each other. This then took us to Vientiane and we arrived last night at about 9pm - very tired. Luckily we had packed 4 bread rolls, a pack of laughing cow cheese, a hand of bananas, a large bottle of water and 2 packets of Oreo biscuits - which kept us alive for the journey!!! Last night I had spinach soup at a great French restaurant which gave us free water and bread and butter!!!! It was sooooooooooooo nice!

 

Today we did a walking tour of the city and tonight we went to the festival that's on at the moment - it's the biggest one of the year and there’ll be fireworks on Sunday - so we're coming back for that!! We got a tuk-tuk to the festival tonight and our driver came round with us to show us all the stuff!! Was very funny!

 

Vientiane’s lovely - very quiet - there are only 5.5million people in the whole of Laos!! Imagine how sparsely populated it must be!! There’s about one person for every 25sq km of land!!!! No one hassles you - people stop at red lights and no one hoots their horn unless it's an emergency!! It’s so great!!

 

Tomorrow we're off to Vang Viene to see the caves and maybe go tubing - should be fun with my broken arm!!! Will be back in Vientiane in 4 days....................