Buses

Racking up the hours in buses. 4 and a half this morning. Yesterday was free of them, day before was a 20 hour epic from Vientiane to Ninh Binh in Vietnam. Earlier that morning we had a 10 hour trip from Bangkok to Laos. Today's was in a minibus- we cracked the half century. Just kept stopping and letting more in. We were sitting in the wheel arch seats. Had very sore buts by the end of it.
Laos to Vietnam was a sleeper- the seats were more like the reclining ones in Asterix and New Testament times. Most comfortable night on a bus ever. We got to the border around 2 or three in the morning and had to wait til the morning til we could get over- takes a bit- showing passports, then you get told to walk- it was quite misty- didn't know how far to walk- met others coming the other way asking if we'd seen their bus, or where the buses were. One young American most unimpressed with the Vietnames soldiers- said his bus had left without him and those dicks had told him to walk- all very amusing when you don't speak the language and don't know what's going on. Went through the Vietnamese checkpoint and then went looking for our bus. Turned up eventually.