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Time to say goodbye to Laos & cross over the border into Vietnam. The only travel option available to us was the public bus...so thats whats we were stuck with. We got on board the old beat up bus, had to fight for a seat and dumped our bags at the rear...which for some strange reason was empty, the bus only having 20 seats at the front. After 40 people piled onto the bus we soon discovered why when they began to pack the rear with boxes of what appeared to be washing powder, and when i say boxes i mean literally hundreds of them. They packed them in the back of the bus and on the roof and the roof was piled so high with them that it had to be supported by scaffolding inside the bus to support it in case it caved in! The surplus people made themselves comfy on the boxes, our rucksacks and the obligatory plastic chairs in the aisle, although we were later to discover that the cramped conditions were the least of our problems.
Due to leave at 6.30pm, in true Lao style we got underway about 8pm which to be fair to them was earlier than we expected! The poeple on the bus didn't speak any english bar one man who spoke basic conversational sentences, although he was so sweet and his face lit up when he could ask us what time it is even though im sure he didn't really need to know! The rest of the people, especially the staff were so RUDE there was no way to describe it and I was fuming by the time we got to Hue.
The bus broke down twice, in the dark in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere..grand. So we all piled off, over the bags, sacks of rice and plastic chairs to find that we had a flat tyre. They pulled out this huge jack to lift the bus up so thay could change the wheel, trying to be nice as they were working in the dark we shone our torch in their direction and even with his lack of english skills the boss man told us in no uncertain terms to shove it, so we did. The next thing we know there is a collossal crash and a shout, the large metal bar that they used to get the jack to lift (insert technical term here!) had come out and fallen to the floor hitting poor old boss man in the face...bet he wishes he'd have taken the torch now! He had cut his upper lip open and there was a lot of blood. The buses first aid kit consisted solely of sello-tape! Luckily a local woman ran into the bushes and returned chewing some leaves which she hastily put on the cut and attempted to sellotape it into place. Again trying to be nice they snatched the plaster that we offered them and shunned the antiseptic cream. Not before they had decided the torch was a good idea and they had snatched that off us too! Finally after much flapping about the bus was ready to go again so we all crammed back on and we were off! So i start to ask for my torch back, they ignore me, so i shout for my torch back, still no answer...the theiving b*****ds! The bus was moving along in practically silence and i was shouting to them and they ignored me! Finally after 10 minutes shouting we manage to get one of the locals to understand what we want and they shout down for us, again they ignore her, on the second time however realising that we are not going to give up he hands it back down without so much as a nod or a thanks or even a backwards glance!
After this we attempted to doze but it was impossible and we finally gave up at about 5am. Have i mentioned that we were supposed to be at the border for midnight,,,no? Well we actually arrived at 8.15am! Luckily the border didnt open until 7am and we were supposed to stay in a local guesthouse but at least it saved us $3.
The border itself was an ordeal, thay make you get off the bus walk a long way with our rucksacks (about 2km). Nobody told us where to go/what to do so we just wandered around until we went somewhere we shouldn't and some disgruntled guard pointed us in the right direction.
The crossing on the Laos side was a small concrete building (typical) and half a kilometre down the road the Vietnamese one was a very grand affair! Big statues, Glass fronted buildings and some huge stone gates...impressive. We go through said gates, the guard scruitinises our passports for quite a while, notes down some details nods and were through...yay! Turns out it was only the beginning our passports were scanned by another 3 guards they were run through computers, pages counted, measured, read from cover to cover, visas examined and Si even had to sign so they could check his signature! It was the most nervous border crossing so far and even with nothing to hide we felt guilty! Thank god we got through with no major problems and arrived into the mayhem of Vietnam!
Straight away we were attacked by a body of motorcycle drivers, taxi drivers, women carrying fruit and pastic chairs...it becomes a very typical sight by the time youve been here 24 hours!
We had no idea what time our bus would get through (especially if they were going to examine all those boxes as carefully as they had our passports!) or where it would meet us and we were starving (having not eaten for 15 hours or so) we brought some crackers that turned out to be mouldy...yummy! After finding familiar faces we just camped with our little group by the side of the road and waited. Luckily half an hour later the bus was through and we were off again, but not before we had offed some of our load. A van pulled up next to the bus and whacked out a set of weighing scales . Thr fruit boxes were weighd and packaged inside the van safely quite quickly. The slightly lighter bus set off however annoyingly did no more than 30km an hour for the rest of the journey!
About half way between the border and Hue we stopped for something to eat Hallelujah! We asked for chicken and rice which is exactly what we got...cold rice with cold hairy bony chicken...mmmmm!
As we saw the signs counting down to Hue, 50km, 30km, we got excited the ordeal was nealry over, but they had one last trick up their sleeve they forced us off the bus 20km outisde town, with no way to get there but motorcycle taxi. Anyone who has been to Vietnam will be able to tell you why we were a little reluctant to get on the back of a motorcycle here. In Vietnam the moto is king, there are so many of them that cars and buses are so vastly outnumbered they have to battle their way through. However at least inside a car your some degree of protection on a moto there is none and as another moto comes within inches of you leg all you can do is hold your breath and hope, it is every man and bike for themselves. They pay no attention to traffic lights going straight through red, dont look either way just whizz through the gaps, you just try to make yourself as small as possible and pray harder than ever! They drive side by side with friends not watching the road, or carry huge loads on the back like boxes twice the width of the bike, or plastic chairs piled high all this whilst weaving in and out of pedestrians crossing (the trick is to walk out really slowly into the middle of the mayhem and walk at a constant speed and they will avoid you...hopefully!)
Fortunatley we made it without a scratch rucksacks and all, found ourselves a decent hotel and settled into another new country and another city!
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