The second half of Vietnam

Written September 10th

You: What's Vietnam like, Alison?" Me: Let me tell you...

I knew a few weeks ago that posting my Vietnam posts would be a challenge because of the blocked internet sites in the country, so I basically stopped writing after the motorcycle trip.   I knew I would eventually have a piling up of stories and didn’t want to post too many at once. (**It's October 7th and I'm finally getting this uploaded -- ugh!)

So, this one will be a little different.  It’s going to be more like a brief summary of the various cities we traveled to after Hanoi and Halong Bay.  The reason for doing this is tri-fold: 

1. I think people are really interested to hear what Vietnam is like, especially Americans.  The Vietnam War, though over 30 years ago, still leaves a bitter taste in the mouth of many people and for some people, violent news or movie scenes flash through peoples’ minds when the country is discussed.

2. This is the first country so far on my travels that I have really fully experienced.  Mostly, that is due to the simple shape of the country.  You have no choice, once here, to either go down or up the coast.  The major Vietnamese airports are in the north (Hanoi) or are in the south (Ho Chi Minh City) so you end up going from one to the other along the coast and seeing everything in between.  

3. I think Vietnam is low-down on the list of places to visit for many people.  I’m not going to try to convince anyone to come here, but I’d like those who won’t ever experience it for themselves to hear about it from me!

Dragon boats.

So, without further ado, my summary of cities visited, things that happened, places that were seen...

- Hue: Hue was the city we departed from before the motorcycle trip.  We had been told before we got there that the city was pretty boring.  Looking back now, I don’t think we gave it a fair chance.  (As a matter of fact, looking back now, I wish I didn’t listen to anybody’s opinions about any place I’ve traveled to because I find that those opinions have made us pre-judge a place, which isn’t fair.)  But moving on... We decided to only stay in Hue for one day because of its reputation.  The one thing we planned on was to take a dragon boat tour, which was recommended by a few people.  The best part of it?  The boat itself, carved into dragons at its front.  The tour was a joke...  We visited a pagoda where the caretaker showed as the perimeter of the garden surrounding the pagoda, only pointing out what tree produced which fruit (none of which were producing, so she could have been lying for all we knew) and then charging money for her “tour.”  We also visited a temple whose claim to fame was that it held the car that the monk who burned himself in protest of the Vietnam War had driven to get to Siagon to do the aforementioned task.  The next day, we left on motorcycles.

A row of custom shoe shops.

- Hoi An: The city of tailors!  I had been told by several people that Hoi An was awesome. When we got there, it was off the charts hot and we found a guesthouse with a pool.  This pool ended up being the highlight of Hoi An!!  During the day, we would gather around the pool for breakfast, followed by some of the group going to check out the tailor shops and others staying to get some r & r by the pool.  At night, the town seemed to die down to a whisper, and we found it hard to locate where the travelers were.  However, finally we found a few bars with people and a beach-front bar/club that we frequented a few times.  All in all, Hoi An was a good place to go if we had wanted to be low key....

My view from my beach chair in Nah Trang.

- But, we didn’t want to be low key anymore, so off we went to Nha Trang!  Turns out that Nha Trang was also a pretty chilled out place, but this time, we had the ocean to relax by.  We booked into a guesthouse that was two blocks from the beach and went there during the days to lounge by the ocean.  In the evening, we tried out the local restaurants and found our favorite bar, the Why Not? bar.  Whether or not we wanted a late night out partying or not, we all started off at Why Not? playing card games.  We sometimes had more than 15 people at our table as we taught them the rules and talked about where to go and what to do after Nha Trang.  To switch things up a little, we went to a waterpark one afternoon via the largest over-water cable car in the world!  I really wish I could have taken photos of us on the slides, but alas, I had already replaced one camera and didn’t want to get another due to water damage.

The silk factory.

- Dalat: Nothing too crazy or exciting here, but I think it was due to the time of year.  It is no longer tourist season, so Dalat seemed pretty dead.  We scheduled ourselves on a motorcycle tour of the surrounding areas and for the first time in months, we all needed to wear pants and long-sleeved shirts.  I was actually happy about that, but everyone else kept complaining about how cold it was.  It made me realize that I am better suited for cold than for hot -- bring on ski season!!  But I digress... On our tour, the coolest thing we saw was how silk is made at a silk factory.  We were shown silk worm cocoons and how they were processed all the way into the material we’ve seen all throughout Asia so far.  

The red dunes.

Mui Ne: Another beach town, this one was way more chilled out than Nha Trang.  We settled into bungalows near the beach and found a restaurant owned by an American from Vermont that ended up being our home while in Mui Ne.  We went on a day tour of the various sand dunes around the city one afternoon and were able to take some spectacular photos.  The red dunes were amazing and Carola went on a sand sled on the yellow dunes where she got to ride down a dune as I photographed.  

In the tunnels.

A sign at the Vietnam War Museum.

- Siagon/Hoi Chi Minh City: Our finale for Vietnam.  We knew before we arrived that this was the start of the “heavy stuff” we were going to see over the next week or so. The city itself was large, busy, and dirty... for most of my traveling buddies, it was uninteresting and overwhelming because of 
this.  Me, well, I wished I had had more time to explore it both during the day and night.  However, we didn’t have much time, and the two things we ended up seeing were the Vietnam War Museum and the Cu Chi Tunnels.  The museum was a sobering view of the war and was definitely anti-American.  There were photos of terrible war atrocities and quoted comments from world leaders about the mistakes that the US made.  There was a lot of tough stuff to digest.  The Cu Chi Tunnels were also presented in quite an anti-American manner, but frankly, some of the verbiage was so blatantly biased that I had to laugh.  Let me state that I do not find the things that happened to either the Vietnamese or the Americans funny, but just thought the presentation of the material to be a bit off.  However, despite the way the tunnels were presented, it was really interesting to actually see the tunnels that the Viet Cong used during the war.  We crawled through a tiny portion of one tunnel and I couldn’t imagine how people could have stayed living below ground using those tunnels for years!

Some snake wine we tried on the "Mekong" tour.

And now here I am, on a “Mekong Delta Tour.”  I’m quoting because it is not really a tour... we’ve just been brought to several random places and haven’t seen much of interest.  It probably is our fault... we should have given more time to properly explore the region, but we’re really out of time.  I need to get to Cambodia asap and then back to Bangkok so I can get down to the Thai islands and then to Bali! First, maybe I should buy my flights though? ;)

Motorcycle Diaries

Written August 28th

It saddens me that I never was able to write a blog entry about my first motorcycle experience while traveling on this trip.  The fact is that I was in India when I first drove myself around but was also in the midst of catching up on the blog.  I had still not given up on writing about everything I was doing, and was back-logged by about 8 entries.  At some point around then, I decided that I couldn’t keep up with blogging that much, and somewhere in the mix, my Scooting in Goa story was lost :(

But here we are in Vietnam, and I can write about another experience I had riding around a foreign country on a two-wheeled vehicle.  

I’ve always been scared of motorcycles.  Maybe it's because my dad fell off of his when I was a child and I can remember him having to be in the hospital.  Or maybe it’s because I know how fragile the body is when you fall off of a bike, and falling off a motorcycle surely must be worse.  Or maybe it was just because I hadn’t done it before.

When I was in India, I didn’t really have a chance to be scared.  I had picked maybe one of the craziest, busiest countries in the world to ride in, and once I was out with the group, I had no choice but to just focus and get from A to B through massive traffic with cows walking in the road whenever they wanted.    It wasn’t that hard as long as you knew what petals did what and as long as you didn’t act like an idiot.  I actually started to love it: wind blowing in your hair, the ability to hear the sounds of the city, and the sense that you are really part of the environment that you’re traveling in.  It was exhilarating.

Now I was in Vietnam and I was thankful I had picked India to practice in.  If I thought India was chaotic, I had another thing coming.  Vietnam is THE country of motorcycles and scooters for sure.  Every intersection has no less than 20 motorcycles waiting at an intersection when a light is red.  Scooters pass eachother and sometimes drive 3 side-by-side.  It’s insanity, yet somehow nobody manages to hit eachother, pedestrians, or cars.  It’s amazing.

I had met a guy in Vientiane who told me about the Top Gear motorcycle tour from Hue to Hoi An.  He had told me over dinner that I absolutely had to do it because it ranked in his top 3 experiences in SE Asia and it was unbelievable.  For those of you from the States, Top Gear is a popular television show in the UK that focuses on cars and autos .  The hosts of the show, after taking the ride we were planning to take, remarked that it was one of the best rides they’d ever done.

The night before we left on the trip, I made the mistake of telling my father that I was riding a motorcycle from Hue to Hoi An.  I got an earful about how I should be scared (I wasn’t), what I should wear (he said pants and long-sleeved shirt, I wore shorts and a tank top), and that I should be very careful (I was.)

Me at the top of the mountain.  Hi-yah!

Our group had now grown to 5 people: my two Dutch friends, Carola and Rozan, Tasha from England who was my Halong Bay roommate, and a newcomer, Sylvia, another Dutch on a month-long vacation in Vietnam. We woke up the morning of the trip and gave our backpacks to the front desk staff so they could organize the bag transfer for us while we were on the bikes.  Our bike leader arrived with the bikes and we all tested ours out.  I felt like a pro, and taught the others some things I had already learned in India, like how you should get off of a bike on the left so you don’t accidentally hit the hot exhaust pipe with your leg.  

A quick stop to swim on our way!

We took off, some of us on our own bikes and other on the back of motorcycles with Vietnamese guys driving.  We got through the city pretty quickly and entered highway, stopping a few hours in to swim in a waterfall and to eat lunch.  Some of us noticed the intense sunburns we already had in bizarre places, like mine on the outside of my calves.  

After lunch, we rode into the mountains separating us from Hoi An, and began the stunning ascent.  After a few minutes of riding, we stopped to take pictures and I understood why Top Gear had ranked this ride so high.  Below, the sea was a deep blue, above the sky was a brilliant light blue scattered with clouds, and between the two was lush greenery.  It took a lot of power to not stare away from the road the whole time we rode.

Just me and my shadow.

At the top, we stopped and took some photos, but they hardly captured the feelings we had or the scenery we had just driven through.  We got harassed by some women trying to sell us bracelets or oreos or drinks, but I was on such a high that not even that could really annoy me.

We got back on our bikes and began another fun stretch.  We rode along the beach, at one point spreading across the two lanes all in a row. I thought about trying to get everyone to hold hands so I could take a photo but decided not to attempt something stupid that could get us hurt.  

We continued along, going over bridges, then passing the famous China Beach, and finally getting to Hoi An.  We got off of our bikes in front of our hostel, and like clockwork, the bus with our backpacks showed up.  We took our bags and talked for the next hour about how awesome our trip had been and how awesome we were for doing it!  

Halong Bay: Part II

Written on August 26th

The next morning, I woke up drenched in my sweat. Not a fun way to wake up!  It turns out that, yes, the air conditioning was turned on at 10pm.  What I wasn’t told was that it was also turned off at 5am.  So I hopped in our shower and headed up to the middle deck where breakfast was already being served.  I picked at the spread of food on the table before heading up to the top deck to relax. 

Luke came up to tell us that this morning the 2 day tour people would be staying on the boat and the 3 day people would be transferring to another boat that would take us to the private island that we’d stay on that night.  Yay! Private island!

The view from our island.

Shortly after, we got all of our stuff out of our rooms and made the switch to the smaller boat that would bring us to the island.  About half of the people from the big group ended up coming, making it a smaller, more intimate group for the days and night on the island.  

When we got there, we were introduced to Jordan, our other guide who also doubled as the wake board instructor on the island.  He basically looked like Tarzan.  We were shown our accommodation which consisted of big wooden platforms with straw roofs overhead, sleeping mats, and mosquito nets.  There were no doors, you just bent down to sneak under the low-hanging roof and would then climb onto the platform. We ate a quick lunch as a group and got into the water to help deal with the intense heat.  At this point, all 22 of us basically knew eachother, or at least knew where what countries we were from so that a group could be referred to as “the German guys” or “the English couple.”  

Jordan instructing on proper banana boat technique.

We were instructed to sign up on the blackboard for either wake boarding or banana boating.  I had never been on a banana boat, but was told it was a ton of fun.  I’d also never been wake boarding and thought if I learned here, maybe I could do it again when I got back to the States.  So I signed up for the wake boarding while Tarzan explained that most people don’t end up being able to stand on the board the first time out on the water.

The first group and then second group of wakeboarders went while the rest of us relaxed on the beach, played card games, or played ping pong (I am terrible, apparently.)  When it was my groups turn to go on the boat for wakeboarding, we all got on the boat and took off to deeper waters.  The first person up, one of the German guys, got in the water with Jordan while Jordan instructed him on what to do and got him set up on the board.  Jordan got back on the boat and the boat took off.  Face plant.  We looped around and gave the German guy the rope to hold again.  Face plant.  And a third time. And a fourth, and so on.  The poor guy couldn’t stand up on the board and eventually Jordan told him he’s have to come back on the boat for the next person to try.

My turn was next and I chickened out.  Really, I wasn’t scared, but actually just knew myself well enough to know that if I didn’t get on the board, I’d be really frustrated.  The next girl went and couldn’t get up either.  The third girl bailed like I had so she could do the banana boat instead.

Wheeeeeee!

Back to the island we went and my friends greeted me by asking if I’d managed to stand up on the board.  I told them that I’d opted out so I could go on the banana boat too, and Jordan gathered us banana boaters around him to explain the few rules there were:

When the banana boat starts to roll to a side, lean to the opposite side.

Try not to kick anyone when you fall off. 

Stay on as long as possible.

Armed with our new rules, the 8 of us got on the banana boat.  We posed for a few pre-banana boat photos and then took off.  Wheeeee, how fun... at first.  We stayed on for maybe a minute before the boat took a turn and the banana boat flipped on its side, taking all of us with it.  I caught a knee to the jaw as the 8 of us flew in every possible direction.  

Second try.  Again, wheeeee! Then, a turn, and BAM!  This time, a foot to my thigh.  What abuse this banana boat ended up giving!  Would you think a boat named after a tasty, funny looking yellow fruit would be so violent?  I hadn’t.  

This continued for about 45 minutes. About 30 minutes in, I quit and got on the boat, not really eager to get any more leg on face action.  My Dutch friend Carola got stung by a jellyfish.  Another two people came on the boat.  Near the end, I guess having less people on the banana boat helped things, and the group was able to stay on the boat successfully for a while before falling off.

After that exciting violent boat ride, we got onto the island and showered up.  Dinner was served shortly after and it was yet again delicious.  This time, a BBQ of various meat and seafood along with side salads and french fries.  

Gathering around for some more games.

We all gathered around the tables to play card games with the group.  Now that the group was down to 25 people, we all played together and it ended up being one of the most fun games I’ve ever played.  When we were done, we all swam out to the barge with only the moonlight above us and the sparkling from the plankton.  Everyone climbed on the barge, jumping and diving in and generally acting like 10 year olds.  

Some people stayed in the water for a while (Tarzan, some went back to the dining/bar area to have some more drinks (my friends), and others went to bed (me.)  Apparently the party raged on until about 4am while I was passed out on a mat under a mosquito net in a hut.  

The next morning around 7am, we were awoken by one of the Vietnamese island workers yelling that we all had to get up and pack quickly because a typhoon was going to hit the bay soon.  We all scrambled about and got ready for the boats to pick us up to get us off the island.  

This poor dude got stuck in the rain.

The first boats came and brought us to the original two ships that we had been on.  We joined another tour group who had just gone through the day and night itinerary that we had on the first day and together we all made our way back to shore.  Because the storm had already hit in some places around the bay, we took a convoluted way back, hopping from boat to bus back to a boat and so on.  About 10 minutes after we landed on shore for good, the storm hit and the rain came down in buckets almost horizontal to the ground.  

As we watched it come down, we all laughed at how lucky we were to have not been affected by the storm.  We got picked up by our bus and started the 3 hour drive back to Hanoi, now feeling like we had 24 new best friends with us.

Hanoi and Halong Bay: Part I

Written on August 25th

Water puppet theater... enthralling!

After our hellish bus ride the day before, my Dutch friends, Carola and Rozan, and I decided to pack in a full day in Hanoi.  We woke up with an itinerary of things to do but our efforts were thwarted as the Ho Chi Minh mosaleum was closed after 11am, a friend we ran into told us the Vietnamese History museum was boring, and the weather was stiflingly hot.  We didn’t find much of interest but ended up seeing the lake in the middle of the city, a water puppet theater show, and the jail that John McCain had been detained in during the Vietnam War.  We decided to call it quits after we took a quick detour through the night market, but all I could think about was showering and getting into my air conditioned room, so back we went.

Really, we weren’t that interested in staying in Hanoi for too long anyway... The real reason we had gone there was so we could take a 3 day/2 night tour to Halong Bay with a popular backpackers hostel from Hanoi.  We had run into several people who had gone on it and said that it was one of their highlights from SE Asia, and I had personally received two emails from people telling me that I needed to do a tour there.  

The crazy traffic in Hanoi.

The next morning, we woke up with our small bags packed for our trip.  The group of 50 backpackers all assembled in front of the hostel and we were given colorful sombrero hats before being split into two groups for the 3 hour bus ride to Halong Bay.  When we first entered the buses, we all groaned because they were really cramped and being shoved into a bus again was the last thing any of us wanted.  But it turned out that this bus was actually air conditioned, and it was a good way to get to know the group that we would be spending the next few days with.

When we got to the water 3 hours later, the sun shone on the bay that was littered with fishing boats and sleeping boats of various sizes and we caught a glimpse of the two boats that would be ours for the day and night.  We took a few small boats to the main ships that were docked a bit off shore and all climbed on. and were escorted up to main sitting area on the top deck.  For a couple hours, people chilled out in their bathing suits while we socialized and had the inevitable “where are you from/where are you traveling to” conversations with everyone.  

Halong Bay is one of the most beautiful places I’d ever seen.  My guide book informed me that it was formed during the last ice age, and when the water recessed finally, the jagged peaks were left sticking up out of the bay, several with deep caves within.  Our guides let us stay on the top deck to check out the scenery before calling us all to the middle deck for lunch, instructions, and room assignments.

About to jump 3 stories into the water!

We ate our amazing lunch composed of beef with noodles, fresh sauteed squid, morning glory greens, chicken with peppers and onions, two kinds of rice, and tofu in tomato sauce.  My Dutch friends decided they’d stay together and I hooked up with an English girl who had been on the hell bus with us for room assignments and we went to check out the on board sleeping accommodations, expecting the worst.

Not bad!!  The room was all wood paneling with two single beds, a night stand, a fan an air conditioner, and it’s own bathroom.  I was impressed with the air conditioner but sadly when I tried to turn it on, it didn’t work :(  I went back upstairs and asked our guide Luke why they had teased me with an air conditioning unit that didn’t work and he let me know that it would... that they turn the power on for the units at 10pm every night.  Whew!

The afternoon was ahead of us and we had a lot on the itinerary.  After another hour or so of sailing through the bay, Luke let us know that it was time to go swimming in the bay.  We all got ready, stripping off whatever clothes some of us were still wearing, and Luke climbed over the edge of the balcony.  Then to our surprise, he jumped off and we all rushed to the edge to look.  Safely in the water below, he looked up and beckoned for us to jump in.  

Kayaking into the cave.

So, one by one, or actually sometimes two by two or five by five, we all jumped in from the third story of the boat into the water below.  I waited until almost everyone was in the water as I was trying to coax a friend to jump with me, but eventually just jumped in by myself, hitting the water with my fingers pinching my nose.  Ahhh, the water was perfect -- not too hot, not too cold, clear and salty.  For 30 minutes or so, we all floated around and climbed back on the boat so we could jump off again.  I dove from the top and another girl we had made friends with did a backflip.

Then Luke told us it was time to come out so we could go kayaking to one of the caves and to a beach.  We all paired up again and set off in our kayaks.  My roommate Tasha and I were near the front of the pack, taking pride in our athletic prowess, or maybe just our desire to not be in the back.  

The depths of the cave I didn't climb in.

After kayaking for a bit, we arrived at the cave.  We all got out of our boats and were led up to the main cave entrance where we were instructed to get out our flashlights or headlamps.  “What headlamps??” I asked.  Apparently we had been told to bring them, but I had somehow missed the instructions, so I crept forward to see if I’d be able to get by without one.  After slipping on a rock and seeing the deep black of the cave, I chickened out on the inner cave walking and stayed on the outskirts.  I’ve steered around death too many times already and I didn’t want to tempt fate one more time...

After everyone had gone around the interior of the cave and one guy had messed his foot up pretty bad, we got back in our kayaks and continued on to the beach.  Truth be told, it was a disappointing beach... it was littered with garbage and the water looked dirty, so most of us stayed next to our kayaks ready to go back to our ships.

Finally the whole group left and we had a long way back.  Tasha and I started off strong but ended up in the back as we were gabbing about our travels so far.  I learned that she had been traveling for a year and was getting ready to go home, and I told her about where I’d been so far and what the rest of my plans were.  After seeing that we were one of the last kayaks though, we decided to turn up the effort level and started rowing as hard as we could.  Eventually we passed about half of the other kayaks, taunting them all as we passed, and got to our ships.

Carola and I in the cave.

We all showered, thank god, because we were covered in some sort of brown algae that made tan people (not me) look tanner and pale people (me) look like they were dirty.  After showering, it was dinner time and we sat at a table with some more ladies that we’d briefly met earlier that afternoon.  We had another amazing meal before Luke stood up and told us what the evenings itinerary consisted of.  We were going to be hanging out after dinner for a bit and then would all reconvene down in the dining area where two big tables would be set up for card games.

Let the games begin!

So after waiting up on the top deck for an hour, we were called back down and we took our seats.  We played Ring of Fire, a group card game that I had played before, but never with 24 other people at my table.  It was hilarious as we picked cards and people had to do things like trade shirts with another person, sit under the table and act like a troll until another person replaced them, or had to keep their forehead on the table for the rest of the game.  

Eventually the games ended and the tables were moved and the room was turned into a dance floor. Some people danced, other people played limbo apparently, and others, like me, went up to the top deck again to lay on the chairs and take in the coolest air we’d probably get during the whole trip.  Around 1am, I couldn’t keep up anymore and I went to bedroom, now cool thanks to the working air conditioning unit!  

Hell Bus and First Experiences in Vietnam

August 21st

I know, I know... not another blog entry about a bus ride, right?  I’m sorry, this one goes in the books as the worst yet and I need to tell you all the story.

Guys packing a bus up at the station.

So far, the bus rides I’ve taken have been generally unenjoyable, for various reasons.  The one in Peru was literally freezing cold, the one to Uyuni ended up tilted on the side of a dirt road for a few hours, I barfed on the one coming back into Bolivia from Chile, and most recently, had to calm down a chick having a panic attack in Laos.  But this one, dear readers, takes the cake.  I will forever refer to it as “hell bus.”

I’d heard mixed reviews about the night bus ride from Vientiane, Laos to Hanoi, Vietnam.  Some people said it was terrible and advised that I fly if possible, but my Dutch friends wanted to take the bus and were told that it wasn’t that bed.  “The seats are actual beds!” they told me.

So, still having some apprehension, the three of us went to the bus station in Vientiane to get our bus tickets.  After several frustrating conversations with various bus company desk people, we had our tickets for the following evening.  

The view from our seats.

When we got to the station at 6:30pm, we got 3 baguettes to bring with us to snack on if for some reason the bus didn’t stop when we were hungry at some point during the 24 hour+ trip.  We then went to find where our seats were on this sleeper bus. After watching one of the two bus drivers hit an Australian girl on the back because she didn’t take her shoes off on the bus, we were shown our seats.  They were the back three seats on the bottom level, below the top three seats that were all connected.  They were next to the bathroom, which smelled like, well, dirty bus bathroom, but luckily I was fighting a cold so I couldn’t smell anything.

As I saw our seats, I yelled, “Oh yay, now we can have our own private sleepover in here!”  The seats were connected almost like one large seat, and with the other seats above us, it was like we were in our own little cave.  I thought about the summer nights when my friends and I would all climb into a small tent in my backyard for an outdoor sleepover party.  We climbed in through the opening which was approximately 20 inches wide, and sat down in our semi-reclined seats.  

We tested out our seats, saw how far back they went, found out that we couldn’t really sit up without our heads hitting the ceiling, and saw that we had no air conditioning vents in our cave.  When the bus started and we were on our way, we also found out that our cave was positioned above the engine.  *Sigh*

The writing above us.  Hilarious stuff!

It was about 30 minutes later, when we were boiling hot, I was starting to smell the toilet smell, and the three of us realized that other people on our bus had been sold seats that were in the aisles (seriously).  We all put our chairs back and read what had been written on the ceiling above us.

My personal favorite: “Kill yourself while you still can.”  Or maybe, “What did I do to deserve this?” Or perhaps, “Buses are bullshit.”  At this point, I laughed for a straight 10 minutes, tears streaming down my face, because I realized what we were in for.  

At 10:00pm, two and a half hours after we’d left Vientiane, the bus stopped and we all exited.  The stop was not so much a bathroom stop as it was a chance for the two bus drivers to stop and eat dinner.  So, after taking 5 minutes to visit the bathrooms, all of the passengers sat on the curb waiting for our drivers to finish.  Why couldn’t they have eaten before the bus left?  

While we were waiting, I kept hearing a dog barking.  Actually, not barking, it was screaming and crying.  I kept looking around, wondering where the noise was coming from.  The poor dog wouldn’t stop crying, and it sounded terrified.  Finally, I walked around the buses looking for the noise, and horrified, I looked up at the bus that was parked next to ours.  On the roof, squeezed in a wooden crate that was hardly big enough for it and that was tied to the roof with rope, was the dog.  I started gagging and had to walk to the curb where I walked away from the group so I could vomit.  It was one of the saddest things I have ever seen.

We left again at 10:45pm and I was more mentally exhausted than physically after seeing and hearing that dog.  I was in and out of a sweaty sleep for a little over two hours when I felt the bus slow and then turn off.  The bus’ lights were still off but we had stopped somewhere and I peeked my head out to see what was going on.  All around me, people were sleeping, and I seemed to be the only one who was awake.  

Rozan trying to sleep in the sweaty cave.

For 30 minutes, and I’m not exaggerating, I tried to get out of our sweaty sandwich cave, as we’d come to call it at this point.  The exit between me and the bathroom was only about 15 inches and there was a person sleeping in the aisle area there.  I tried time and time again to get out without either breaking my arms or stepping on the sleeping guy’s head, finally managing to get out.  Then, I had to climb to the front of the bus via the ladders that were on the bus for the top bunk people to use.  

The restaurant we waited in for over 5 hours.

I made it out and saw that we were at some restaurant place, saw that it was now 2:00am, and saw that our bus drivers were nowhere to be found.  A few other bus riders filtered out while I sat there, fuming, wondering what the hell was going on.  Finally, around 3:00am, when my friends had finally woken up and joined me in the restaurant, I found out why we were there: the drivers were sleeping.  Oh, and we had to wait until the border between Laos and Vietnam opened at 7am.

Yay! Almost time to leave again!

My thoughts?  WHY DO WE HAVE TO LEAVE AT 7AM ONLY TO STOP FOR DINNER AT 10PM AND THEN TO STOP AGAIN AT 1:30AM?????  WHY COULDN’T WE HAVE LEFT AT 11PM AND DRIVEN STRAIGHT THROUGH? WHY COULDN’T THE BUS DRIVERS HAVE SLEPT BEFORE THE BUS RIDE??

So we sat there, tired, miserable, and angry until 6:30am rolled around and the drivers got back on the bus.  Within 30 minutes, we were already at the border crossing and we left the bus to leave Laos and enter Vietnam.

While we were there, I was reminded of the border crossings in South America where you actually have to walk from the exit building for one country and up the road half of a mile to the building for the entering country.  Normally, that wouldn’t have been that big of a deal, but this time it was raining, and the walk was up hill, and I had gotten 2 hours of sleep and was miserable... 

It was a painful 2 hours where we had to get our Laos exit stamp and also were scammed to pay for our Vietnamese entrance stamp even though we had already paid for visas.  As I was arguing about paying the money to the corrupt border patrol guy, the bus with the dog on top passed us by.

Carola demonstrating how to get in our seats.

We finally got back on the bus around 9:30am and drove for a few hours before stopping for lunch.  The restaurant, if you could call it that, was packed with other bus drivers and riders and was serving basic noodle and rice dishes at card tables with plastic chairs to sit in.  The place did not look even remotely hygienic.  When we were finished, we asked for the bill and made sure the restaurant would take Laos kip because we had yet to get any Vietnamese dong to use.  They said yes, but then told us the amount to be paid in the Laos currency would be the same as the amount if we paid in Vietnamese.  The currency exchange is 2:1. The stupid restaurant owner wanted us to pay double if we were paying in Laos kip.  My thoughts: THIS IS CRAP!

Again we got on the bus, hoping this had been our last stop, but 3 hours later, we stopped again at a tiny shop on the side of the road.  Everyone exited, hoping to buy a coke or a water, only to find that only Vietnamese dong were accepted.  Dejected, we turned around to get back on the bus, but I stopped dead in my tracks as I heard barking again.

Not again... I didn’t want to see that poor dog again.  But the noise was different this time, and I focused on where it was coming from.  From behind our bus, a truck pulled forward where I could see it.  It was covered with metal crates, and in each tiny crate, were anywhere from 3 to 5 dogs smashed into it.  I'm guessing there were at least 75. They all looked malnourished, miserable, and terrified.  They had paws hanging out the holes, shaking around, noses stuck out, and I thought I was going to vomit again.  I couldn’t this time, though -- it was too horrible for me to even move.  I just stood there fixated on the truck until it pulled away again wondering if they were going to be eaten later because dog consumed in north Vietnam... :(

We got back on the bus and finally, 2 hours later, arrived in Hanoi.  The taxi driver tried to make us pay double what he initially promised the price would be and the hostel we wanted to stay at was booked up.  Finally, we got to a new place, got in bed, and vowed that we would never take a bus like that again.  I went to bed hoping my weeks in Vietnam would not be ones where I had to avoid getting ripped off every minute of every day...