Team Vietnam - Fcuk Yeah!

OK..... So this is the story so far..... God damn.... Had such a nightmare day yesterday.... Where to start....

 

Alright, we were in Vientiene in Laos and were travelling to Vinh in Vietnam (very long journey, 300km maybe, a whole days travelling anyway). So we were getting a local bus firstly to Lak Sao (almost on the border) then changing buses. So got up at 4am, got ready and found a tuk tuk to take us to the station. Got there for a pretty good price, about $3. Anyway, found out by some random guy there that they don't leve from this station, but another one 10km away, and that he'd take us there for $8.... Not having much of a choice (at 4am you just go with the flow) we jumped at the back of his tuk tuk. (Thanks to Lonely Planet we went to the wrong station, need to rememeber to double check these things! Hard when the communication doesn't really run through!)

Got to the station at 4.55, bus leaves at 5... Now, in Laos you should be at station about 1 hour before the bus leaves to get a seat (they load so much in them, I think instead of moving-trucks they just catch the bus...). But we managed to get a seat! Wohoo!!! $5 each, which was OK. We shared the old bus with bags and bags of rice, flour, washing up detergent, lightbulbs, food, chickens (on the roof) and they even manged to fit 2 scooters in the aisle and the front, so not bad!! The driver insisted on playing hip hop on a very high volume too! Oh, fab!

 

Almost 8 hours later we reached Lak Sao, and had survived that leg pretty well.... So we were in this dusty town with 5 other girls (English Tasha, German Julia, Dutch Jets, Japanese Schkye and Owima), and got told there are no buses to Vinh... Hm... A tuk tuk driver wanted to take us to the border and said that we needed to get bus from there.... NO thanks! So we asked around some more, and found out that a bus was to leave in an hour, to Vinh, and all for $8. Great! The bus even left early so we were in good spirits!

 

Uneventful journey for a few hours (Col saw a Rhino under a house, but it might just have been a hallucination I  think!). Crossed the border, the guys were thorough but not as mean as I thought! We even got some pics of the Japaneses girls trying on their caps! Pretty funny thing to see!When I asked at the currency exchange if the did Visa Advances (we were a bit short of cash) the guy shook his head and said I was beautiful, hha ha, after 9 hours on the road I wonder what types they get to see, hehe! (don't think Col got this compliment either, only almost short changed by $10 - they try it all the time)

 

Bit later we stopped at a station (maybe 1/3 of way to Vinh) and the lady showed us a piece of paper,written in perfect English, saying due to low amount of passengers the bus was terminating here and that we were to jump onto another bus (which was parked just on the other side of the road, waiting for us) and that, of course, we didn't have to pay again. Hmm.. You can see where this is going right...

 

Few hours into this bus journey a lady demanded that we pay her $5. The next hour consisted of us trying to tell her (and this guy who spoke a little English) that we already paid for the whole journey to the other lady. Of course we had no receipt to show, and they kept saying "different driver" and wouldn't listen. We were all fuming. I was even shouting at this stupid man, and was so angry I cried (damn I hate that!). Luckily we were all together on the "we're not paying". We actually only had $2 left in total and some Baht (bit of a mess from the early morning tuk-tuks!), and it was extremely uncomfortable. And what does the driver do next? Oh, he decides to stop the bus in the middle of nowhere, there's rice fields as far as you can see, and we're just miles away... They demand money and we keep saying no... So they open the door and point at it... So we all get up, not caring, just wanting to get some breathing space, I don't know, just so fucked off that we just don't care anymore. All the others, including the driver and lady, are stunned, clearly all a trick to scare us into paying. Next things, we're standing with all our bags looking at our options (a horse and cart went by and I thought we could have hitched a ride maybe...) when the lady starts to usher us back in. Really poking and pushing us. The driver comes out and agrees we pay $1... So we get back on... We say we'll pay when we're in Vinh... The lady leaves us alone for a little while then starts at us again... We keep saying we'll pay in Vinh... It goes on and on and on and on.... Totally exhausting... So the driver stops in the middle of nowhere again...The guy who speaks a little English says it's 70km to Vinh....The driver is talking about Vietnam, Vinh, Vietnam....What? Gets the drawing back out... Keeps showing it to Col, we keep saying we understand but we've paid already...It goes on and on and on again... We decide to pay the damn $1 and hopefully get going again...Hmm... The busdriver takes that as paying for the journey we've had so far and still won't stop...

Jets gets completely mad and shouts at him, up close, right in the face "Give me my money back You M-F!" and then we get off the bus again. (She did so well, not a red head for nothing!!). I don't know, my head's spinning, we hadn't really eaten, just 2 croissants all day, so tired, so worn down... One of the Japanese girls got a slap around the head... It was all very weird... Can't remember... We got poked a bit by the lady again, trying to usher us back in... We were all fuming... Great first impression of Vietnam... They had locked the boot so we couldn't get all of our bags out...Col had to stand in front fo the bus stopping it from driving away with them... We had to get back on the bus, and somehow they left us without further hassle... They clearly gave up. They are such con artists it's unreal. So obvious they're all in on this bus scam.. So little you can do... But we stuck together and made eachother proud.

 

Got dumped in Vinh somewhere, had no real map... Found a very helpful girl who rang us a taxi to a hotel we knew about... We all crammed in and got to the place, oh, hot water and tv! What luxuries! A soft bed and comfy pillow!!! Oh!!! Had to go out straight away to find an ATM (Tasha had no money either), and quickly became Millionaires!!!! Ah! A quid is like 30 000 dong or something..! Got some dinner too, Rice and Tofu (first try of vegetarian dish was with sausage and chicken...We even showed them in Vietnamese both the word 'vegetarian' and 'no meat'). Got ripped off at the price too, but just too tired to care......

Had a lovely shower then watched a bit of JFK, then collapsed in bed... Which brings us to now- we're hanging around waiting for yet another bus, have to get out of this dump! Bought tickets and bus leaves in 1.5 hours. Hue here we come! Things can only get better! Oh, Internet is so cheap here! Wohoo! (Oh, it's cold and grey here too, rained yesterday, just one of those days eh??!)

 

No need to worry though family and friends! We only grow stronger! xxx