crossing the border (continued)

See "crossing the border" below for the first part of this story.

Once safely on the bus and in our seats, one of the guys at the front walked down the aisle handing out bottles of water. The bus was air conditioned and reasonably comfortable. The TV at the front of the bus showed some bad Vietnamese Kung Fu film with fake fight scenes. The speakers blasted "SMACK,CRASH, KA-PWING" as people wer hit, thrown, and shot at. It was comical and only mildly annoying. The bus was nothing special, but not bad. The road was bumpy and the film was loud but I tried to sleep anyway. An hour later, 11:30am, the bus stopped in front of a small road-side cafe/restaurant. The driver and a few guys got off and I assumed it was a bathroom break seeing as how many of the passengers had been on the bus for some hours before Sylvan and I had gotten on. I went back to sleep. Half an hour later, we were still there. Everyone had gotten of the bus and was having lunch at the little cafe. I wasn't hungry so I stayed on the bus and went back to sleep. An hour later, we were off again.

I was a little worried that we had missed the opportunity to eat a meal, but we had a couple snacks with us and assumed that we would stop again for dinner. The Kung Fu movie ended and was followed by the even less exciting sequel. Sylvan decided that since only one guy from the first movie had managed to stay alive, they had to make a sequel to kill him off. I put in ear plugs to drown out the noise and put my hankercheif over my eyes. Then I smelled smoke. Could someone actually be smoking on the bus? Of course... because I'm in SE Asia and anything is possible here. Sure enough, the guy in front of me was smoking a cigarette. In the air conditioned VIP bus, the windows didn't open so I tried to breath more slowly in order to inhale less of the smoke. Most of the buses we've been on have clearly displayed no smoking signs. This bus did not. For some reason, I just didn't expect that smoking would be permitted on public transportation, even in SE Asia. It's funny the things you take for granted.

From what I had read, the border crossing at Lao Bao was about an hour and a half away from Hue. After the Kung Fu Wonder Movies, the man at the front of the bus put in some kind of Vietnamese Celebrity Song and Dance competition. It was easy to see that the announcing was cheesy, even in Vietnamese. The dancing was mildly entertaining and even though the sound was loud, it was more pleasing than the constant sound of fighting and gunfire. A few minute before reaching the border, we stopped at a random village and two girls, without luggage, boarded the bus. They immidiatly walked toward Sylvan, who was one of the last passengers in the bus and, since I was slumped down in my seat, the only tourist visible. They wanted us to exchange our Vietnamese Dong for Lao Kip. Having lost money in border currency exchanges, and expecially seeing as they had targetted the first tourist in sight, I advised Sylvan not change any money. Ironically, I was carrying most of our cash. After insisting several times that Sylvan change money with her, the first girl finally got the picture and asked me. I know that I look mean and come accross as rude, but in cases such as these, I think it works to my benefit. I only had to refuse one time and the girl left me alone. A few of the other passengers changed small amounts of money. We stopped at a gas station and I noticed A group of three women sitting around a table. The two girls who had gotten off of our bus joined them. Sylvan and I concluded that it must be some kind of corrupt currency exchange business. As we waited for the gas tank to fill, a different woman from the table got up and boarded the bus. Again she walked striaght to Sylvan. She insisted that he change money with her and kept repeating the same two or three phrases over and over again for nearl two minutes. "You change dong with me. No change at border. You have dong? You have dollars? You change with me." I'm not a patient person and one thing that I absolutely can't stand is when you politely refuse someone over and over and they continue to insist. Poor Sylvan was being so nice. Well, I'm not so nice. "Hey!" I shouted at her. She turned around and looked at me. I said, rudely, "No. He said no. He doesn't want to change money" and I waved my and toward the door in the way you might shew a cat or a dog away from you. Regardless of whether or not she understood what I said, she got the idea and walked off the bus. We left the gas station and just as the Celebrety Competition ended, we reached the border.

We got out of the bus in Lao Bao to have our passports and Vietnamese visas stamped and processed. We found ourselves at the back of the line. Poor, stupid, white tourists. I left my exit paperwork in my luggage so I had to run back out to the bus and get the driver to open the luggage compartment under the bus. This was quite a task as the driver spoke no English. I ran up the the bus and he pointed at the office indicating that I should go back over there. I said "visa papers" and made a little square with my hands, then motioned writing on the box. I then pointed to the luggage compartment and said "bag." The driver ran back into the bus and got me a pen. I smiled and shook my head and again pointed to the lugguge compartment and said "visa, paper" making a square with my hands. He understood, went to the luggage compartment, and pulled out my bag." I opened it quickly and pulled out a small stack of papers. The driver spotted the visa, grunted, and pointed at it. I locked my bag, he put it back in with the other luggage, then pointed for me to go back to the office, and in some kind of sign language explained that the bus would drive over the border and I would walk. Since this was common border-crossing practice, I understood and shook my head yes. Sylvan was still at the back of the line when I got back. By the time we had finished with the Vietnamese side of the border, all the other passengers on our bus had already walked over the the Laos side and were getting their passports stamped. Clouds rolled in over the hills and it began to rain.

Apparently, if you are a resident of SE Asia, you don't need a visa to travel between SE Asian countries. Sylvan and I walked to the Laos side of the border and up to the "Visa on Arrival" counter and were handed two full sheets of paper each. We were not given a pen. Luckilly we both had a pen handy. As we sat down and began filling out our visa applications, the last passenger on our bus got his passport stamped and started walking away. One of the guys who seemed to be in charge of the bus came over to us and got out attention. He pointed at the bus, and made the motion of getting our passports stamped, then pointed back toward the bus and down the road. He spoke in Vietnamese and maybe broken English but neither Sylvan nor I could understand a word he said. We nodded that we understood, assuming that the he and the other passengers would drive a little further down the road and that we should meet them there. A few minutes later, when none of our fellow passengers were in site, the man came back and performed the same sign language dance, this time with more fervor. Again we nodded that we uderstood. He ran back toward the bus. We were about half way through our paperwork. As thunder crashed and the rain drops began to swell, our bus sped off down the road. Sylvan jumped up and nervously exclaimed, "Our bus is leaving!" I replied "They wouldn't leave us, I think they're just going down the road" and continued with my paper work. We were both a little nervous about the busses rapid departure but couldn't even chase after it without a Lao Visa. Ten minutes and $70 later, we headed out toward the direction the bus had gone. There was an ATM and a money exchange teller. I asked what the exchange rate was and the teller held up a sign that showed dollars to kip and euros to kip. I aksed about dong. "No dong" she said and the two women standing next to the window, who were dressed exactly like the two women that had boarded our bus before the border, immediately began pestering me to change dong with them. Why on earth would a money exchange teller on the border between Vietnam and Laos not accept Vietnamese currency? Something was wrong. I smelled a scandal and refused to change money at the border.

Sylvan and I began to walk down the road and saw no sign of our bus. "They probably went to a cafe down the road to wait for us." I said, but we had both already begun to panice. The rain had let up a little, but the groud was slick and muddy. My flip flops splattered the backs of my legs with mud as I walked quickly down the road, frantically searching for any sign of our bus. Men on motorbikes passed us and honked, trying to sell us a ride. We refused again and again. We walked accross a small bridge a quarter mile from the border and still saw no signs of our bus. "Something's not right." Sylvan said in a panic, "They shouldn't have driven this far." We increased our pace and kept walking. "We should go back the border and call." Sylvan said in desperation as he again increased our pace. "Would they really leave us? But, all of our stuff. Should we have gotten our bags before we crossed the border? If they were going to leave why wouldn't they leave our bags?" I said still hoping to see the bus, but coming to grips with the fact that I would probably never see the bus, or my bag again. "Okay, we'll just go around this corner, then we're turning back," Sylvan announced decidedly. A half mile from the border, we were both jogging in a panicked state. I spotted a cafe and what I thought was our bus. Just as we increased our pace into a half-sprint, one of the men from our bus came toward us on a motor bike. He nearly ran into us before we saw him as our gaze was focussed on the cafe ahead. Sylvan and I stopped running, smiled, and put our hands on our chests in relief. The man was coming to check on us. He pointed to the bus and signed for us to go there.

I cannot explain the feelings of panic, frustration, anger, and fear that coarsed through me during the half mile journey from the border to our bus. It's the feeling that no one is coming to save you. I imagine it would be similar to being lost in a dense forest having told no one where you were going. No one would know you were missing and no one would know you were lost. No one would come looking for you. OUr situation was not so dire. We had each other, we had our passports and credit cards, we had access to a telephone. But having never experienced anything like this, it was quite an eye-openning experience.

Our fellow passengers were finishing up cups of tea and coffee as we made it to the bus. I akeed to use the restroom as they men in charge tried to herd us back on the bus and found the squat toilet, aka hole in the ground, behind the cafe. As I climbed the stairs into the bus, one of the passengers, holding her small child, ran toward me and the bus door screaming. I moved out of her way and she ran past me and out the bus door as the smell of feces wafted after her. A lot of people here can't afford diapers and it's common for little kids to go to the bathroom in their pants. She ran to the bathroom sink, aka a large trough with a bucket, ripped off the kids pants and began splashing buckets of water on the poor little kid in an attempt to clean him off. She rinsed off the front of her shirt and rinsed out the kid's pants, then returned to the bus.

I took my seat and stared blankly ahead. Sylvan asked me if I was okay. "Not really," I said as I tried to process what had just happened. I was worried. I was worried that, not having changed money, we might not be able to buy food until we reached our final destination the following morning. I was worried that the people on the bus would once again leave us virtually stranded. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to sleep that night out of concern for my safety and well-being. The bus started, the movie blared, and we continued our journey.

At 4:30 we stopped in the middle of nowhere. Sylvan and I got off the bus, hoping to get something to eat. We walked into what appeared to be a restaurant, aka covered patio with tables and chairs. We asked the driver and men in charge how long we were going to stay at this place. They pointed at one of the female passengers on the bus. Apparently she was the only one that spoke any English. We repeated the question pointing to our watches. "Two o'clock" she said. Sylvan and I looked at our watches, 4:30pm. "What does that mean?" Sylvan said to me. "Two hours? That can't be right. We're not going to be here for two hours." I said. The woman saw our confusion and told us that we should eat. We pulled out our dong and told her that we had no kip. She told the owner of the restaurant and they said okay. We handed her 55,000 dong, roughly $4. She said, "You like rice, chicken, soup?" We agreed and sat down. A different woman brought out two plates. The plate she set in front of me had a large portion of rice, what appeared to be some kind of omlette or scramble, and a fish head about the size of my fist. Sylvan had a smimilar dish but instead of a fish head, he had the tail.

I ate almost everything on my plate. I was so happy to have food. I ate parts of the fish head, leaving the eyes and mouth intact. They didn't serve us any drinks, but they had given the other passengers tea, which is comparable to serving water with a meal at a restuarant in the States. I tried to ask for a drink, but the woman pointed to an open cooler containing bottled and canned drinks. I signed that I had no money to pay for them. She didn't care and went about her business. Sylvan walked over to the other passengers and asked one of the guys if we could have some tea. The man was very friendly and though he didn't understand English, he knew what Sylvan was asking. He handed Sylvan his cup and pointed to the tea. It was such an intimate gesture. He literally gave us his cup so we could drink.

The sun set over the mountains. The bus was dark except for the over-lit television. I put a hankercheif over my eyes and tried to sleep. In a half-sleeping state I watched the scenery outside pass under the moonlight. It was surprising light out and I noticed that we were driving trhough water. In fact, as far as I could see was water. We were driving through a flooded area. A foot or so of water covered the ground. At one point we stopped to clear a fallen tree from the road. I was pleasantly surprised to make it through without too much of a delay.

At 1:30am, four and a half hours before our scheduled arrival time, we arrived in Vientiane, Laos. We were exhausted. We climbed off the bus and double checked with other passengers to make sure that we were actually in Vientiane. A tuk tuk driver spotted us, the only white people in the crowd, and began hassling us. He wanted 60,000 kip (about $7), which seemed like way too much money even if it was the middle of the night. We found the woman who spoke a little English and aksed her for help. The next thing we knew, we were getting onto a share taxi with other passengers from our bus. A share taxi is actually a small truck with seats in the bed. A bike, several bags and boxes, our luggage, one small family, a young woman, and Sylvan and I were crammed into the tiny truck bed. Our driver dropped off the other passengers and took us the to guesthouse we requested. He knocked on the door and woke up the receptionist (guesthouse receptionsists often sleep in the lobby for security and for late arriving guests). The guesthouse was full. He tried nextdoor. Full. He drove us down the block. Full. It was 2:30am. People get up around 4 or 4:30 when the roosters start to crow. Sylvan and I were about to get out of the truck, thank the driver for his efforts, and wait out the early hours of the morning on the sidewalk, but the driver insisted on taking us to one more guesthouse. The guy had one room left. It was expensive, but it was clean and comfortable. Sylvan was starting to get a cold and we were both extremely tired from our stressful adventure. We decided to stay the night and find a different, cheaper, place in the morning. We thanked our taxi driver, payed him, and went up to our room.

Sylvan and I were hot, sticky, and tired... but mostly we were happy to be safe in Vientiane and happy to have each other. We hugged, laughed a little about the ridiculous day we'd just had, brushed our teeth, and went to bed.