It’s Polly here and i didn’t die…i just almost did for a while, but you know, we had some fun times trying to dodge our way out of a restaurant after having been sick all over the floor. TIP : do not use a new look bag with a hole in the bottom to contain your sick.
But I’m better now (yay) and we are finally in Vietnam, even though it felt like we had been stuck in Vientiene forever (probably because we had been.) It wasn’t the most exciting place to be honest— in fact there was little to do so we were pretty psyched to get moving again. However, me being ill meant we had to move the bus tickets a day later 
Thankfully i slept for about 20 of those hours… im sure toby had a great time reading in the room all afternoon and fetching us food in the evening. Upside— the nice room that he found us as we had already checked out the old (SKANKY) place had a T.V- meaning we could watch House followed by Total wipeout— YAY! ANd to be fair it was the first telly we had watched in ages (apart from superbad in the tv room at another hotel but shhhhh) so its allowed.
AT lasttttt…. after MANY games of uno supreme (thank god that version has been invented…we’ve made some more rules…. crazy times !…and 3 hours in a bakery– spending 2 pounds total (skill) it was time for the bus.
The 24-hour local border crossing bus. Not gunna lie- next time i’ll go V.I.P! I suppose it would have been a lot more traumatic if i had still been ill…and i guess it wasn’t that bad. To start off with… we pulled up to the bus station and in between two lovely sleeper vip double decker sleeper buses was our, local coach with the ominous words… back roads to Hue written on the front. Good times. After being pushed to the back with our bags by a man who took our tickets and appeared to be somehow related to the bus company we finally got going setting off at about half 6.
We were the only westerners on the bus which was a first, quite daunting but now we are proper proper travellers- so there! We settled in on the albeit padded seat and listened to some tunage and i was just starting to think about getting some sleep when we pulled over for ‘dinner’. Dinner, started by everyone peeing in the bushes as the ‘restaurant’ had neglected to make such facilities. Yes, even me had to pee in the bushes. EW. thankfully Toby shielded me from view. We didn’t end up getting any dinner, mostly because i was ill and didn’t feel like eating but also because you had to pay, and also because no one offered us any and we weren’t really sure how to get it. And to be fair, after looking at ‘it’ i think we could have made a right decision.
Back on the bus… where we took it in turns to pick the most awesomest songs from our selection- raving to Watcha say and lonely island under the starry Lao night sky. Rave dance moves were included if you are wondering. I think we may have actually got some sleep then, and we thought we had mastered the whole ‘local’ bus thing 
Fast forward 6-7 hours.
5a.m- Awoken (rudely) by women getting on the bus trying to sell us vietnamese dong for lao kip (thats money by the way) at the worst exchange rates EVER. we said no politely about 20 times, before we started having to say no a bit more force-fully. Toby came close to physical violence. Close being the operative word thankfully. We were pulled over outside what seemed to be a restaurant thing, open at 5? breakfast?? seriously. We closed our eyes hoping staying on the bus would make it move quicker. NO luck. A random man came on demanding our passports. Good times— it was the first time we had been separated from them (a little bit of worrying) and yes, i had a little bit of an irrational mini-panic when i saw a fire being started in the ‘kitchen’.
After more peeing in bushes (yes ,me again unfortunately) we decided to sit in the restaurant thing. Mostly to keep an eye on what the guy was doing with our passports which was a lot of faffing by the look of it. Then, after an interminable amount of time (20 minutes or so… but come on… 5 in the morning!) he called us over and said basically ‘oi…30,000kip each stamp fee. ‘ Perhaps im too sceptical but, a stamp fee? for passports?? very legit im sure. And, we’d already had to spend 50 dollars on our visa. He then put all the passports in a carrier bag after removing our two and putting them separately, and then put the carrier bag under a moped seat and locked it. Reassuring times Oh yes, i forgot to mention that im not certain, but pretty sure that he accidentally dropped some of the stamp fee money…phew… luckily it landed in his pocket.
After an hour or so… feeling quite bemused the sun came up, making everything seem ever so slightly less daunting and dodgy…HINT… seem…we drove for about 10 mins with the moped/passport guy ahead then stopped at what we guessed to be the border. After following everyone else off the bus after being told to… we were then shepherded back on being told that the border didn’t open until 7… 50 minutes later. Can i just point out that for the entirety of this journey we were told nothing… and had to rely on following people… good times.
At 7 we wondered over to the border, where it seemed to still be closed but luckily our passports hadn’t been set on fire and the ‘stamp fee’ seemed to do the trick…moped man gave us them back. We were successfully out of laos. Honestly… it wasn’t our favourite place… but then maybe we were looking in the wrong places.
Bring on Vietnam (well we almost didn’t)! We walked across the sections between the border while the bus drove separately with our bags worryingly on it and the first stop was where they checked our temperature. Polly= sees quarantine zone… major internal panic having had at least a moderate fever just one day before… then panics more when wondering if internal panic can in fact give you the fever i so want to avoid having. Did i mention we were shuffled (Toby would say pulled) into an alternate queue for ‘westerners’ apparently which involved having everything recorded in a book. Stage one: complete. New queue. well, we queued— no one else did. Yet another panic when we noticed that everyone else had money not so subtly tucked into their passports to hand to the border guard man. Another stamp fee i wonder??? We were not prepared to pay again so bravely went for it without money… deep breath… and… then we got sent away to fill out a special form.. whoop whoop, after finding a pen, we filled it out and then went back
*By this time everyone else from the bus was through home and dry (presumably) and no where in sight*
We got what must have been a nice border guard because he didn’t ask for any money and we received our vietnam stamps yay! In our haste to go refind the bus we almost ran through another passport check point… oops…. big smiles… sorry we are stupid english people.
Now- the bus….1 minute, no sign… walking further… no sign… lotsof buses parked, none ours. Random women points… that way… ok…. another women offers to take us to some place in a minivan… no… we have a bus… we think….2 more minutes of walking, still no sign…. and no buses ahead. I’d like to look back on this moment and say we were well chilled and it didn’t even matter because bags only weigh you down and we would have got there somehow. Nah- i was worried Toby is kidding himself saying he was in fact well chilled. (I actually was, Polly is trying to twist it so it looks like I wasn’t!)
Other side of road, a few mins later… a bus… is it ours??? Would they actually have driven off without us.. i say deffo yes….toby has more faith…it has red writing on the front??? good sign… its the last hope, but its facing the wrong way and is having a wheel changed… bad sign. YAYYYYY it was the bus. ALthough panic not over as bus was empty …quick check if bags are still there… yup. Mechanic man points down hill… driver sat in cafe having breakfast “excuse me, where do we go”… reply: grunt with point towards bus. So we walk back and decide we are not leaving until someone comes back… which they do eventually then drive back to the border market thing to pick up everyone else who was waiting there. AWwww easy times. nothing to worry about at all really :S
Back on bus with passports safe in bag confused as to how it can possibly take another 12 hours to get to our destination when according to the map it was only 150km or so. It only took three so we arrived at about 10:30am as opposed to 7 at night, dropped unceremoniously on the side of the road, our bags on motorbikes before we could even agree. The drivers showed us pics of a hotel, we said no, we have one already (picked one from guidebook and hoped for the best)… we agree $5 for both of us and off we go… on motorbikes (toby would call them scooters but it is good enough for polly)… eeek!
10 mins later we pull up… argument ensues over the fact that they were charging $5 each… NO way.. rip off… they basically chased us into the hotel so we had to agree on 8 with the help of the receptionist. It wasn’t until we had checked in and given our passports and were chilling in the admittedly very nice room… that we realised the knobhead drivers had actually taken us to the hotel they showed us a picture of… which was… comedy times…. next door to the one that we had asked them to take us to… ironic.
But I am happy with this hotel, it has a lovely pool (see pics) ensuite, and air-con, and TV Little bit out of our price range (well… 1 pound anight more than normal.. im prepared to pay… Toby seems a little more reticent. Trauma over pretty much, and maybe we have over dramatized ever so slightly… but tbh… not really!
Lazy day yesterday where we ate our first proper meals in three days and found a welllll cheap place with amazing fruit shakes, toby tried dragonfruit (brave) may go back there at some point. We hung by the pool for ages (our first proper pool so far) and Toby taught me the ways of egg where you curl into a ball and float until you run out of breath.. there are many variations but all of which involve Toby winning. We also had a little round of gladiators because we could, because we are well mature travellers. Sometimes i feel like a little kid whose been allowed to go round the world when they clearly arent old/mature enough.. help by the fact the man at the bus-booking place almost did that little shocked cough thing when i told him we were only 18.
We’ve booked our bus to Nha Trang (a beach) for tomorrow… another long ‘un… 16 hours but this time the bus is a sleeper one and there are no border crossings involved.
Today we were very cultured and went on a day trip (8am start!) on a dragon boat to explore hue a bit further. it lasted til 4, lunch included and only cost 3 quid! bargain we saw a nice pagoda thing and stood outside for a martial arts demonstration because we were too stingy to pay the entrance fee though you could see it from where we were standing anyway. Slightly disappointing lunch— plain rice, plain noodles bit of random fried stuff and i had to use chopsticks (i cannot use chopsticks). Went to a tomb of some king guy who apparently had about 150 children, 530 wives and made 5 babies in one night. WOah.
We didn’t want to pay to go to the two other tombs on the tour which ended up being an amazingly good choice because it meant we then got to leave early by motorcycle instead of being driven around by bus all afternoon (it was crazillly hot and everyone was melting and i could tell they were jealous as we sped off. Back to the hotel after dodging traffic along the way (they use horns as brakes here and lanes dont really bother them ) for a lovely swim, and now here we are. 2,164 words later. Mammoth! right, food time again i think.
Hello all it’s Toby now, sorry about Polly dragging on for so long :p hehe. Ummm not really much more to add (wonder why…) but we have very fast (&free internet here) so I have added lots more photos to the gallery (even some older ones that we didn’t upload before due to time!) Flick through and check them out Byeeee xxxx
this is what happens when im too tired to edit him as we go along, hehe 
and toby was cheif driver… obvs would you actually dare let me loose??? ok well, apparently he would because i zipped up and down the empty roads by the hotel like a pro….:)… except for one little turning faux pas… but sssshhhhhh.
