From Laos to Vietnam

Huge apologies for the length of time since our last entry. Every day has been taken up with sightseeing, meeting people in the evening or travelling. We are tired but we are going to relax for a while when we get to the Thai islands.
Okay we last left you at Louang Prabang. Such a nice town and its taken a long time to see another one.Unfortunately we missed the 'VIP' bus to Vang Vieng and had to get a local one. It really didnt look bad from the outside but when we got into the bus we had to climb over bags of rice that were 2 bags high all the way to the back of the bus. We piled on and when the bus was full,on arrived monks so the locals had to move. There is a rule that the back seat is kept for the monks in case they get on but tourists (who had missed their bus) sat at the back and the locals moved instead. Monks aren't allowed to look at women or sit next to them. Some seem strict but others love the attention of tourists. A while into the bus ride we heard a mobile phone ringtone of a Christmas jingle, we had a good laugh when a monk pulled a brand new flip phone from his robe!Stuart said that he saw a group of monks and one of them takes out a central locking remote and sees the lights flashing for a new Range Rover. They all jump in and turn on some tunes.
The bus ride was fine , scenery was absolutely beautiful as we were going from one mountain to the next which at some points was particularly hairy. Bourkie was sitting next to the window and only told me these things afterwards.
We got into Vang Vieng around6 and got somewhere to stay. We bumped into an Irish girl that we had met onthe slow boat to Louang Prabang and was all excited about the tubing and that she was going again tomorrow. The town has a lovely laidback atmosphere with bars where you can lie down and watch episodes of Friends,Family Guy etc. There was loads of Irish there after having come back from tubing. Basically its going down the river on a rubber tube stopping off at bars on the way. Unfortunately myself and Bourkie didn't actually make it tubing after enjoying the atmosphere a little too much the previous night and we were a little tired and emotional!
From there we got onto a local bus from Vang Vieng to Vientiane which was only 5 hours. It was actually quite difficult to get somewhere to stay and Louisa,Stuart,myself, Bourkie and Jimmy had to wander around for a while to get somewhere decent and reasonably priced. We took a stroll around the city to get some of the atmosphere and found none.There was a mini arc de triumph and a fountain that was set to music from such artists as Ronan Keating and Shane Ward, a little surreal.The following day we made it our mission to get out of Laos as soon as possible since Vientiane was such a disappointment. We found a 24 hour bus for $18 dollars to Hanoi ,also known as the 'Hell Bus' which left that night.
The bus was a filthy, cold wreck driven by lunatics and one very strange man who slept at the back of the bus and made me want to cover myself from head to toe after he touched me. He ordered people to sit in particular parts of the bus for no particular reason even though there were plenty of free seats. I had put one of my bags on the seat next to us which he kept on moving from one seat to the other for people rather than telling them to sit in a free seat. He even asked two people to sit together so that the bag sat on two seats. At midnight they stopped the bus and turned off the engine. This was a very bad omen. They never turn off their engines, even when filling up their tanks. The poor innocent Irish girls on the bus thought they were coming back,we knew better. At 6am the drivers and the wacko from the back of the bus returned , refreshed and well fed.On we drove to the Laos border to exit and the Vietnam border to enter. When we got to the border we were literally at the top of a mountain and it was cold and rainy.We arrived in Hanoi at around 6 o clock. I actually didn't go to the toilet once since I had an aversion to squat toilets. A fear that I have now overcome. Ourselves and the Irish girls went to a backpackers place that they had booked but they had no rooms. We trudged through Hanoi trying to find somewhere to stay. After our traumatic bus ride we treated ourselves to a nice hotel for $30 for two nights.Okay I think this entry is long enough so we'll continue tomorrow. I have finally succeed in getting some photos onto Kodakgallery but have to copy the photos onto a computer first so will hopefully have photos on the blog tomorrow!!!Let me know if you have a kodakgallery account and I can share photos with you!!
Hope all the Americans had a great thanksgiving and prayed for us here going through the typhoon which is Vietnam at the moment!