after leaving don det, it was a very slow and hot boat ride to the mainland. then we're stuffed in a minibus and as i recall the aircon doesn't work.... back to pakse, to the bus station where we will wait 4 long hours until our overnight bus departs for hue, vietnam. of course we don't wait at the station, we catch a tuk tuk into town and grab so food for the wait and for the bus later. when we actually saw the bus we had to sit on for the next many hours, we were all very disappointed. when we actually looked on the bus we realized it was filled with huge bags of rice and clay pots. the clay pots were all placed under seats so we couldn't put our feet anywhere. the bags of rice where all over the back of the bus and people who didn't get seats sat on them. the seats were falling apart, there was no air-conditioning... we were mainly pissed off because when we booked these tickets we were told it was a VIP bus. after taking local busses the whole time in laos, we were ready to pay a bit more for an expensive, comfortable ride. instead, we got a lousy, expensive 'worst ride of the trip' ride. we moved the stupid claypots around so we had room. we noticed that, before we left the station, they had lots of room in the compartments under the bus. i have no idea what kind of crack these people are smoking...
we finally left. the bus was so top heavy from stuff on the roof aswell that we all feared if we took a sharp corner at a high enough speed we'd topple. suffice it to say we sped along anyways and the driver was very liberal with the horn, to let people know he wasn't prepared to make any deft maneuvers. we actually stopped not even one minute up the road. gas. yep. didn't think to fill 'er up in the 5 or 6 hours it was waiting at the station earlier. oh, here's another stop 30 seconds later. what exactly are we waiting for? oh... it must be that pick up truck that's speeding at us with urgency.... they didn't want us to forget..... the.... CHEAP PLASTIC WATERGUNS. wouldn't wanna forget those. we finally get moving. 1 hour later we stop again, and they just get out and rearrange (unecessarily, i may add) the roof set up. eventually me and lando take out our food and try to eat. this local woman sitting across from us starts rooting through her garbage bags and pulls out a very thick, girthy dead snake. it stank. the woman in front of her looked back and was interested. turns out she had her own. somehow we all did eventually get to sleep., despite the awful smell, the terrible music blaring from the stereo and the complete lack of physical comfort.
we woke up arriving just outside the border. absolutely no one gave us instructions as to how we go about this, so johan, sean and i went ahead of the rest of the bus and just processed our passports ourselves. the crossing into vietnam was such a stark contrast. vietnam was beautiful, clean. emerald green grass, clear blue skies. i think from this and what we just went through, we all fell in love with it right away. i can honestly say i don't think i've ever seen such picturesque scenery before.... after a few hours of dropping off the clay pots at random stops on the road we arrived in hue. they just stopped in the middle of the city, we had no idea where we were and they just said: "YOU! YOU! YOU!" pointing at us, and then pointing outside of the bus... after some harsher words we all were left to our own devices here in hue. now it was actually the worst bus of all time. but, now that i look back on it, it was certainly an experience. and i understand that i caught this bus in one of the poorest countries in the world. so that said, it really wasn't that bad. i was standing in hue, and alive.
yep. we immidiately got food and then booked a bus to hanoi for that day. it was also an overnight bus so we made certain we got a good bus this time. by the way, i think this adds up to over 2 days of pure travel time. the bus we got was not only significantly cheaper than the one we took before, but it was waaaay better! it was a proper sleeper bus. the seats were not seats. they were beds. it was clean. air conditioned. i'll have to post pictures. it was such a change, we felt like royalty. off to hanoi!
