Ooh buses.

Once we left China we also left the era of the trains. I guess when you tuff tuff your way all the way across Siberia it was perhaps now time to move on to some different form of transportation. Such as buses. But unlike the Rossiya trains, buses in Vietnam are very unreliable.

Our first experience went from Hanoi to Hoi An. The travel agent assured us that I was a direct over-night sleeping bus and that it would be a breeze. "Great!" we thought. We came back 5 hours later to and casually ask how long the bus will take and when we'll arrive.
"It's 500 km."
"Yes but how long does it take?"
"Hmmm.....maybe 6 hours."
"6 hours?! But it's an overnight bus! That means we'd arrive at 2 in the morning. Are you sure?"
"Hmmm....maybe a little bit more than 6 hours?"

The night ride is bumpy and whenever you would manage to fall asleep you'd wake up moments later crashing back onto your bed after spend a second in the air while flying over a bump or two. Having " The River of Babylon" with Boney M pumping at the highest volume at 7 am didn't help either though it was quite funny. (Especially "Ra-Ra-Rasputin! Russia's greatest love machine!") We arrive in Hue at 9:30 in the morning ( so yes sweet travel agent lady, it did take a little more than 6 hours....more like 14) and are told to get of the bus. We tell them that we are going to Hoi An and they point us to the travel agent across the street. The travel agent looks at our ticket stamps it and tells ut to come back at 2 pm.
"Why? We're not supposed to stop here. We have a direct bus ticket to Hoi An."
" There is no such thing as a direct bus ticket to Hoi An." Great.

Our second bus experience was from Hoi An To Vientiane in Laos. 20 hours the sign boasted. That can't be too bad we reckon and book the ticket. They tell us it's a sitting bus to Hue (4 hours) then a sleeping bus to the Lao border. There they'll put us up in a hotel for the night and then cross the border and a local Lao sitting bus would wait for us on the other side. We even get picked up at the hotel at 2 pm. Awesome.

And everything is awesome. A taxi even waits for us at Hue to take us to the sleeper bus station and everything is fine. At one in the morning however a guy wakes us and says:
"Vientiane?"
"Yes."
"Get of here please."
I look outside the window and see that we are at a local night open diner with plastic chairs. As soon as Clara and I get of the bus and get our bags the bus engine fires up and drives of. The Vietnam people look at us. We look at the Vietnam people. I walk up to a woman who I assume work there. I point to myself. "Lao," I say. "Vientiane". I point to my wrist and signal a watch. "How long? How many hours?" She raises four fingers. I raise my eyebrows. Dear Lord. We're going to be stuck here forever. And we're both so tired we don't know what to do with our selves.

More foreigner occasionally get dropped of as the night progress and after only 2 hours (lucky us!) the bus arrives. It is now 4 am and we all crowd into an already almost full sitting bus. And there we sit until we reach the border at 7 am. Border crossing is a tired and diffuse nightmare and takes about 2 hours since there is only one man doing about 30 peoples passports and everyone is too tired to take any initiative to help him speed things up. by 9 am we're back on the bus. And we sit. and sit. And then sit until I don't even think I have an ass anymore. Poor Clara had to sit on a pile of garbage the entire time as well which was very unfortunate. at 5 pm, a total of 27 hours later we arrive, hungry, exhausted and dying for a piss.

Lao is lovely and amazing though but the trip was horrible. Despite that we hopped on a bus the next morning and we are now in Vang Vieng. It gorgeous and we love it. Maybe we'll live here in a hut on the riverbank forever. We'll see.