Journey through mountains

The journey to Vinh started six a.m. In Phonsavanh and the weather was the coldest so far on the whole trip. We had not enough clothes to make the tuk tuk ride to the bus station comfortable. Also, yesterda

y night had been a little long because we ended up drinking with the local teenagers in a local night club. When we got to the bus it was even colder and for the whole way to the border it didn't get any better. We were a little unsure about our border crossing because we had no visa and had read that the particular crossing point had a reputation of numerous rip-offs and even abandoning people into the mountains with no possibility to negotiate. Only two foreigners were on the bus with us, a Chinese boy and a German girl. With the boy, we ended up traveling all the way to Hoi An.

The scenery was amazing! The most beautiful and outragous mountains I have ever seen were everywhere and the 6 hour drive felt like 15 min. I couldn't manage to capture anything nice on camera and decided not to worry about photographing. It was surely amazing! On the way was also numerous mountain villages and the local tribes who lived in total silence in the middle of nowhere.

On the border of Laos and Vietnam the trouble was already waiting for us. Having no visa to Vietnam the Lao officer refused to give us an exit stamp. When we were asking about the demanded actions he said with an absolute blank face: ”You need to go ask Vietnam if it's ok to enter”. Being a little confused we marched to the Vietnam side of the border, which was some 200 meters from Laos side, and asked the officers if it was ok for us to enter the country. They said it was ok and started going through our passports for further bureucracy. In a while, all the others came also to the border and gave their passports to the officers. When noticing there wasn't the Lao exit stamp they said we should get it first. Then, we ran back to the Lao side and needed to wake up the leading officer. Then, after going back to Vietnam side we finally made it to the country. Others in the bus were a little anxious because they had to wait a long time.

We made it to Vinh about seven o'clock and started inquiring possible places to sleep. We soon found out it would be wisest to head directly to Hoi An with a night bus. The next morning, having traveled twenty four hours non-stop, we arrived to Danang where it was still an hour to Hoi An. In the night, sleeping was welcome and also the Vietnamese cuisine which is amazing!