Finally, back in civilisation, after some genuine travelling for the last few days.
We booked a bus from Vientiane to take us to Vietnam’s border crossing – Loa Boa (maybe Lao Voa). I am not sure why we were surprised by the fact we were sold another crap bus, under the guide of a new amazing, flash, private bus. They even showed us a picture of a lovely looking new silver bus. However when we arrived at the bus station, we were met with a filthy dirty 1950’s American style school bus, with dodgy windows that didn’t close properly.
The few other westerners (Italian) and us girls huddled up at the back of the bus. Standard bus practice in Asia: no leg room, no air con, no toilet – despite being sold all of these things by the booking company. Our rucksacks were around our feet, ostensibly to keep them safe, but also, we discovered, to keep the hold free for other things…
Next, the locals got on – with briefcases. Not at all dodgy. Once there were enough locals on to completely fill every nook and cranny of the bus, we set off.
As you can see, hideous:
Just as it was getting dark, they started to play some rather unpleasant Bollywood style music and switched all the lights on. The locals were having a lovely time, chatting and laughing loudly with each other and staring at us tired westerners who had basically gate-crashed their local bus, but had been ripped off under the pretence of fantasy western bus.
As the journey began to progress, we noticed that we were driving around the city still and not actually on route to the border. Every now and again, we would stop at someone’s house and they would deliver a package to the bus and then the bus would drive off again.
The driver, as is standard practice in Asia, drove at 70mph+ and swerved around everything at speed on the tiny little roads. The lights, music and video would be turned off for long enough that you thought you would be able to get some sleep, then everything would come back on together at high volume. I don’t think I can even begin to convey how stressful it was, almost like being held in a mental asylum. This went on constantly for nearly 20 hours.
Typical Laos bus:
One of the locals was sitting in the isle on a tiny children’s plastic chair, he had fallen asleep with his dirty mop of hair resting on Lizzie. Every time she tried to brush him away, he kept flopping back. Clearly, no concept of personal space in Asia. There was a local woman who talked on her phone, at high volume for almost the entirety of the journey. She munched on the salted dried fish they eat and swung around a bottle with a dead lizard fermenting inside.
At the next house stop about 8 locals and the driver got off. They pulled a huge rice sack out of the hold and opened it up. Within the sack were numerous small parcels. One of the men slid under the bus on his back. The others passed him the little parcels. I watched this unfold beneath my window and thought, this journey really cannot get much worse, I am on the drug smuggling bus from hell.
We arrived at the border crossing at about 5am and waited for approx 2 hours for it to open. Which begs the question – why even set off so early if they clearly know it isn’t going to be open until 7am? Once open, the visa processing was quick and efficient, taking around 30 mins and a little bribe of $10 to keep the dodgy officials happy.
Once our visas were processed, we had to walk for about ½ mile to the Vietnam border to get the Visa’s stamped again and have all our luggage scanned. It was a foggy morning and it wasn’t possible to see more than 10 feet in front of you, making it all quite eerie.
During the foggy walk, our bus drove past us and the inside was all filled with tires, which was quite odd. We were directed to a particular area and told to wait for our bus, as we waited for it, we watched it drive right past us and away down the hill. By this point we had given up and thought, what will be, will be.
The Vietnamese boarder however, is generally considered dangerous, as there is no love lost between the Laos and Vietnamese. So it was nice to be suck in between the two countries with armed guards around, not having a clue what was going on and having previously on a bus that was quite clearly smuggling drugs.
After about 20 minutes the bus drove back to us and the tires had been removed from the inside. A short drive away, the tires lay spread all over the side of the road. We stopped and the locals put all the tires back on the roof. We have no idea what this was about.
We got to Vinh later than we expected. Vinh, despite being a large city, is not used to westerners AT ALL. I assume most travellers use it as a transient point, to move on to their next location. Everyone stared at us. Little children ran off shouting for people to come out and look at us. The army were particularly excited at seeing us and shouted, “White girls!!” incessantly at us.
After being on the bus of hell for 20 hours, we were starving. We had assumed – wrongly – that we would only be on the bus for 12 hours and that the majority of that was overnight so we would sleep. Oh you foolish girls. We hadn’t eaten for hours. Finding somewhere to eat in Vinh posed a problem. After asking around in the heat for about 30 mins with our backpacks, we spotted a little hotel and asked if they had a restaurant, in charades style gestures. A menu arrived, with unexpected English translations. However, the translations told of a variety of weasel and tortoise dishes and so under these circumstances, vegetable soup was the only safe option.
After lunch, we caught the train to Danang, a beach destination and a famous base during the war. The train was fabulous, particularly after so many hours on the bus from hell. Our own beds with no Bangra music! Heaven.
We got a private carriage for 4, with bunk beds. The simple luxury of lying down, rather than sitting in a bus seat was bliss. Travelling was slowly breaking my will. We got on the train at 6.35pm, were asleep by 7.30pm and slept soundly until 3.50am, when the guard helpfully unlocked our door and told us we were about to arrive at Danang.
More calamity: At the train station in Danang, we asked a taxi to take us to the Hoa’s Place, a little hostel we had heard about. This guy was THE worst driver in the world. We were driven all around town with no apparent direction, for 2 hours. He took us down deserted roads, back and forth down main roads, with full beam, normal beam, repeated stalling and constant horn beeping. After two hours we found a random hotel but had no idea where we were. Fortuitously the Sun Hotel was actually rather nice and near where we wanted to be. For $13 a night, it had air con, a fridge, tv with sky and a decent toilet and shower.
As we had arrived at hotel at 6am, we slept until mid-afternoon and then strolled down to the beach to see the sunset. A local gentleman, named Huynh came and sat with us and told us about the war and his lost love. He fought with the Americans and spoke excellent English. He told us all about how his letters from his late wife that he kept in his breast pocket had saved his life from a bullet and how he was in a room with 14 other soldiers when a bomb went off and he was the only survivor. It is moments like this that travelling is all about. He was such an interesting person. Had I not been in that place, at that time, I may never have had the opportunity to meet to him.
The local teens came to the beach about 5pm as it started getting darker. They were very interested in us, trying to get our attention by breakdancing and goofing around. Lizzie and I went swimming with them and they proceeded to fool around some more while we took photos of them and showed them to the boys. They took care of us in the sea as there was a strong current and even walked us back to our hotel. Kind hearts.
The next evening we ended up at a rather gorgeous restaurant called Au Lac IN Danang. Modern décor with gorgeous lighting, furniture with wonderful food and drinks. I got a cracking tenderloin steak and potato gratin for about £5! What a welcome treat.
Huynh advised us of a place to stay further down the coast yesterday, called ‘Hoa’s Place’ where we had been trying to get to in the first place, so we moved there. It has a reputation with travellers. Hoa has 19 guest books in his reception-cum-restaurant area with messages from previous guests. As we flicked through them reading the guests’ comments, the place couldn’t have sounded more perfect: bonfires on the beach, communal dinners, exquisite food, the world’s best prawn spring rolls and a genuinely warm, welcoming host. The beach is pleasant and is about 20m from the guest house. Looking forward to spending a few relaxing days here…
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