And knocking Cambodia from the number one spot - Hanoi to Laos. The WORLDS worst bus journey EVER

So I thought the journey from bangkok to phnom pen was bad?? oooooooh noooooo, THAT was luxury compared to this devils journey from Vietnam to Laos. We set off at 7pm, due to arrive 10 hours later in vien in vietnam, where we would stay the night, get some rest, then go to laos from there... otherwise we'd have had to do 24 hours on a bus and that's just inhumane. Little did we know we would have no choice but to go straight through from capital to capital with no stop over! that's 24 FRICKIN HOURS on a bus journey with a retarded driver and a corrupt bus crew and lots of rude, rude vietnamese people (this is a guess at their nationality, and i'm not generalising about all vietnamese obviously, just most of them on this particular bus). So at the start of the journey it's not so bad, I think i slept from like 10pm to maybe 2am (can't remember, my brain has deleted access to the journey ,much as trauma victims often forget stressful events that are too painful to remember). I had 2 seats so was stretching out as much as poss, then, after packing them in from the start, bags piled at the back of the bus, ontop of the bus, and at the front of the bus MORE people get on at 3am, and me and han have got 2 seats to ourselves and feeling very smug, and i see these people preparing to get on the bus and i'm like "hannah! code red! intruders incoming, feign sleep!" so i turn my back on the aisle and make like i've been sleeping for ages and try to look soooooo asleep no one would dare wake me and ask to sit next to me, these seats are MINE... i think in my desperation to retain these 2 sleep-giving seats i dribbled a bit on the one that would have to be given up if the bus gets full. So i'm laid there, terrified of being asked to give up my luxurious extra seat, and i hear 3 people get on, and they find seats at the back but one of them can't find a seat(incidentally a belgium guy i'd met in hui). So i've got my eyes tight shut praying he'll ask han to shove over cos she's nearer the front, but no, i hear "excuse me, i'm very sorry but i must sit down" bless him! (i'm just laid there goin 'please don't be talking to me, please don't be talking to me, please, please don't be talknig to me' but he was. I couldn't believe my bad luck! having one seat guarantees horrible neck ache and no sleep (don't wanna drift off and wake up to find myself nestling on some strangers shoulder dribbling all over them!) and then i look over at han smugly recling in 2 seats, fast asleep, and i've never been so jealous! But that was just the start of the nightmare. So we realise at about 5am that there is no stop at Vien, (it turned out that that was where the extra people got on) we're going straight through from coutry to country and the guy who sold us the ticket was just nodding at us when we asked questions, and didn't really understand wot we were on aboot (again with the miscommunication!). We resigned ourselves to this, and looking at the countryside out the window at 7am was cool, winding through roads RIGHT on the edge of a cliff, in a valley of forsets on roads still being built in some areas! We go through immigration and these people on the bus had no idea of a queue! they just push in and elbow you out the way and then block you! buggers, i got the hang of it in the end tho and kneed an elderly lady out the way (... WHAT?!! She was the worst perpetrator at elbow digging!). Then we stop at a shyte-hole cafe for breakfast at 8am and i'm staaaarving by now but all there is is rice and some really manky looking poor chicken, so i bought some crisps, but there's this dog outside and only his front 2 legs work, and he wags his tail SO hard as you come toward him and looks so hungry i just had to share my crisps with him, thinking we'd be stopping for lunch sometime...an altruistic act i would ater regret when i was bloody starving. Then at about 12, after 17 hours on a bus with no air con, as the midday sun is at its worst and only mad dogs and englishmen and all that, the bus driver sees his mate on another bus and pulls over in the middle of nowhere and him and his cronies go and start chatting to the other buses crew and we're left like dogs in a hot car sweltering in the midday sun! most of us get out and just sit in the shade created by the bus, there's not even any bushes to go toilet behind, just arrid thorns which no man could traverse, and i was talking to the belgium guy and he said the driver and his mate came up to him and went "give me 10 dolla" and he was like "no, what for?" "ok then, just give me 4 dolla"..! and the guy says no, then they ask if he has a visa to get into laos, which he hasn't and they're like "you can't get into laos without one, give me 40 dolla and i get you one". Luckily the guy knew you could buy a visa at the border for a lot less and refused, but the cheek of it!! Glad i'm not travelling on me tod, i'd have just been like "ok" and given him 4 dolla thinking i'd got a bargain!! So then, at about 3pm we stop at a religious-type-shrine-thing where they leave offerings for budda and the driver gets off and goes over and lights an incense stick and prays for a bit!! AAARRRGGGHH! I've never felt so much animosity towards anyone! Then, when we finally get to vien, they drive THROUGH the town and dump us near a load of taxi's so we have to pay them to take us BACK to the centre! I've never been so tired and hungry and desperate for a shower, me and han couldn't decide which to do first, but food won in the end.

So now after a 3 hour journey today (bloody childsplay!!) we're in vientien and it's gorjus, and just to state, i retract my statement about all childern everywhere being evil. I was walking by the river today and a lad shouts "hello!" (they're not as used to seeing westerners in laos and they are sooooo friendly, you get a proper BEAM smile from everyone you make eye contact with! which makes you beam, and it spreads until everyone's walking around beaming at one another!! i smiled at one little lad cos he was carrying a chicken-type creature - i don't wanna prematurely call it a chicken cos it was bald and ugly as sin and just didn't look right - anyway he beamed back at me and lifted his eyebrows up and down which made me piss myself! it's a beautiful thing man!) so i shout HELLO THERE! Then he shouts " I love you!" so i return the compliment. He was only 6 but he restored my faith in lickle children.