Day 143 and 144 bus ride to Hanoi

We had decided to take the bus from Vientiane to Hanoi. It is certainly not the fastest option, as the journey is estimated to take 24 hours. However, it is definitely the cheapest option, as the bus ticket cost us $22 per person. And since we need to prioritize our budget over time, we chose the bus. Plus, it is supposed to be a sleeper bus, which I couldn't imagine before this bus ride.

We were picked up from our hostel at 5:00 PM and taken to the bus terminal. That's when I got my first impression of the sleeper bus. There were no seats, only beds.

They seemed okay for the night, but until it was time to sleep, there wasn't really an opportunity to sit upright. Luckily, the bus wasn't fully booked, so we had a bit more space to place our backpacks on the adjacent seat.

And then the journey started. After about 1 hour, there was the first incident. After hitting a pothole, there was a loud bang. No one seemed to care, except for us sitting in the back row. We quickly found out what caused the bang. One of the windows shattered and the lower seats were covered in broken glass. Fortunately, no one was sitting or lying there. Since the drivers didn't seem to care, we didn't say anything either. When we stopped for dinner, we informed the driver about it. However, he just shrugged. Shortly after we continued, we were stopped by the police, who entered the bus. When the officers noticed the broken glass, they started talking to the driver. He grabbed a screwdriver and hit the broken window a few times. That seemed to satisfy the policemen, although I'm sure some money changed hands. But what worried me more was when the driver walked past my seat and left a strong smell of beer in the air. I hope nothing bad happens because of that.

Shortly after midnight, the bus stopped, but it was too dark to see why. All the lights were turned off, and if you weren't sleeping yet, now was the time to sleep, or at least try. The seats weren't really uncomfortable, I was just too tall for them. So I couldn't stretch my legs properly. But eventually, I think, I fell asleep, because I was startled when the driver shouted at 6:00 AM for us to get off.

So we did, and now we saw where we had stopped. It was in front of the border crossing. It seemed closed during the night. Behind our bus, we could see other waiting buses. We weren't sure why we had to get off so early, as the border crossing was supposed to open at 7:00 AM. And it was quite chilly outside. When the counter finally opened, the battle began. We tourists had nicely lined up in a queue, but the locals pushed in with stacks of passports in front of the counter or went straight to the office to put the passports on the desk. We were simply pushed aside. But now my height came to my aid, I didn't let myself be pushed around and used my body as well. We managed to form a cluster around the counter, so we could hand in our passports and get the exit stamp. The locals were somewhat surprised by our resistance. When we finally all had our stamps, we had a short walk to the Vietnamese border. I had a bad feeling, as the departure had already been such a struggle, how would the arrival be... Just before the border crossing, our bus caught up with us, and we all had to take our luggage, as it needed to go through the x-ray machine for the arrival. But first, we got the entry stamp. Fortunately, there wasn't a crowd at this counter, but we had to pay $1 for the stamp, otherwise we wouldn't get it. So we paid.

After the border crossing, we could load our luggage back onto the bus and wanted to board it. However, we were denied entry. Not long after, we found out why. The police were inside and seemed to have found something. Through the open door, we saw that the entire covering had been unscrewed, revealing shoes. It seemed that our bus was being used for smuggling as well. The police also found containers with coffee and powdered milk.

When the journey continued, after spending 3 hours at the border crossing, the driver was clearly in a bad mood, and we were one passenger short.

The rest of the journey was quite uneventful, except for the fact that our bus suddenly started reversing on a kind of highway because the driver had missed the gas station. Shortly after 5:00 AM, we arrived in Hanoi and set out to find our hostel.