Vang Vieng ➡️ Hanoi ➡️ Ho Chi Min

Decided not to hot air balloon as it was a lot of money and didn't want to disappointed by the view. Pleased with my decision as the rain had only half cleared the smoke when I woke up this morning.
Today's travel was a mission and a half. I bought a ticket online thinking it'd be one long coach. But instead it was 4 minibuses across 5 hours to get to Vientiane bus station with various stops-offs and breaks (it should've been a 2 hour drive), and then a 24hr sleeper bus across to Hanoi. The sleeper bus was an experience...
We left at 6pm, I had just got just lovely and cosy in my windowless bus bunk, when I realised there were two pillows, two blankets and the bunk was meant for TWO people. There was barely enough room for one, let alone two, especially when the other person is a stranger 🙃
Safe to say I didn't get much sleep on that bus. I spent most of it, hunched over in one corner of the bunk watching TV, and when I tried to get some sleep I moved into the aisle to lie down. It was a bumpy shaky ride to the border, which I didn't realise wasn't open 24hrs. We got there at 3am, the engine got switched off, I thought I could get some solid sleep as we were no longer moving, but with the engine went the Aircon, so the bus got increasingly warm. At 5am it was too hot, so I escaped the bus and found somewhere to chill out before the border opened at 7.
We had our passports checked about four times just to exit Laos. And then had to walk across the border to Vietnamese border control which didn't feel the safest haha. Only took maybe an hour to get through to the other side, but then an additional hour for our bus to get through all the luggage and security checks. I had foolishly left my snacks and water on the bus, so I was actually thankful to hop back on.
Only an hour after lunch we broke down, and I had a mini panic thinking I may miss my flight, but we were off again in less than 20 minutes.
We actually got into Hanoi 15 minutes ahead of schedule. My flight had been delayed an hour, so I had 5 hours to kill; I visited an atm, cafe and restaurant. At the airport I absolutely breezed through baggage and security and hopped aboard my flight, which I slept for the majority of. Got a taxi and arrived into my hostel at 3am, 39 hours after leaving Vang Vieng!Read more