I have heard multiple horror stories about the 24 hour bus journey from Vientiane to Hanoi. I was adamant I was not going to get this bus and was going to fork out the $160 for the plane. I spent a good 2 days investigating all other routes to avoid the bus. However, after meeting a great bunch of fellow English travellers in Laos and finding myself in Vientiane with them I decided to embark on the journey from hell with the group.

The ingredients required for the bus journey from hell are:

• 1 grotty, smelly, hot, single decked bus, preferably with broken seats
• 11 western tourists
• 2 aggressive conductors/porters who do not speak English
• 1 maniac driver who makes Jenson Button look like he drives at a snail’s pace
• Long stretches of potholed, windy, mountain roads
• 40 or so local people who do not speak English
• 11 backpacks
• Multiple boxes, sacks of rice and bags disguised as luggage
• A few plastic stools
• 1 fold-up deck chair
• 1 extremely scary, staring local who MUST have just been released from prison
• Torrential rain and fog for the two hour border crossing
• 1 old woman on her bicycle (do not use in the recipe until in Vietnam)

When you have gathered the above ingredients, pack all of this into every open space on the grottiest, smelliest, hottest, single decked bus and garnish with a 30 – 60 minute stop every 2 hours. Let the recipe rest for 6 hours between midnight and 6am in the middle of nowhere. Stir in torrential rain and fog at the border crossing. Garnish with one old woman knocked off her bicycle by 1 maniac driver who makes Jenson Button look like he drives at a snail’s pace. The outcome is the 24 hours bus journey from Vientiane to Laos! And even better we all paid for the privilege!

There are too many stories from the bus journey from hell and I am writing this blog 12 days after the experience but I hope I can do it justice. I think you should have painted a good picture of the bus by now.

The tuk tuk journey to the bus station was bad enough. 16 travellers with backpacks and hand luggage were crammed onto a tuk tuk made for 12 people, I don’t think sardines are that cramped in a tin. We finally arrived at the bus station and everyone had numb feet from the weight of the backpacks crushing them throughout the journey. We ensured out luggage was safely and securely stowed away and then went to get our seats.

18.00 - Enter scary conductor/porter number 1. We all went to the board the bus but he blocked the door and kept shouting “No, No, No”. We all looked at each other a little bemused and tried explaining we had tickets. Apparently this does not allow you to get on the bus in Laos.

Eventually he let us on the grotty, smelly, hot, single decked bus, which is when we found out the majority of the seats were broken. We began to source our seats. Checking for broken ones as we knew it was going to be a long ride.

Re-enter scary conductor/porter number 1. Apparently we could not pick our own seats either. Scary conductor/porter kept grabbing our arms and luggage and trying to make us sit at the back. We were trying to stand our ground but eventually gave up and surrendered to the back of the bus. Some random man appeared and he fobbed us off with some story about it being safer at the back for tourists. He explained, if there was an accident or if the bus veered off the windy mountain road we were safer at the back of the bus. All I could think was if we veered off a windy mountain road, I don’t think any of us on this bus would escape alive.

18.46 - Finally the bus set off and the journey had begun. I had my nightol, neck pillow, a couple of sandwiches and a bottle of water all close by. I was all set for the journey from hell. As we drove off all the seats were full. I couldn’t figure out why we were driving so slowly. A few minutes outside the bus station we stopped and on piled a few more locals. We all just looked at each other and wondered where they were going to sit. We did not have to wait long. They pulled out their plastic chairs and one fold-up deck chair and sat in the aisle! We were all wondering if they were seriously going to sit in the aisle for the entire 24 hours of the journey …

19 48 - One hour in and the unimaginable happened. My inflatable neck pillow was deflating. I managed to find the hole and tried to source a puncture repair kit but had to settle for a plaster. Unfortunately this bit of DIY did not work and I had to admit defeat and spend the next 23 hours without a pillow. The journey from hell just got a little bit worse.

20.48 – The bus grinded to a halt at some shack that I would not let my dog sleep in and we were all told to get off the bus. As we were getting off the bus the scary, staring local who MUST have just been let out of prison pointed at my bottle of water and mimed that he wanted some. I tried my best not to look disgusted and pull the face children make when eating brussel sprouts but I don’t think I succeeded. The thought of this mans mouth and black teeth being in the same vicinity as my closed bottled of water made me feel ill, let alone him actually drinking from the bottle. In case you have not guessed my response was a firm NO! As he got off the bus I promptly hid my water so he would not sneak a little sip.

It turns out this shack was actually a rest stop with a restaurant and toilet. One look and I was feeling a little queasy. Luckily I did not need food but unfortunately I decided to make use of the bathroom as who knows when we might stop again. If anyone was thinking of eating in this place, one visit to the bathroom would have put them off. As usual it was a squat loo which I still have not mastered but did my best.

21.30 – Finally we all piled on the bus again and got comfortable ready for the long journey ahead. Just as I was getting comfortable and managing to ignore the scary staring local who MUST have just escaped from prison, we grinded to a halt. Surely not another stop? We all piled of the bus again while the local people ate their 34th meal of the day. Seriously, how do these people stay so thin?

23.00 – All back on the bus and off we go again. I was trying to get comfortable, yet again, when scary staring local man who MUST have just escaped from prison pulled out a wicker mat of some kind and began to lay it out in the aisle. I got my own back on him as I could not help but stare as I wondered what the hell he was doing. He touched my foot and pushed it out the way as apparently it being in the aisle was causing him some discomfort. I was still staring wondering what he was doing when he just lays down on his mat and goes to sleep. Honestly.

One of the men on the plastic stools in the aisle jumped in the grave of scary staring man who MUST have just escaped from prison and enjoyed his not so comfy seat. At this point I could not hold it together any longer and burst into fits of laughter. I could not believe this little man (who also could be a borrower he was so tiny) was going to sleep in the aisle of the bus. One good think I thought about this was that we must be going for a non stop ride now as he was getting very comfy. So I settled back into my seat and tried to avoid touching the scary staring man who MUST have just escaped from prison sleeping on the floor.

00.30 – My optimism of the bus not stopping again was crushed as we yet again grinded to a halt. We all bundled off the bus again and swore a great deal about the amount of stops. In the 6.5 hours we had been on the road we had only driven for about 4 hours!

After a while we noticed all the lights were out on the bus. We decided to get back on the bus and found it pretty empty. Where did all the locals go? It was like vampires disappearing at sunrise. We had a look around and it became apparent we were at some kind of hotel. We could not believe the locals had got off the bus and were scampering into the hotel for a sleep. We settled back in our seats and must have eventually dozed off as we woke up to the bus horn beeping at 6am. That’s correct 6am! We had been at the hotel stop for just under 6 hours.

All the locals gradually re-appeared from their rooms and piled back on the bus, 45 minutes later they all piled off and we wondered what for. We got off the bus and it was freezing, p*ssing down with rain and so foggy we could not see 3ft in front of us. We followed the crowd like sheep and found out we were at the Laos exit border.

07.00 - The Laos exit border was a tiny, long, thin room with approximately 100 little locals crammed into it. We all attempted to get to the window to get our passports stamped but it seems no one had given the locals a lesson in the good old fashion England queuing system. They were pushing and shoving and passing bundles of passports through the windows. At this rate we were never going to exit Laos.
In the end we caught onto the way things are done in Laos and collected up all the foreign passports and handed them to the immigration officer. BINGO! Success we finally all got stamped out of Laos.

Then came the fun of hopping on and off the bus for a couple of hours. It was like the hokey cokey. Put the westerners in the bus, put the westerners out the bus, in out, in out and shake them all about. One minute we were in Laos, then we were in no mans land, then we were in Vietnam but the bus was in no mans land so we were told to walk back to the bus and get our bags and then go into Vietnam again. We all had no idea what the hell was going on and to top it all off it was still raining and foggy.

The whole border crossing experience was the biggest farce I have been involved with so far in SE Asia. I can honestly say it was the most disorganised shambles but at least we all made it and successfully entered Vietnam. Even if we were ripped off by the immigration officers who wanted money for every damn stamp in our passports, bloody thieving little government urchins!

09.30 – We finally got back on the bus and began the journey through Vietnam to Hanoi. The roads in Laos and Vietnam are pretty treacherous, windy and thin and covered in pot holes. I have no idea how the vehicles survive the journeys but then that it probably why the buses look like they are held together with gaffer tape.

I think it is time to enter 1 maniac driver who makes Jenson Button look like he drives at a snail’s pace into the story. This driver had no fear. I must admit he was a very good driver as he always judged the overtaking distances with perfection and missed the oncoming traffic by a couple of mm’s. However, there was one instance when he misjudged a bend. He came steaming round a bend and was confronted with a huge blue truck steaming the other way. Both drivers beeped their horns continuously (a defence mechanism for Vietnamese drivers) and veered to the right a little and slammed on their brakes. The vehicles narrowly missed each other but Jenson Button managed to knock an old Vietnamese lady and all her goods off her bicycle and into the ditch! She lived to tell the tale but the driver just gave her some money and got back on the bus, leaving her to gather her composure and goods before continuing her journey. We all sat on the bus stunned with mouths open at what had just happened.

I have just realised this blog in extremely long and you have all probably given up or fallen asleep by now. There are so many more stories from this horrendous bus journey and I think you have got the picture.

One thing I have not told you is that the grotty, smelly, hot, single decked bus, preferably with broken seats did not have a toilet. I can’t imagine you are surprised by this. We often made spontaneous stops for the males to relieve themselves whilst all the females practiced bladder control for 24 hours. This was until we made a stop at some point in the afternoon on day 2. Yet again our mouths dropped open and we were stunned as a bunch of local women got off the bus and went to the corner of the road and squatted! The boys we were travelling with found this completely disgusting. We girls understood that when you REALLY need to go you need to go. However, if this was me I would have chosen a spot a little more secluded than a crossway on the main road where all and sundry can see me!

19.00 – Eventually we were dropped in the middle of nowhere about 11kms outside of Hanoi. We were exhausted, smelly, hungry and dirty but were glad we survived the journey from hell. We did not have the energy to negotiate the fare to our hostel but somehow we managed to get a deal with a bunch of taxi drivers and were relieved they took us directly to where we wanted to go.

So to wrap up this epic blog, hopefully you are still awake, I have one piece of advice for you. If you find yourself in Vientiane and need to get to Hanoi I recommend you pay the $160 for the plane and do not get the bus!