Good morning people! Today I am very awake and feeling very refreshed. Linda and I got a fabulous 13 hours sleep last night and oh boy did we need it.
After an awesome night in Hanoi, drinking pig bucket cocktails and dancing on bars, I only made it to bed at half 4 and was then woken up at half 5 as we had a long travel day ahead of us to reach the border. The journey was about 11 hours in total and so uncomfortable it hindered any attempts at sleep. Due to the border closing around 4 our driver was seriously putting his foot down, regardless of the small lanes, sharp corners, and huge holes. It was so bumpy on several occasions we literally came off our seats, and I wish I was exaggerating. When we stopped for lunch it was at a small restaurant serving local food. One thing I have noticed a lot in Vietnam is that the small local places along the roads, that is shops as well as restaurants, are simply the front rooms of peoples houses. Here it was evident when, to get to the toilet, we found ourselves walking through their living room into the bathroom they were drying their washing in. Another little surprise for us was how fresh the food was. After ordering chicken with my rice the gentleman proceeded to kill the chicken that we had seen outside, pluck it, clean it, and hand it to his wife to cook. It tasted great, and I am just glad I hadn't seen the mess the guy made preparing it before I ate it.
The hotel we stayed in was the most basic so far, and by that I mean there was no wifi, but it was not a tourist area so we were lucky to find any hotel. The best thing about this place was the view. We opened our balcony doors onto a cute little village, with the sun setting just behind the mountain. Lovely :-) . They also had bright pink toilet paper, but then only I would get excited about that.
We are now back on our coach heading to Vientiane...
Oh my goodness... just stopped for a five minute break and one of the girls spotted the cutest baby monkey just sitting in the nearby tree :-) He got quite shy when there were too many people around but when I went to the other side of the tree on my own he was more than happy to come so close I could have touched him.
...anyway, 4 more hours or so on this coach and I am now very glad I stole extra food from breakfast to put in my bag :-) . Also the ride isn't much better than yesterdays. Before leaving mum warned us that instead of "di di di di di di ding!" it would be "weeeeeeeeee ding, so maybe you need anti-sick" which translated means instead of a standard trip there are a lot of bends so you may need tablets to help with travel sickness. Luckily no one is feeling sick but she was right about the bends. We're all being thrown around a bit so I think everyone will be happy when it's over.
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