September 8th, 2019
We ended up on a 26 hour bus ride to get to Luang Prabang, Laos from Sapa, Vietnam. This became our second longest bus ride of the trip. It was my intention to break this journey up and stay a day in a border town once we crossed into Laos. However, there wasn’t much of a “town”. I needed to do more research prior to arriving to find a guest house to stay in. There were no options available through the normal booking sites I use. A last minute decision was decided to keep going and make it all the way to Luang Prabang in one shot.
We started on an overnight sleeper bus leaving from Sapa. I have really liked these so far but this time it was completely over crowded because another bus had broken down. We were lucky to even get a seat as all the locals were crammed in the aisles and every inch of space was taken. Since there were so many people, there was no space for our luggage which meant we had to hold it for the first 12 hours until we transferred to a different bus. We also must have been on the most winding road in the world. All night we got thrown around in our seat by the driver taking super sharp turns really fast. Very little, if any sleep happened on this night.
Around 6am we got off the sleeper bus and onto a really terrible shuttle full of mosquitos. We were on that bus until about 8:30pm at night. It was pretty terrible. Dozens of stops and very overcrowded. Somehow, they maximize every inch of space on these transportation options every time. Half way through, they switched drivers which I was thankful for because the first driver played really loud Vietnamese power ballads the whole time. I was afraid I would not be able to take one more Vietnamese slow song at max volume. With the second driver, the music stopped and you could solely focus on the buzz of mosquitos around your head regardless of how many you killed.
The really funny thing that happened is, after almost 26 hours of traveling by bus we were finally only 15 minutes from our destination Luang Prabang. The bus stopped yet again and the driver and his helper got out and proceeded to WASH the outside of the bus. This felt like the worst thing in the world as all we wanted was to get there and be off this bus. Brendan tried to go stand outside for some air, but they wouldn’t let anyone off. So we had to stay in the bus while they fully washed it before going the last 15 minutes.
Anyway, we finally made it, and got checked into a decent hotel where I paid an extra two dollars a night to get a room with a balcony that overlooks the Mekong River. After that long bus ride, I felt like I needed some kind of reward, so the room with the balcony was it. It was nice and ended up being $17 a night total.
We found a really cute restaurant and splurged on some Western food. Brendan had a great burger (he said by far the best in Asia) and I had a hot grilled veggie sandwich with melted cheese which was amazing. I really miss cheese.
We ended up spending three weeks in Northern Vietnam (minus two days that we spent in Saigon which is in the south). It was truly amazing. I feel like we really covered the North and even went to some places most backpackers don’t get to. It was really cool. I know we still missed some jewels in the South and Central part of Vietnam but, even having as long of a trip as we have, you still have to pick and chose what you want to see. At first, I wasn’t quite sure about the food (except for pho) but as we went I found some dishes that I really liked and began to enjoy it more. I’m still definitely ready for a change as anything over and over again gets tiring but that seems to be the theme anywhere other than the United States. I remember even when we went to Ireland and Italy it seemed like the menus at all the restaurants were pretty much exactly the same.
Some funny things that stood out to me included the Vietnamese’s favorite pastime being karaoke! You can be in the smallest of towns that do not even have a full grocery store but they will for sure have a karaoke bar fully decked out with neon lights and everything. At every homestay they had a karaoke set-up and we would be sitting around talking, then all of a sudden realize one of the family members would begin singing karaoke by himself. Even in the big cities it could be 11am and you would hear someone just belting out a Vietnamese song at a karaoke bar while on their lunch break. It was so funny. I participated one night at a homestay after some corn wine and sang Maroon 5 “Girls” with the two other girls we were riding motorcycles with.
Another interesting cultural thing is that all the guys smoke out of big long bamboo bongs. They also all smoke cigarettes, but a bong is always sitting in a bucket in front of any restaurant, business, hotel etc. The locals will just come up and help themselves to a hit or two and carry on with what they are doing. At first, I didn’t really know what they were smoking (they do have hemp plants growing everywhere here). I was pretty sure smoking pot was illegal here but thought it might be an accepted cultural norm. Then I saw one of our bus drivers get out and take a few big hits at a stop so I realized it must not be anything mind altering if our driver was doing it. Turns out, it is just tobacco that they load it with but it is like a whole cigarettes’ worth of tobacco that they get in one or two hits and it is very strong. As we traveled, I noticed some of our drivers would keep the big long bong in their bucket right in the front seat with them so anytime they had the opportunity they could take a hit. Really interesting.
Although I was happy for the experience, like I mentioned before I didn’t really care for the big cites. They were just too chaotic. However, the countryside was some of the most beautiful I have ever seen. We have thoroughly enjoyed our time here and Vietnam is now on the list of some of our favorite countries we have been to.