The rice bus from hell

...Which leads me to our journey. It was so horrific it warrants its own entry. Sammy, you jinxed us wishing us a good journey!

Ok, here goes... Well, we were 30 minutes late leaving the hotel in a taxi, which was slightly disconcerting until we realised that we were being picked up in a full minibus with other backpackers. There was one seat left after we got on, (bags up round our ears and in the gangway), and we only needed to pick up 6 more people. Plus bags. We managed to cram everyone in (luckily) and got dropped off in a non descript muddy road somewhere in Hanoi.

My stomach fell when I saw the old, rubbishy bus, with boxes on its roof, under the bus and inside the bus, up to the ceiling, taking up half the seats. We all scrambled on, (uncomfortably), our bags were put in the aisle and we started off. With a helper guy continually smoking out of the front passenger door. The guy also continually shouted abuse at people we passed, and bribed the policemen who always pulled us over at security check points. We were convinced that there was something dodgy in the back of the bus.

A couple of hours later, with numb bums, we were all herded off the bus, our bags were put on the roof and more stuff was loaded onto the bus. Under the seats, over the seats and around the seats. Not great. Back on the bus again - at this point we were bonding well with the other passengers, who were all shocked at the 'International Transport and Freight' company we'd been shoved onto! We paid good money for these tickets! And not made any happier for seeing the plush sleeper buses passing us...

A few more stops, more things put on the bus, before we stopped again at 3am for our final major intake of goods. Wheelbarrows of rice. Literally. We now all had bags under our feet, the boxes had been readjusted (after a suitably long period of time of course), and there were so many bags of rice in the aisle, they came up to our SHOULDERS. We had to CRAWL along them to get out of the bus!

Luckily we continued pretty much straight to the border, which we managed to pass uneventfully, although because our bus looked so horrific, we were checked at every point. As soon as we got into Laos we felt much better - moving away from horrible Hanoi and at least we made it to Laos! Again, many security check; we were shouted at to get on the bus, off the bus - we were treated worse than animals. With few loo or food stops, most people extremely frustrated and angry. Such an uncomfortable bus! Also during the night, Haz had had a fat woman sit on her lap for hours and hours, despite Haz trying to get her to sit on her seat only! Not the best for a good nights sleep.

So we eventually made it onto the outskirts of Vientiane (the capital of Laos), where we were dropped off outside the city. Luckily made it into the place and got ourselves accommodation, and were very very glad to see the back of the bus!

xxxxxx