The "Hell-bus" and Vientiane, Laos

Nov 20/21st: the "Hell Bus" to Vientiane

So it turns out the "hell bus," as it is commonly known around here, is not really a hell bus at all. Minus about 3 hours of motos, taxis and waiting to get to the actual bus, the bus itself was pretty comfortable and it was only a 19 hour ride. We arrived at the ticket agent at 4:45, and were taken by moto to some random street corner where we waited for about 45 mins. Then a taxi grabbed us and squished 7 people and their luggage into a taxi and we took a ?30 min ride to the bus station. Once at the bus station, we stood around for a good long while and waited for a couple more people to arrive, and then we headed in. We bought our tickets, and then stood next to the bus for some time, then got on. Then we waited some more, and finally we were on our way! We had a quick stop for dinner, and a very twisty and turny ride through the mountains to the border (it was kind of hard to sleep). Once at the border (3am? 4am? i dunno), we just waited until it opened. We had a relatively painless experience going through the border (minus getting a horrible exchange rate for our last few remaining dong), we made it through, had some bfast, and kept going. We got to Vientiane a lot earlier than we expected (3pm!!??), then took a tuk-tuk into town and found ourselves a place to stay. We also had a car stop for us and let us pass (this hasn't happened in a very very long time...we were a bit confused at first, ha). After we had some delicious dinner close to the river side, and then we were told there was a festival in town (That Luang Festival) and that we could 'probably' walk there. We were pretty tired from our bus ride, but we decided we should check it out, at least for a bit. We should have taken the hint though, because it turns out the festival was about 3km away. After a lot of walking, we were pretty pissed and also tired, but we decided to press on. That Luang was beautiful; it is the national symbol for Laos and it was all lit up, and people were praying and making offerings. Other than that, it turns out that the festival was pretty much just like any other fair, with lots of food, loud music and games. We got stuck in a large crowd and after about 30 minutes of pushing and shoving, we made it to the exit alive. I got some cotton candy, which made me feel a teeny bit better, but we were still angry and exhausted, so we headed back to the hostel for some much needed rest.

Nov 22nd: Vientiane

We had heard that there wasn't too much to do in Vientiane, even though it's the capital of Laos, and this turned out to be true. We woke up , had some free hotel breakfast, a good skype session and ate some pretty good Indian food for lunch. Then we checked out Haw Phra Kaew, an old temple, and Wat Si Saket, a Buddhist wat with a whole bunch of Buddhas. Then we wandered and saw That Dam, a large stupa, had some smoothies and checked out a couple of bookstores (we've been reading a lot lately...). Unsatisfied with their books, we went back to the hotel for a nap, then found some delicious dinner at a street stall consisting of roast duck and noodles. On the way back to the hostel, we saw the concluding ceremony of the festival, where people play lots of music and walk around a temple with lit candles and offerings. Afterwards, we headed to bed.