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After having celebrated New Year in Chiang Mai, we crossed the Mekong river into Laos at the Chiang Khong/Houei Sai (Huay Xai) border crossing. From where a two day boat ride down the Mekong river took us to the historic Laotian town of Luang Prabang. <br />

Laos and Vietnam

Odv
2006-04-13 20:10:12

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which was willing to do it for 40,000 Dong (about 2.60 US Dollars). The bus driver even gave us the money for the taxi!

The taxi driver asked us where we wanted to go so we gave him the name of our hotel. He said that he knew where it was, but once in Hué he stopped in front of another hotel and declared that we had arrived in the center. We disagreed of course because it was not our hotel. He then wanted another 40,000 Dong to bring us to our hotel (which was less than 1 kilometer away). This did not come unexpected as we had been forewarned by other travelers to Vietnam who experienced the same problem.

I made it clear to him that he would not get a single Dong from us if he did not bring us to our hotel. After more wasted time, he finally agreed to bring us there, but demanded that we pay first. I asked him if he really thought we were that stupid?

Unfortunately we were lied to and deceived many other times. They are able to lie to your face in ways that I had not thought possible, on one occasion they told everyone in an already full bus that we had to change to a bigger bus. Yet the bus we had to change to was a lot smaller and everyone was crammed into it.

Bus trips in Vietnam are horrible, besides the bad quality of the buses, suicidal and asocial driving habits, every driver honks continuously. Not that anyone in Vietnam ever reacts to the sound of a horn. The horns are uncomfortably loud making a lot of noise inside the bus as well. The drivers must be deaf. When one vehicle passes another, a symphony of horns takes place, since this happens continuously earplugs are a must when taking a bus in Vietnam.

We soon got to hate buses so much that we switched to using the more expensive train service. But that also had its downside. We shared a compartment with two young Swiss girls, one of whom went to the toilet in the middle of the night without waking anybody up. Somebody locked her into the toilet ...