A bus ride is fun...

What we experienced in the last 25 hours, no one would believe. And anyone who thinks that I am exaggerating in this article is also wrong.

I never thought that there could be an even worse experience than our stay in the elevator in Hong Kong, but this bus ride lived up to the motto "It can always get worse!" But let's start from the beginning.

We booked a night bus for about 50€, which started in the evening at 6:30 and was supposed to take us about 900km across the border to Laos. The bus had three rows equipped with narrow beds, each with two levels. There was also a blanket and a pillow. At first glance, it was a bit disturbing, but the bed turned out to be relatively comfortable. We shared the bus with 48 more Chinese people, a toddler, and a baby! I got to lie by the window and Jonas was lucky enough to be in the middle, right next to the little child and the baby. There were carpets in the aisles and you always had to take off your shoes at the front and put them in a plastic bag. If you want to imagine the smell of 96 Chinese stinky feet in a small, cramped bus, you better get a bag now!!

The good journey started on time. I doubted that I would be able to close my eyes at all during the whole trip and considered which escape options I could consider. While I was thinking, I was already surrounded by 48 loudly snoring Chinese people and Jonas, who was also calmly sleeping next to me. Of course, he can sleep...

But after not even an hour (!!!) we already stopped at the first rest stop and all the Chinese people went to eat. I could hardly believe my eyes. We would never arrive like this. After half an hour, we continued and everyone fell asleep again, except for me!

However, this only lasted until the baby woke up!!! Apparently, the baby didn't like the ride as much as I did and expressed it loudly, crying out loud. The clever Chinese parents had a brightly blinking and tinkling Fisherprice Chinese toy with them and waved it in front of the little one. It became clear that a baby of about 4 months old doesn't like that kind of stuff yet when it screamed louder and was hardly comforted anymore.

Cheesy feet, snoring Chinese people, baby crying, and Chinese jingle music.

Welcome to the walking madhouse!!! Maybe I should just start screaming too? Well, that was self-control course part 2!

My last hope was my little MP3 player that I put in my ears and finally started to calm down. At around 12 o'clock, we stopped at a rest stop again... where we stood for an unbelievable 4 hours!!! Apparently, we couldn't continue because we were already close to the Laotian border and it only opened at 8 o'clock in the morning. Couldn't we have just left later then? I didn't even bother to ask. Nobody would have understood me anyway because no one in the whole bus spoke English.

At 4 o'clock, the madhouse finally started moving again and Jonas and the Chinese people continued to sleep... except for me!

Everyone was surprised when we suddenly stopped and two heavily armed soldiers entered the bus and woke up the people to show their passports. And as I suspected, the mean man looked at our passports, muttered something in Chinese gibberish, which we naturally didn't understand, and disappeared with our passports from the bus into the darkness. While my pulse was at 200, Jonas sat half-asleep in his bed. After what felt like an eternity, he finally returned and wordlessly handed us our passports. Let's continue!

Everyone fell asleep again, and after an hour, the whole procedure repeated itself. This time, however, it was not soldiers but police officers.

Meanwhile, the baby kept crying, the Fisherprice Chinese toy kept tinkling and blinking, and the smell became even more intense. At every stop we made, 48 Chinese people marched to the front with their little shoe bags and returned after going to the toilet with their little shoe bags.

At around half past eight, we finally reached the border, and panic started to rise in me. Our first land border crossing! I don't know exactly what I expected, but the whole procedure until we were finally in Laos with everyone took a whopping 3.5 hours! First, we had to get stamped out on the Chinese side and then walked about 500m on foot to the Laotian border through no man's land. We squeezed in front of the counter with hundreds of other people to apply for our "Visa on arrival". There was no order here anymore. Everyone just wanted to have this piece of paper in their hands and go through the control. When we finally had the visa and passed through the control without any problems, I was more than relieved and slightly happier. Everything went well, and now we might have another 5 hours of driving ahead of us, which I would somehow survive too. No way!

After driving maybe 2 km, we stopped again and waited for over an hour while two police officers searched the bus for smuggled goods.

When we finally continued and drove a little bit, the landscape suddenly turned into a green, mountainous jungle. Jonas enjoyed the extremely winding route through the mountains, while I huddled on my bed and concentrated on not vomiting in the bus! The little child next to Jonas took care of that for me after drinking a strawberry milkshake and spreading the contents all over the bed after 30 seconds.

Oh, and the screaming baby was still there!

The highlight of the trip was when we were just returning to the bus after a toilet break and an accident happened right in front of our eyes. Two scooters collided and one of the drivers fell over and was dragged several meters across the road. Out of shock, we stood paralyzed by the road and watched in horror as none of the about 20 people present wanted to help the poor guy and just walked on. Fortunately, he got up on his own and probably had a few bruises and an injured face. The lack of helpfulness in this country made me incredibly sad, and for the rest of the journey, my MP3 player was my best friend!

At 7 o'clock in the evening, we finally arrived in Luang Prabang after a 25-hour journey! And I am very sure that I will never enter a walking madhouse again in my life!!!