Day 27 - Two Trips

I got up fairly early the next morning so that I could make sure I got to the airport in plenty of time. I went and had breakfast at the Scandinavian Bakery again, this time I got a bagel which was actually pretty close to how a bagel is supposed to taste. I wandered around for a while until I got an OK price on a taxi. I actually missed the moto taxis form Vietnam because since it was only me I could have saved a good bit by taking one. All the taxis in Laos have this printed up fair list, which the book helpfully informed me was fake. If I hadn't known in advance though I probably would have bought it since it was lamented any everything. I got to the airport pretty fast since Vientiane doesn't exactly have a lot of traffic. The airport was really small only a couple of gates. The area whit the counters was sort of segregated off from the rest of the airport and when I walked over to it a guard stopped me and asked for my ticket. I was pretty confused and tried to point out that the place where I would go to get my ticket was right behind her. Another American woman who was stopped produced a print out receipt and that was good enough for them. I didn't have anything like that though so I just tried to keep pointing out that I had to go over there to get my ticket. I'm not sure that she had any idea what I was saying and when I finally said e-ticket another guard just waved me through.

At the check in counter they were able to get me a ticket with no further hassle. I went over to another part of the airport and got a water, which for a second I though I had way over paid for until I examined my change more closely. A number of the bills in Laos look really similar even to someone like me who is used to foreign currency. To make matters worse they have the number written in the bill in both Laotian and in Western numbers. The problem being that Laotian numbers look pretty similar but are still different. A 10,000 kip bill basically looks like it says 50,000 on it and so on. I went over to the boarding area passing through the worlds smallest visa/security/stamping place of any airport I'd ever seen. To see who had actually show up for the flight they didn't have some fancy shamancy computer system just a guy with a marker noting who had passed through security. I was sitting in the waiting area for a while just watching people come and go, there were probably more foreigners in there then Laotians, when a person from the airport came up to me. Now they didn't do anything fancy like make an announcement a guy just walked up to me and said, "Mr. Davis?"

I honestly now believe that the fact that I had an electronic ticket had sent the whole airport into a tizzy. From the confused guard to this guy who wanted me to come back past security to the airlines office so they could take down more info. I had bought this ticket using Laos Airlines own website, which looked like it was 15 years old. The person took me down to their office and made a photo copy of my passport and credit card for reasons I can't fathom. I would be worried about them stealing the information but I saw the copy they made and it's completely unreadable. My credit card is pretty old, actually I'll need a new one in a month or so, and some of the numbers are a little warn down, so the copy showed essentially nothing. Combine this with the fact that they make passport hard to copy on purpose and they just essentially ended up with two pieces of paper with dark smudges on them. They let me go back past security, who were a little surprised to see me again. The plane itself was an old looking jet propeller plane. One of the airports in Laos is supposed to have incredible views when you leave but it wasn't this one. It was mostly clear but I didn't seem much besides some green mountains far below. The trip was really short, even though it took Ken and Dave about 24 hours on the bus.

The guide book warmed repeatedly that the Hanoi airport was a big place for ripoffs especially when it came to taxis back into the city so I was really on the lookout. It did mention that there were shuttle buses run for only about a dollar into the city, though they only took you to one area. I found one and asked the driver about six times how much it was. Finally satisfied that it was only a dollar I waited until it filled up and we headed into town. It was actually a pretty long ride into town and I was glad I had found this buss. Eventually people started getting off but I was still pretty turned around. I asked the driver at one point if I should get off but he said no. Eventually when everyone else was off they took me to some hotel, which was not at all unexpected. I got into a little argument with them when they wanted two dollars for taking me all the way to the hotel, honestly I was still a little sore about the last time I'd gotten ripped off. I just eventually paid them two dollars and walked away from the hotel as fast as possible. I was trying to find a hotel listed in the book in an area of town know for it windy streets but I gave up when I became totally lost. I knew what 10 block radius I was in but I was having a really hard time figuring out where exactly I was.

I eventually just went into one that look OK and got a room which was about a six floor walk up. The room looked a little dingy but was generally clean and I never saw any critters in there. Next to the room was a ladder leading up to some sort of attic where some one with at least a few cats clearly lived. The people at the hotel were nice enough to let me use their computer for about three hours while I waited for Ken and Dave. I e-mailed them the location of the hotel and the idea was they would find an internet cafe and meet up with me. I went out and had dinner at an OK restaurant nearby and when I came back Ken and Dave had shown up. It was already evening by then and they just went and had some dinner. Now how exactly they got to Hanoi is another story one that I think is best told by this excerpt from Ken's blog re-posted here with thanks to Ken:

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What a journey. That’s about all I can say. I am now in Hanoi, we made it here, found Danthemanstan via email, and had a delightful dinner at a restaurant that is located in a restored old house. The process of getting here was quite the experience though. All in all, the trip took 26 hours from when we were picked up at our hotel to the time we arrived at the bus station here in Hanoi. Our bus was probably moving for only 13 or 14 hours of the trip. This isn’t exactly what I would consider an efficient ratio when traveling.

The trip got off to what I later realized was a very typical start. We got on a mini-bus because it showed up to where we were, and the driver said “bus to Hanoi?” This took us to a very shady looking bus barn/repair shop where we loaded a bus. One of the staff members actually said that he wanted the foreigners to sit in the back because we would be “better protected in a crash.” Apparently it’s okay for the Lao to die in a crash, but not the tourists. Needless to say, such a warning doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in the safety of the journey. We then went to the main bus station, where we waited (on and off the bus) for three hours before we actually left. Why we couldn’t have just been told to be at the bus station at that time, instead of wasting four hours going to the edge of town, is simply beyond me. The rest of the trip followed this pattern: frequent, long, unexplained stops. Each stop was long enough for a slow, sit down dinner, which of course wasn’t what any of the passengers were looking for. My trip was made even less enjoyable by the two men in front of me. They were two older European men, one a Swede and the other I think Italian. Not only did they lean their seats all the way back almost the entire ride, but also both had bad body odor (the Swede was just plain repugnant). I couldn’t ever get comfortable enough to gain much sleep, but so is life on the Viang Chan-Hanoi bus route. I chatted with a very nice Irish couple that was almost done wrapping up a three-continent, seven-month world tour.

The main event of the trip was the border crossing. It was an absolute mess. This occurred between 6:45 and 10:00 AM. Yes, it took more than three hours. The Lao side wasn’t bad, just quite odd. I honestly couldn’t believe it when we entered the building, but candles lit the entire building. I don’t know how all the passports, forms, or money being exchanged didn’t catch on fire, (as like China, lines don’t exist, just pushy mobs). Now, the lack of electricity (or use of it) is made even more odd by the fact that hydroelectric power is a huge industry in Laos, and counts among its biggest exports. But we got the stamps in a relatively quick manner, after paying the weekend fee, which apparently only applies to foreigners. The Vietnamese side was another story. Apparently the bus company doesn’t really care if the border isn’t open when the bus gets to the border (I guess it fits with its ‘inefficiency’ policy). So we waited almost two hours for the Vietnamese border office to open, and by then there were four or five busloads of people waiting to get their passports stamped. As a result, it took quite awhile to make our way to the front of the mob. We slipped some money into our passports (because everyone else did, and the guidebook said a “stamp fee” was common) but I’m not really sure if it was necessary, or even did any good. So go ‘official’ processes in Vietnam. Once across the border though, our trip picked up speed and we did most of the 13 hours of driving. The trip was quite the experience, but not one I am looking to repeat any time soon. I certainly wouldn’t give it anything close to a thumbs up, but it certainly broadened my horizons, which is always a good thing.