Journey to Hanoi...

So we decided to leave Vientiane a day early as there wasn't much to do at all! We checked out and got the charge down from 60,000k to 30,000k and was booked on the bus leaving for Hanoi that evening.

The minibus collected us at 5pm to take us to the bus station, 7:30pm the bus finally made a move and the 24 hour journey started!

We were told that we had to sit at the back of the bus so that the Laos people could sit at the front. Some of the seats at the back had huge packages blocking the leg space! Kim chose to use the packages to make a big bed for herself, I made the mistake of taking a seat on the wheel! It's one of the most hottest places to sit so I won't be doing that again!

Not much to report on the first leg of the journey, we met a really nice group of Irish girls called Polly, Eva, Jen and Vicky. Also on board was an Irish couple called Ronan and Colleen (they are also 26!! First people we've met that are my age!!) ...then there was Ben! Ben is from London and can only be described as hot hot hot! When he got on all us girls just went quiet, shut your mouths ladies and stop drawling! ha ha Anyway turns out Ben the hottie has a girlfriend so he pretty much got ignored after that... he's still hot though.

We arrived at the border at 3am and just stopped, the driver made his bed on the back seats of the bus and his pal laid a mat down in the aisle right next to Kim and I. Kim was scared that he was going to jump on her but it's ok she's safe, he went to sleep.

At the time we didn't have a clue where we were and what was going on, we were just expected to go to sleep in the middle of no where! After a lot of figiting and the drivers other pal behind me using my head as a means of getting himself up we went through to the border at 6am (My family and friends will understand my personal space issues...)

Also forgot to mention the very weird snoring that Kim can only describe as a goat!

Stressful crossing borders begins...

We are thrown off the bus but once again no one actually tells us what we should be doing but there is a shop and I'm relieved that I can get something to eat as I hadn't eaten since 3pm the previous day! (Operation get skinny for the Full Moon is going well!) I only had 10,000k left so grabbed a bottle of orange 'syrup' and a pack of biscuits!

Kim and I were just sitting around wondering what we should be doing when a young friendly Vietnamese guy pointed us in the right direction, we went over to the Departures Building where we found everyone else up against the wall. It was the safest place to be, Laos people are mental! They were all literally climbing on and over each other to get to the windows.

Passport shown - twice Fees: $1

45 minutes/hour later we make it out of the Departures building and the bus has gone! Walked through to 'Vietnam' (passport shown) and still no sign of our bus. So I go back through to 'Laos' find the others who said the bus would have gone down to the Vietnam border. Show my passport again and I'm now in Vietnam.

We walked for 10/15 minutes until we reached the Vietnam border and thankfully we spot our bus! We went into the Arrivals building and filled out 2 forms which were pretty identical! First window passport shown and a fee of $2 was taken. We were then sent to another window where we show our passport yet again and this time they take a fee of 20,000d! May I add we had already paid $55 for a visa! We are now told that we need to get our backpacks from the bus and put them through the scanners, once that ordeal was over with we waited for our bus to be searched and once it was through we got back on!

Just as we're getting settled we are asked to get back off the bus to queue and show our passports, again!! Thankfully that was the last time!

To be continued...................