The Masochist Express: Hanoi to Vientiane

Just thought I'd share my experience on the "set menu from hell" bus, the 24-hour service from Hanoi to Vientiane. First of all, I knew it would be a long, uncomfortable journey, so I bought my own water, food and snacks to take with me on the bus. I packed music, books and earplugs as well as my invaluable bandanna (sleeping mask, sweat rag, etc) to make sure I would be as comfortable as possible for the journey. And I bought the cheapest ticket I could find. I figured that the price differences didn't matter, nor would any photos that the agents tried to show me actually reflect the bus I would be shunted onto (I paid $14 and got promised A/C; another pair paid $21 each, another guy paid $16. Just know that there will be no A/C and your luggage will be stuffed in the back, or possibly strapped on top if there's really no space back there). The bus was not VIP (contrary to the proclamation of the stick-on letters on the bus windscreen)-- the seats were not as narrow as the coaster buses I had up the coast, but they were not plush. Nor clean. Every inch of personal space was shared with other backpackers, Vietnamese people randomly getting on and off the bus, sacks of rice, cartons of juice going to Laos, etc. I was lucky not to get a seat in the very back row-- those seats couldn't recline because of the cargo and rucksacks piled up behind them. The bossy little conductor tried to get all the white people to sit in those back seats, so these poor Dutch girls had to sit there all night without the ability to lean back and get some sleep. But there was no karaoke music, no TV blaring, and I have to say, the road wasn't that bad-- especially from the Laos border to Vientiane, it felt newly paved and we were flying. We made random stops every five minutes until we were hours out of Hanoi, but after that, the occasional meal stop was just annoying, not sanity-threatening. Getting into Laos took an hour or so, and was quite hectic and a little upsetting. I didn't have a visa beforehand, and no one tells you anything about how to check out of Vietnam or get your visa on arrival. We rocked up at the border at 6am, which meant only 1 hour to wait (cheap cafe su'a inside the souvenir shop-type building). Checking out of Vietnam cost 15,000 dong (I just don't question Vietnamese "taxing"), my Laos visa cost $30 (as promised) with a 2,000 kip fee for something or other. I learned how to queue up southeast Asian style-- it helps to be tall and have a long wingspan for reaching over shorter people and shoving your passport through the office windows. We didn't change buses at the border-- same bus for the next five or six hours to Vientiane, with one stop for breakfast (overpriced but tasty co'm at a roadhouse). Once in Vientiane, we were dropped at the bus station about 12 km out of town, which meant us whiteys piled into a sawngthaew for a 10,000 kip each ride to Nam Phu in the center of town-- from there, we all split up to find guesthouses on our own, no touts included. Overall, I would say that if you're prepared to be out-of-sorts, tired and a bit cranky on arrival, it's not a bad deal to pay about $14-16 for a 23-hour bus ride to another country. It's cheaper than flying, and there were a few other backpackers on my bus that also had a sense of humor about the whole thing. So you can all go out for Beerlao later in Vientiane and look back and laugh a bit.