April 10 A bus to Vientiane: I should have flown

Looks like a cute bus, doesn’t it? Not a cramped mini-bus. Not an overloaded
local truck. Not even the expected 2,000 bags of rice on top raising the
centre of gravity to about a foot above the roof. But for those who paid $30
to sit on its floor, ahhh, they did not think it was so cute.

Luckily, I was not one of those as I did not get on in Vinh. Vinh is just a
few hours down the coast from Hanoi and those going from Hanoi west to Laos
must first go south to Vinh before heading across. If you look at a map,
you’ll see that, as the crow, or any other friggin' bird flies, Laos is
straight west from Hanoi. The border is actually very close to Hanoi. I’ve
heard there are even roads in that direction. But nobody ever seems to find
them. There are rumors of people ACTUALLY CROSSING THE BORDER directly from
Hanoi to Luang Prabang. That’s where I wanted to go for New Years but was
always told there was no direct route. Why, you ask? A good question. I
asked that question at every travel agent I happened to come across. Here’s
how the conversation went.

“ I would like to go from Hanoi to Laos. I’m trying to get directly to Luang
Prabang without having to go south to Vinh and then all the way to Vientiane
and then north again.”

“ Yes.”

“ Yes, OK, well, is there a bus that can do that?”

“ No. Must go to Vientiane.”

“ But there are roads that go from Hanoi to Laos across the border, yes?”

“ Yes.”

“ There are buses on that road?”

“ No. No buses.”

“ Why?”

“ Buses go to Vientiane.”

OK, so even though there’s some way over ground to cross the border directly
from Hanoi to Luang Prabang, there is no actual way to go over ground across
the border directly from Hanoi to Luang Prabang.

So I, along with dozens of Vietnamese, Thai, Laotians and Foreigners,
heading to Luang Prabang for New Year celebrations must go south first, then
west, then change buses in Vientiane, then head north again. I heard horror
stories about this journey. My ticket said it takes 17 hours to get to
Vientiane. The travel agent where I confirmed the ticket in Hanoi said, no,
more like 20. Entries on Lonely Planet’s Thorn Tree chat site say 24 to 30
hours. I pray for less. My aim is to leave Hanoi Friday evening at 7, get
into Vientiane 20 hours later at 3 p.m., then take a night bus to Luang
Prabang and arrive there for the beginning of New Year’s festivities Sunday
morning. Although the New Year is actually Tuesday, the fun begins earlier
in the week. The idea of two night buses in a row sounded grisly but I’d
been to Vientiane and had no interest in paying $7 for another night there
if I didn’t have to.

I am told to show up for the bus in Hanoi at 6:45 p.m. We leave promptly at
8. Already one hour late. Those lucky enough to get on in Hanoi, get a seat.
I am lucky. By Vinh, the bus is full and the tourists and few locals we pick
up there have to sit on the floor. Normally, they would get regular sized
plastic chairs on which to relax for the lovely ride. But the floor of the
bus is full of boxes of something or other being smuggled across the border
so there is no room for chairs. The foreign tourists who get on start to
bitch as they were bilked out of $30 for the privilege of sitting on the
floor. (My ticket, purchased in lovely Saigon, only cost $23.) The locals
don’t complain too much. They probably paid $8.50 each.

The night air is cool and comfortable and though sleeping is difficult, at
least it’s not due to sweltering heat and broken air-conditioning. We arrive
at the Lao Border at 7 a.m. We are the first bus. A good sign. The border
isn’t even open yet. When it opens at 8, we hand over our passports to get
stamped out of Vietnam and walk across to Laos.

Some of us apply for and get visas directly on the spot; others already have
visas and just have to get stamped in. This was the one place I finally felt
I took a risk and it paid off. In Vietscam, especially in Hanoi, tourist
agencies charge up to $50 for two-week visas to Laos and they will tell you
that you cannot get one at the border if you are on a direct bus like the
one we are on because you will hold up the bus. I was told in Saigon (boy
they’re nice there) that I could get one at the border for only $30 and it
didn’t matter if I was on a prepaid bus. And they were right. In fact, there
were about a dozen other people from our bus (who obviously didn’t know the
rules) who were applying and getting Lao visas at the border. This was where
half the tourists on the bus started swearing and wishing they could go back
to Hanoi where they were told they had to buy the visas so they could stand
in front of the travel agent for an hour, get dirt swept on their heads and
water thrown on them and eventually get their money back.  (See previous log
entry if this makes no sense to you.)

Once the visas are bought, we get the stamp and are through. I’ve heard of
people being stuck for three hours at that border and it only took us… OK…
three hours. But that included one hour of walking back and forth and around
the bus waiting for the border to open.

We are in Laos. Yayyyyyy!

An hour down the road, we stop at a little roadside restaurant for something
to eat. But an hour later, we’re still there. An hour and a half passes. The
rumors start. Apparently, the illegal goods smuggled over were seen by a
customs agent and without the right amount of money changing hands, we’re
not going anywhere. Another story is that there is a bridge washed out on
the rather feeble road to Vientiane and our bus has to wait for another bus
from the same agency to come from Vientiane (six hours away) and meet us on
the other side. How we will get to the other side to get on the second bus
if the bridge is washed out is a mystery, for which no one seems to have an
answer or a rumor.

We finally continue the journey and, another hour or two later hit a jam of
trucks, cars and buses a mile long. Looks like the second rumor was true.
Although there is a huge concrete bridge across a river, there are no
vehicles crossing, only people, who are making their way to buses on the
other side that are filling up rapidly. Way below, about 200 feet down to
the river, there’s a tiny ferry carrying two minivans, one car and four
bicycles across. No people. They’re probably walking across since the ferry
was obviously taxed to the limit.

We sit and wait another half hour. Finally, the bus driver says (translated
by the various Thai on board who speak Vietnamese) that we can wait for some
period, which he knows not, for our agency to send a bus for us on the other
side of the bridge or we can take our stuff, walk across and pay another
$3.50 to get one of the public buses to Vientiane. Our bus empties faster
than you can say “Where do I pay,” and we head across the bridge.
It’s only 2 p.m. and I am hoping against hope we get a maniacal bus driver
on the other side who has an overactive libido and a sexy lover waiting for
him in Vientiane who he hasn’t seen in six months. Five hours. That’s all I
need. Let’s get to Vientiane in five hours and I’ll be in Luang Prabang the
next morning.

Eight hours later we roll casually into Vientiane. Instead of a sexy lover,
the driver, it would seem, had a shrewish wife and four kids waiting for
him. He would have driven backwards if it were legal. The Lao roads lives up
to their reputation of having several areas under construction and the
closer we got to Lao’s capital, the more the bus turns into a milk run,
stopping to drop passengers off every 400 feet.

I resign myself to another night in Vientiane and start looking for a
guesthouse. Pii Mai Lau (New Year) will have to wait.