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Sapa > Dien Bien

Today was my last (full) day in Vietnam! I had very much enjoyed my time here but honestly, I'm excited to experience a new country and I know that it's soon time to go home. But for today, I didn't have much to do before my bus this evening so I had a lie in, checked out, and headed to a restaurant for brunch. I ended up staying for a few hours and ordering a banh mi, a pancake, and a couple smoothies (which both sucked). Eventually I knew I should do some stuff before leaving so paid my hefty bill and headed out.

As Sapa is known for its trekking, it has a plethora of trekking & outdoor shops, with lots of fake clothes. I was still on the search for a sun hoodie, as well as any other clothing that caught my fancy. The first shop I went into had a beautiful Patagonia T-shirt that I immediately wanted but was a bit more expensive than the others I had seen in other shops. Not wanting to commit straight away, I went in every other outdoor shop I could see on the way. Honestly, everything sucked. All the Patagonia T-shirts that they had, sucked. I decided on one last shop before I went back to the first shop. And that's where I spotted it, a beautiful sun hoodie that was both thin, and not plastered in terrible logos. I tried it on, and they had my size and a nice light grey, so for less than £5 I snapped it up. Back to the first shop now, I wanted the T-shirt in a nice light blue but they didn't have the size I needed so I settled for a light brown which isn't my normal colour but I went for it anyways.

Even though I wasn't hungry, I went to a restaurant for my last meal in Vietnam as I knew the bus was long and there was no guarantee that we would stop for food. I went for some vegetables and pork with rice, as well as some fried chicken spring rolls. It was tasty but honestly way too much food as I was FULL afterwards, and now I had to waddle half way across town to catch a bus. The time said 18.20 and I wanted to be there 30 minutes before but I ended up being there with only 15 minutes to spare. Luckily though that didn't matter as no one was to be seen. The address was for the hotel next to the booking office which was quite confusing, but at the booking office, there was no one atall. A couple people said that they had messaged the company and they said 7pm which made sense as when I went to book the bus there were 2 times of 6.20 and 7.00 so I was fully expecting them to be the same bus. Eventually, more people were showing up, confusingly with different times given to them, but I wasn't alone at the very least. Most people were heading to Luang Prabang which was over 24 hours so I didn't envy them but we would be on the same bus anyways. Eventually some guy showed up who apparently didn't work there according to one of the girls waiting but after that, someone who actually worked there showed up and started asking to see tickets as well as proof we had our Laos VISAs.

In our long wait I had gotten chatting to the others, and one of the couples were from Kent, with the girl having gone to Highworth in Ashford, in the same year as my sister. She didn't know my sister but apparently had over 20 mutual friends on Facebook. Very odd. Also the boyfriend was also called Sam and they now lived in Hythe. When the bus arrived, this is where the fun either started or stopped depending who you were. The bus was absolutely packed and was the most basic sleeper bus. I think they reserved the "best" seats for us but they definitely weren't good. There were 4 different places you could be. The first was definitely the best which was a single seat down one side of the bus. Narrow but you had a seat to yourself. The next best was the double seats on the other side. Pretty good if it was a couple but some had families all in these 2 little seats. The worst by far was the floor between the seats. As more people piled on, they had the share the same small floor space as the rest. Then there's the back, where I was. It was a 5 wide reclined seat like cushioning but with absolutely no divider. This meant 5 of us (all tourists luckily as locals weren't known for their respect of personal space) were lined up like sardines with not enough headroom to sit up straight. It wasn't good by any means but we atleast had room to lie down and maybe a couple centimeters between us. Some of the other tourists were complaining but they were definitely winning having their own seats to themselves - especially compared to the people on the floor.

As we went along, more people kept getting on which was absolutely insane. The very small amount of room the floor people had was getting smaller and smaller and I was worried they'd try and get a 6th person in the back with us. Luckily, that wasn't the case. At our first proper stop, as we were leaving I had noticed that the reason for our stop was the pile of vomit that was on the floor near the front. After going to piss in a bush as some of the locals seemed to be annoyed at me for trying to use the actual toilet, we got back on and climbed over the people who were laying right were the vomit was 5 minutes ago. With nothing but Pikachu Oreos, my earphones, and a blanket as a pillow we kept going. I forgot to mention that in this little slot we had found ourselves in, the AC barely worked which made it pretty hot and sweaty. Especially being so close to the people either side of me, I could feel the heat from the dude to my let's armpits whenever he lifted his arms. Eventually we all kind of turned on our sides into the weirdest 5 way spoon of strangers and I managed to get a little bit of sleep.

We arrived in Dien Bien sometime in the early hours of the morning and every local got off. Not sure if we were staying on the bus or leaving, we all claimed a seat to ourselves which compared to the sardine hot box we were in, felt like luxury. Unsure what was to happen next we sat tight. To be continued...Leia mais