Night Bus From Hell #4890

So I know I bang on about horrible bus journeys, but trust me when I say that this one is the undisputed winner of the prestigious title of Night Bus From Hell. To be fair it had that reputation on the good old Worldwide Web before we even set foot on it: It simply went on to demonstrate its worthiness for such an infamous accolade.

You'd have thought we'd have had enough of nightbuses, and with the alternative being a tidy 40 minute, $80 dollar direct flight to Hanoi, you might think us a little foolish, but in our quest to avoid flights whenever possible, we decided we just needed to man-up and take it.

The bus was a 24 hour-epic from Luang Prabang (Laos) to Hanoi (Vietnam). We were due to meet Mum and Dad on the Monday morning, so we set off on Saturday late afternoon to make sure we’d definitely be there in time to meet them. We arrived in Hanoi at 8am on Monday morning. It took 38 flipping hours!!!!!

The issue was that it rained. A lot. For the entire first 12 hours. The repurcussions were what caused our insane delays:

Problem no. 1

We got stuck in mud. This took over an hour of slipping, sliding and a lot of swearing (I imagine-I don’t actually understand Vietnamese), and the use of some chains before we managed to ease ourselves out. It was pitch black and only once we were out that the Canadian sat in front of us told us we were on a cliff edge.

Problem no. 2

We got stuck behind a bus who got stuck in mud. This bus was a) less enterprising and b) more stuck so it took a marvellous 5 hours to get it out. We just sat there patiently.

Problem no. 3

The bus FINALLY got itself out, and we set off again, not too behind time as we would have had to have waited for the border to open anyway, so by this point we were probably only a few hours behind schedule and still thinking we’d probably make it to Hanoi by that evening. That was until (about 30 minutes down the road) we hit a landslide that must have happened literally minutes before. 

Clearly not learning from his previous mud-related experience the driver of the bus in front of us (yes the same one who had caused us our delightful 5 hour delay) in his wisdom thought it would be a good idea to just drive over it. He made it around the pile of trees, by precariously edging along the cliff-edge, before promptly (and painfully predictably) getting properly wedged in the ensuing mud. Thank the lord he was the guinea pig though, as I would noooot have wanted to be on that bus!

A panoramic Bro took of the area

So the situation is that not only is there a giant mudslide on the one and only road leading to the North-Eastern part of Laos, but now rather than it being a simple case of clearing it, there is now a gert giant bus stuck in it and dangling precariously on the cliff-edge. Not even a moped can sneak past. This situation is bad enough, but then throw in the fact that we were so far from anywhere that it took over three hours for any kind of officials to turn up, and when they did, imagine our joy when two policemen finally rock up….on mopeds. Their only visible tools were a couple of guns which I don’t imagine are particularly effective at removing buses from mudslides. They wondered around a bit, shook their heads a bit, then promptly got back on their bikes and disappeared.

About 8 hours later a digger arrived, during which time the only progress we’d made was…

• Someone had retrieved a lone spade from the back of their truck and one poor man valiantly (foolishly?) and distinctly ineffectually dug away with mud up to his thighs and elbows with an audience of about 100. He deserves good karma that man.
• A group of about 10 men resourcefully revealed a blanket, saucepan, and a couple of bottles of whisky (obviously the usual things you carry with you on a long bus journey) and continued to make a fire, cook some food and have themselves a jolly little party while we looked on, mouths salivating like Pavlov’s dogs'.
• Some local women had eventually appeared with some plain sticky rice and what I can only describe as fire on a stick (essentially chicken gristle covered in chilli) which they charged a small fortune for, but which we devoured gratefully having not had any of the promised food stops so far, and I had not eaten since the previous lunchtime (it was now early afternoon the following day). I have no idea where these ladies materialised from, but I swear wherever you are in SE Asia, there will be a little old woman trying to sell you sticky rice.

  

The view of the stranded bus once we'd passed it!

I will say this for the people of Laos- for a group of people who had been forced to spend over 12 hours by the side of a road with nothing to do, they’re a rather jolly bunch. I can now boast to have my face in approximately 128 shared selfies with various Laos people, and am probably now a minor celebrity in the mysterious and incredibly narcissistic Land of Laos Facebook. Silver linings.

Anyway, I digress…After about 2 hours of digging there was finally a path clear enough for us to pass through. Being the front of the queue we all cheered, and everyone got back in their seats. It was probably another hour before we got past because of course there were no officials (that would be silly) and there were just miles and miles of hungry, thirsty, bored people who clearly do not come from the English School of queuing etiquette.

But hurrah we were through. We’d missed the border crossing as it was now too late in the evening, but the driver called in a few favours and some bleary-eyed officials opened the entire place up for us at about 11pm, barked orders at us, stamped our passports, even insisted we put all of our luggage through the X-ray machine that had no-one watching it (!!), then opened up their office, fed us all soup (I have honestly never been as hungry or thirsty...), gave us all shots of whisky (the driver reassuringly had a pint of it himself), then bundled us all back on the bus. Probably one of the most surreal experiences I’ve had.

The 6 of us Westerners...trying to adjust to the bright lights of customs 

On our own in customs. Spot the dog and the random shoe!

This chap was clearly thrilled to be out of bed...

FOOD! Finally! Reactions to me taking a shot of whisky

We finally arrived in Hanoi about 8.30am, 14 hours late…enough time to find the hotel, dump our bags, pop out for brekkie and a quick coffee and then meet Mama and Papa Salter!!