We checked out our hotel and started getting more supplies for our loooong trip! We got some tuna sandwiches which we made in the hotel reception like scruffs! Walked round for about two hours trying to find a good book shop who would swap our books. Was sad to see Paul Carters book swapped but 'The Da Vinci Code' is supposed to be a good read...Went our favourite Internet cafe for a brew and to upload more photos. Got our visa's and bus tickets and were picked up at 5. It took two hours to get round the corner and by seven we were on our way to the main bus terminal. We were warned about Lao bus times being abit mental and when the say ten they mean twenty so we began to worry...We got on the bus at last and found ourselves with the Irish girls again! We got stuck in poo corner at the back and couldn't even explain how bad it smelt and thought it was goin to be an even longer trip...In our three bed section we were joined by a Dutch lad called Daan (he told me it was the first time he'd slept with a lad but I weren't too sure) who laughed about being minorities and getting stuck at the back! Gem freaked out after being at the back for five seconds saying she was having some kind of claustrophobic panic attack. We had an argument wit the conducter who let gem sit in his seat for a couple of hours.
Gem - Ok, so it was supposed to be a couple of hours...turned out to be one hour! The men on the bus were so angry at us we think because we are White lol! Pointing and shouting at us to stay in the corner at the back haha! Me ben and Daan ended up squashed in a coffin like corner that smelt of wee...oh great 24 hours of this!!! So night time came and so did the snoring......Jesus some people can't half snore!! So between the snoring and the constant playing of loud music by the horrible little bus men..(they would wait until we were all asleep then play some Laos style music as loud as possible..wake everyone up...then turn it off and they would go asleep!!) Ha this was like some form of torture! So we reached the border and was awakened at 6am by Daan saying hurry up we need to go the immigration, so we got up and were greeted with a freezing cold fog, so we walked over to the immigration office and the madness continued....! The little bus men in their fluorescent orange tops made an appearance again, they began pushing and I mean elbows, shoulders, standing on toes haha, to move us all out of the way. They pushed to the front with a bag full of the priority locals passports (they didn't ask us for ours!) while we stood looking like idiots getting pushed from here to there.
Ben - Eventually we had enough and the ten of us pushed them out the way and we got out passports signed and got moving down the foggy road. You couldn't see ten feet in front of you but we were told to keep walking for 15 minutes straight ahead. It was like a scene out of a horror film. We kept walking expecting to meet a load of zombies round the corner and just accepted that we was gonna die. There wasnt any zombies but we found all our luggage had been thrown off the bus and we thought they had gone without us. We got out passports stamped again and walked down zombie road a bit longer then found our boss bus. They had driven the locals though the Borders and over hills but decided we (the europeans) could walk it which was great...After the bus drivers had finished there hour long breakfast while we sat on the bus waiting they decided to swap busses and we were on our way again. After a read and another few sleeps we rolled into Hanoi at about 7:30 (27 hours later). We got mobbed by around 20 cab drivers for a lift then all decided to get in a minibus for a quid each which turned out alright. The fella who ran the minibus also had a hotel which we decided to stay in and it turned out to be the best one yet! Hanoi is cold and wet like home but a nice compared to the humidity and heat of other cities. Pants and jackets on and we were out again at 8:30 to sample the local dish which was a 'meat' soup which gem didnt fancy and i'm pretty sure it was dog (a vietnamese delicacy!). Ate the dog and we were having beer Hanoi in a place like the newz bar with newz bar prices. Jibbed tha and we were in beer corner sitting on 6 inch high stools swigging beer for 60p a pint. Few drinks later we were playing drinking games in our hotel and learning Dutch slang and losing badly. Bed was calling. 2 am.
Sent from my iPhone
No comments:
Post a Comment