The long journey to Hanoi began with a 3 hour bus journey to Vientiane, where we then had to travel from one side of the city to the other. When we arrived at the bus station we found that our bus for the next part of the journey was not a nice air con bus with reclining seats as we had expected but a local bus. The journey didn't get off to the best start when the locals kept making us move from one seat to another. The language barrier was a bit of an issue...