Leaving Vietnam

Only the Beginning...
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February 21, 2006

We mounted the backs of our respective motos and headed for the bus station.  Arriving late to an already crowded bus, after the most harrowing moto ride to date, the start of our 20-25 hour bus out of Vietnam did not bode well.  The many bus attendants and token loud, bitchy lady continued to pack people and things onto the bus for another hour, until the overhead racks, underseat areas, aisle, and laps were all chock full of personal belongings, bags of rice and sugar, boxes of cookies, lacquered carvings, and even a plastic palm tree.  The top of the bus was five feet higher with lashed luggage, and there were already four people positioned atop the goods in the center aisle, as we pulled out of the station.  Crammed, cramped, and cranky, we wondered if we were going to make it the whole way.

27 Hours Later...

Our First Pitstop in Laos
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One thing we couldn't figure out was why, with all of the visible (and then some) space filled, were the baggage compartments under the bus nearly empty.  We soon found out, as we continued to stop about once every hour or two to load more bulk goods and people onto the bus.  This managed not only to fill the rest of the compartments below, but also added about 10 more people to the pile already formed in the center aisle.

At two o' clock in the morning the bus nonchalantly pulled over again to pick up more goods and people, or so we thought...  After about 30 minutes, it was clear that this stop was different; the bus had gotten the inevitable flat tire.  The left rear tire, directly beneath our seat, was removed, repaired, replaced, and two hours later we were back under way.

One for the Travel Brochure
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Little did we know that our cramped seat, one row up from the back of the bus, would be such a prime location during the trip.  Since they had turned the aisle into an unsurpassable mound of people and things, those behind the first few rows were forced to use the windows as exits and entrances.  This was apparently a normal course of action, as nobody seemed to hesitate or bat an eye as people poured from the sides of the bus at each stop, like rats fleeing a sinking ship.  So, why was our seat strategic?  Our window was located next to the ladder leading to the roof rack.  The ladder made it easier (and in some cases possible) for the less agile to get off to use the roadside "facilities".  Thus, our seat became a pedestrian highway at each stop between Hanoi and Vientiane.

Laos Countryside
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+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

February 22, 2006

The bus struggled up into the mountains, where we crossed the border into Laos.  Taking their last shot, the Vietnamese officials pocketed the "stamping fee" to let us out of their beautiful, yet sometimes hostile, country.  Within 20 minutes we were descending into beautiful, warm, and sunny Laos out of the cold, cloudy, and rainy Vietnam.  We took this drastic climatic change as an omen and decided this was a turning point in the trip.

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The scenery along the rest of the ride was nice to phenomenal, as the bus flew down mountainsides, threatening not to make each consecutive hairpin turn and crawled slower than a walk up the next.

After 24 hours of the 27 hour 20-25 hour bus ride, we spontaneously decided to get off at Paksane and head south sooner rather than stay the night in Vientiane and leave in the morning.  We ended up saving almost five hours of bus time, but condemned ourselves to another night on a bus.  We disembarked through the window and said goodbye to the last of our ties to Vietnam.