Travelling from Laos to Vietnam...our 24 hour bus journey!!!

We had been warned by many people of the dangers of getting the 24 hour bus to vietnam...the uncomfiness, the break downs, and the near death crashes! We planned on getting a plane instead as suggested, however, we decided to risk our lives and get the bus to save £80. After two days of waiting around in Vientiane for our visas, doing absolutely nothing, we could not wait for 5pm to leave. Of course, our visas were late...we waited around until gone half five and rushed in the tuk tuk to make it to the bus station.

Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately) the bus had not left. We were pointed towards a s***ty looking green bus. As we walked up the steps Sarah almost burst into tears at what she saw. On one side was a row of two leant back seats next to each other with the same above like bunk beds. On the other side were 'double beds' i.e a small floor space for two people to lie on with seats above. None of us wanted to be sleeping on our own next to an old fat smelly man. Lisa and Sarah asked if we could swap buses but we couldn't. First of all we all crammed into one of the floor spaces together and then Lisa decided to move to the chair next to us. Along came an old fat Vietnamese women to lie next to her who started hugging her. There were also mmulticoloured disco lights along the sides.

We could not believe what we had got ourselves into...but this was only just the beginning. More people were getting on the bus and started lying down in the middle of the aisle. After a toilet stop where someone stole Lisa's flip flops she decided to swap with the man in he middle so that she was next to us...this was a big mistake. Just when we thought the bus could not fit anymore people on they just kept on coming. After stopping for food a huge group came on and were all sat down the middle aisle in between each other's legs like that dance at the school disco where everyone sits in the floor and leans back and forward. It was all too much for Lisa and so we crammed in together in the little floor space and tried to lie down. There were heads and legs and arms everywhere, we didn't know whose random feet were on us and heads creeping into our little bed. For the next hour we had an absolutely terrifying journey through windy roads on cliff edges. We were going head onto flashing headlights of lorries beeping at us like in the films and barely making it up hills as there was so many people on the bus. We could smell the burning of rubber. It truly was a near death experience. The lights kept being turned off as we drove past police so that they couldn't see how many people were inside and a couple of times they stopped the bus to have a look inside.

Fortunately the people sat down the centre got off the bus just after midnight and we managed to get some sleep until the bus arrived at the border at 2am. The border does not open until 7am so we had no idea why we had to leave so early. We tried to sleep until then but there were people going up and down the bus and two women singing weird Asian songs and having loud conversations.

At 7am we went and waited to have our visas and passports checked at departures. We then walked miles away to the Vietnam arrivals where it was a mad rush to squeeze through the gate. Everyone was like animals trying to get to the front. We then noticed that our backpacks had been taken off the bus and we all had mini heart attacks that all our food and blankets etc which were still on the bus had gone. This was where Sarah almost burst into tears for the second time. Thankfully they were still on the bus but Lisa did have to make them search for her small bag. There was one final passport check where we had to pay a dollar to get in the country but us being stupid had bought no money so two lovely French girls from our bus paid for us.

The next part of the journey was ok, Ellie moved next to the strange old women with her bag of potatoes and we all slept okish. Except we did break down once which added about an hour to our journey. We then arrived at a food stop at 1pm. We were innocently sitting by the coach when the guys opened up the bottom where all the luggage is and there was a pig tied up in a plastic sack with heavy boxes of TVs etc on top of him!!! They moved the boxes and he was struggling to move and looked really hurt. It was horrible! They left him there and we wanted to save him but after about ten minutes he made some struggling noises and we actually witnessed him die!!! We couldn't believe it and when we told the guys they were also shocked as they had been hoping he would stay alive for tomorrow when they would kill and eat him! So instead they had to take him out of the bus there and then, gut him, chop him up, put him in a cool box and put him back on the bus! We couldn't believe what we were watching. We never want to eat pork again.