Tuesday Sept. 9th - Wednesday Sept. 10th
The much dreaded journey, crossing from Vietnam into Laos, turned out to be better than we had imagined. That's not to say the beginning of the journey did much for calming our fears. We were collected from our hotel at 5pm on 2 separate mopeds and dropped off at another hotel. We didn't really know what was going on but after half an hour, another moped arrived and the driver told me to get on, he would come back for Robbie. I was taken to wait on a pavement not too far from the hotel where we had just come from (why didn't we just get taken there on the first moped?). When Robbie arrived, we were then put into a taxi with another 3 travellers and taken to the bus station. We got to the bus station for 6pm and was told the bus would be leaving at 7.30pm. You just have no idea how these things are going to be organised when you get a ticket with "hotel pick-up" confirmed on it.
The coach was crammed full - not only with people but with bags and boxes, blocking the whole length of the aisle and many of the spaces for legs and feet. In order to get on and off the bus, we had to take our shoes off and walk along the arm rests of the chairs with our hands supoporting us on the headrests. When another two travellers got onto the coach after we had been travelling about four hours, I did wonder where on earth they were going to sit but more space was miraculously found; the pile of luggage in the aile just got higher and higher. In fact, at one point I thought the travel company should have pointed out that some sort of ability in gymnastics would be necessary for riding with them. An English lad, who had made a last minute decision to take the bus whereas his friends were all going to fly to Laos the next day, commented that it was not an ideal situation if his "travellers' sickness" (aka. diarrhea) persisted. No, indeed it wasn't. He then went on to tell us how he had had an expensive night out in Hanoi with his mates when the place they went to charged for using the toilet. Oh, how quickly you get to know people when you are travelling.
The coach stopped around 4am near to the border and we had to wait until 7am (when the border opened). As the engine was turned off, the coach became unbearably hot and we were soon all on the street, just waiting. At the border, we had to pay an unexpected 20,000 Dong Departure Tax from Vietnam, an expected $35 Visa fee for Laos and a somewhat dodgy $2 for not having a photo (they did not then take a photo, just the money of course). The luggage on the coach was then inspected, with boxes carelessly being ripped open and belongings rummaged through. All in all, it took about 1 1/2 hours to cross the border.
On the other side, we drove down a twisty road and from what I could make out through a wet window, Laos looked beautiful - a landscape of lush vegetation, rivers and waterfalls broken now and again with rocky mountains and dotted with houses on stilts with thatched roofs. We had a short break for lunch and arrived at a bus stop outside of Vientiane at around 15:30. All that was left to negotiate then was a "tuk tuk" ride into the centre of Vientiane and the 21 hour journey - comprising of mopeds, taxis, a coach, a tuk tuk and, searching for a guesthouse on our feet - eventually was at an end. We were relieved, however, that the bus hadn't broken down at all and we hadn't been chucked off it at the border which, according to many a ranting on the web, happens quite often. As we said our goodbyes to our fellow travellers, we asked the English lad when his friends would be arriving and he replied, "they get on the plane in Hanoi at 5pm and land in Vientiane at 6pm." We all laughed.
