I turned over my rented kayak and motorbike and said ‘goodbye’ and ‘thank you’ to invigorating days on northeastern Vietnam’s Cat Ba Island. My new goal: tracing my newly made Australian friend, Sydney, somewhere in the western wilderness and finding a janky way of stumbling into Laos.
I returned to Hanoi and immediately rolled over to find buses going further westward. Somehow, Sydney landed herself in the rural valley town of Mai Chau, a long way from anything with only one way in or out. Luckily, a small mini van, hauling an extremely hungover German guy, was heading in exactly that direction.
The van bounced and tottered along the winding mountain road, the German man lying in the back swearing as the jolts and turns tossed him into the air.
After several hours cruising upwards making harrowing hair pin turns next to sheer hundred foot drop-offs, we sailed steadily downwards into a deep green valley.
The driver let us out next to a pod of village huts in the middle of a rice field; a pleasant-enough place, but not where I intended to be. They took me to the German guy’s homestay, and no matter how I tried to explain and gesture that I paid to be taken into the town, I was met with head scratching, blank stares, and a lot of pointing at the hut. The van pulled away leaving me in a rice field with a miserable German guy.
A Vietnamese woman trotted out of the house full of gaiety and understanding. She was like an angel, graceful, polite, cheerful, and descending to meet my concerned furrows with offers of “Would you like food? I have internet card, need a computer? Please, please sit, relax, my home is your home.”
Momentarily dumbfounded, I eventually used her computer to send Sydney some messages. Sydney, someone who never responds to Facebook messages promptly, happened to be walking around town and accidentally stumbled upon the only Wifi connection – not password protected – in town at the same time that I messaged her. And from bits of information, we pieced together, roughly, where we were in relation to one another, agreeing to meet by the one “oddly shaped building”. The Vietnamese angel drove me to the exact location with a smile, never asking for anything.
Sydney and I committed to a two-day, unplanned homestay in the middle of the rice, a bowl of waving green beauty surrounded by waterfall-laced mountains, friendly locals, and wild nighttime festivals, including a dance of fire and rice wine. The host family cooked the best Vietnamese food I ate during my entire adventure in Vietnam. Providential timing, because were leaving the country.
On the third night, the Father in the host family drove us to a small roadside store on the edge of town. We waited. Phone calls were made. Eventually, around midnight, a large sleeper bus appeared out of the blackness and wound open its door. We took the two beds available that were sacrificed for us, as locals slept on the floor.
At about 5 AM the bus pulled into Dien Bien Phu. Our original plan included staying there a day to sleep and see some sites. However, the station attendant told us that one minibus departed for the Laos border at 5:30 AM. For the sake of time, money, and adventure, we tossed our bags on top of the bus and snatched up some coffees and bahn mi’s for the road.
First the bus filled up, with foreigners and locals alike. Some guys tied down Sydney and I’s bags, alone, on top and threw everyone else’s bags underneath the bus. In terms of seating, about 12 people could sit comfortably, 15 if they didn’t bother being a little smushed.
15 people got on the bus. Then, 15 more people got on the bus.
Sydney squeezed around and looked back at me from the front, and just the raised eyebrows showed me we were thinking the same thing: This was going to be a bus ride we remembered.
People sat, stood, squatted, lay, and curled up wherever they could find room. A man used me as a head rest. Another as an arm rest. A man sat half on my left leg and half on another guy’s leg. A man stood leaning over me, his belt buckle falling uncomfortably close to my face on quick turns. People twisted and contorted and even sat hanging partly out of the window.
We drove for fifteen minutes and then stopped. We waited on the side of the road for an hour while they made an already crammed bus even more crowded. Men lifted bag after bag of fish food and rice to the top of the bus. Then they packed it into the remaining space between the bags and luggage underneath the bus. Then we continued on the three hour journey to the Laos border.
In the middle of nowhere, the bus stopped again. The door opened. People, with their bags, eyed the clown car with casual glances and pushed their way in. We became sardines.
Luckily, a lot of the other foreigners carried a good sense of humor and adventure. I started chanting, “One more, one more, one more!” And then we added one more. And one more. And when there was no possible way to come in through the door, they hoisted themselves through the windows. 3 layers of people sprawled themselves across Sydney’s lap.
By the time we reached the Laos border, the bus, with a capacity for 12, carried 38 people.
Just when the adventure felt as though it reached its quota for craziness, we smelled something – something bad. Those in the back lifted their feet because liquid from the fish food began seeping through everyone’s bags and oozing its way towards the front.
We were rank sardines screaming down the road towards a new unknown.
Pulling up to the border, everyone spilled out heaving in grateful air and massaging the contorted body parts. Border patrol didn’t give us a second look. They waved us through one by one, and we entered Laos, as casual as can be.
Strattanville Globetrotter 