As 24 hour bus journies go, it wasn't bad.
Arriving back from Halong Bay at 4.30pm, we expected a departure at 7.30pm, leaving a leisurely time for getting money for Laos visas, food and generally sorted.
The transit van from hell pitched up at 5.00pm, administrated by a homicidal banshee with no time for delay. At the first stop for pick ups on the way to the bus station, the van was full of hot bodies, with luggage piled high. A Frenchman was lost in an avalanche shortly before stop two. A Spaniard was blown to his death from the North Face bag he was clinging to.
Three stops later and the Black Hole of Calcutta was taking urgent bookings from the desperate cargo as the over crowding reached biblical proportions.
Finally disgorged at the bus station with no money, no food and a rising sense of panic that we would be stranded at the Lao\Vietnamese border for the rest of our short lives, Banshee came to the rescue - for a price. Climb on the back of my moped, he said (note he didn't even try to get in the van). I will take you to the ATM.
I broke my Single Golden Rule; never do anything with a more than 50% chance of a painful death.
Resignedly, I climbed on the back and hugged myself to him like a frightened child. It was only mildly terrifying to zoom with the flow of traffic as the dusk fell.
Coming back in darkness, against the flow of traffic was the most frightening experience of my life. I died a dozen times, only to open my eyes to terrors anew. Dodging between lorries. Zipping in front of careering buses, ears bleeding to the roar of the close proximity air horns. The darkness intensified as the angel of death stalked us in the traffic.
And then we were back, me with a million dong and Banshee with two broken ribs.
As I said, 24 hours on a bus didn't seem so bad.
Arriving back from Halong Bay at 4.30pm, we expected a departure at 7.30pm, leaving a leisurely time for getting money for Laos visas, food and generally sorted.
The transit van from hell pitched up at 5.00pm, administrated by a homicidal banshee with no time for delay. At the first stop for pick ups on the way to the bus station, the van was full of hot bodies, with luggage piled high. A Frenchman was lost in an avalanche shortly before stop two. A Spaniard was blown to his death from the North Face bag he was clinging to.
Three stops later and the Black Hole of Calcutta was taking urgent bookings from the desperate cargo as the over crowding reached biblical proportions.
Finally disgorged at the bus station with no money, no food and a rising sense of panic that we would be stranded at the Lao\Vietnamese border for the rest of our short lives, Banshee came to the rescue - for a price. Climb on the back of my moped, he said (note he didn't even try to get in the van). I will take you to the ATM.
I broke my Single Golden Rule; never do anything with a more than 50% chance of a painful death.
Resignedly, I climbed on the back and hugged myself to him like a frightened child. It was only mildly terrifying to zoom with the flow of traffic as the dusk fell.
Coming back in darkness, against the flow of traffic was the most frightening experience of my life. I died a dozen times, only to open my eyes to terrors anew. Dodging between lorries. Zipping in front of careering buses, ears bleeding to the roar of the close proximity air horns. The darkness intensified as the angel of death stalked us in the traffic.
And then we were back, me with a million dong and Banshee with two broken ribs.
As I said, 24 hours on a bus didn't seem so bad.
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