Oh what a Journey!

How many journeys have we all taken in our lives? Good journeys, bad journeys, crazy, silly, wonderous, journeys. All get us to where we are today!
The good ones we never want to end and the bad ones we can never see an end coming.

Well I tell you, you may have heard of us complain about our  previous journeys but the bus's that have taken us from the South of Laos upto North Vietnam were something else.

To begin, this whole trip we have been going from East to West  to North to South to just to go back North again, so the beginning of our 40 hour bus ride started off in Paxce Laos (South) to travel all the up to Hanoi (North Vietnam)

So we got on a local bus that went from Paxce to the border of Vietnam and then onto Dong Ha where we were to catch a second local bus upto Vietnam, this bus had about 10 seats- 7 Vietnamiese, Tom, another foreigner and I. It started off wonderous, how cool is this experience? The bus was filled with cigarette smoke and had insence burning the entire ride. We sat at the front so we had leg room to stretch out and sleep as this was an overnight bus leaving at 7pm and should arrive in Dong Ha early the next morning.

Well we woke up on some street outside of shop in the middle of the pitch black with men coming on the bus asking to take our passports so he can stamp them- now we just woke up, were still foggy, its still late and dark, and scary men are wanting to take our passports! What the F*ck? We have crossed a few boarders now in our time and decided to wait untill we got to the boarder and have an official stamp our passports. 2 Hours later we were still parked, its still dark maybe 6am in which we barely slept a wink and another man came on the bus saying the same thing, this time holding about 16 Vietnamise passports and said this is how they did it, we also had to give him 20000 kip.The other foreginer who was on the bus with us as well said he would give it to him, we were still skeptical- surely this isnt procedure, is it?  WHY ISNT THIS IN THE LONELY PLANET ANYWHERE? So he said he will go with the guy who is taking our passports to see what happens- I was sick to my stomach, hoping to no ends he would come back than instant, thankfully no sooner than it took me to walk on the bus and walk off again he was back with a large grin and told us very happy news.

The border is 2 minutes away and he took our passports straight to the window to be stamped and we pick them up from the same man who took them. Thank you for delivering what could be some of the best news possibly ever.

So the bus starts moving- drives us two minutes down the road to drop us off at the Lao Bao border where you have to walk about 10 minutes to get to a desk that scans your forehead, and then stand in another line to have your passport stamped? woah woah- isnt that what we just did? Okay, dont panic I now have my passport in my hand with a stamp its all okay. So we waited in two different lines just to get someone sitting behind a large glass window to take your passport, look at it for about 20 minutes as if they didnt beleive you are who it says before they let you through. We also needed to pay another 10000 Kip for them to stamp us and hopefully our journey across the boarder is finished, only to hope and pray our bus comes through with all our bags. Fingers crossed - we waited about ten minutes before we seen it pull into view, thank you, thank you thank you. In Vietnam. After the weirdest boarder crossing in all the land?

Wait untill you hear about the second journey- its a doozy but we are catching a bus down to Hue in about 40 minutes so will update you there.

Love and miss you all XO