Night bus from Phong Nha to Hanoi*

Last night we took our first night bus in Vietnam from Phong Nha to Hanoi. In true Vietnamese fashion, the bus was an hour late and we were left standing in the cold at 10pm waiting for our bus to arrive. When we eventually got on the bus, we discovered that although we paid a lot more for a VIP bus (as opposed to a normal sleeper bus), it was basically just a sleeper bus with curtains and small TV screens. The seats were actually shorter and less comfortable than the cheaper sleeper bus, which, combined with the extremely rude bus driver, made for an uncomfortable and mostly sleepless 8hr journey to Hanoi. Despite the bus arriving in Phong Nha an hour late, we made up some time on the road (we had the curtains closed so we couldn't see how crazily the bus was being driven - a trick we learnt in South America) and arrived in Hanoi only half an hour late around 7am. After dropping our bags at the hotel, we went for some delicious beef pho from a stall across the street and a hot egg coffee from Cafe Giang to warm us up. We have only a day in Hanoi before we jump on another bus early tomorrow to head north to Ha Giang.Read more