#busfromhell

[yearabroadbologna-blog]

Days 27 and 28: The bus from Luang Prabang to Hanoi

This is my emotional account of the bus journey to Hanoi from Luang Prabang, if you’re interested in taking this bus and want answers to questions that you probably have, skip to the bottom!

The bus from Luang Prabang to Hanoi is commonly dubbed ‘the bus from hell’. After reading that this bus can take anywhere up to 47 hours, I was determined to take it to see how bad it really was. I could say…

View On WordPress

[pineygir]

Oh hai! I'm on the bus from hell... #busselfie #buslife #busfromhell the black and white filter makes it more interesting. Thanks for your pity. Just heard a lady say "this bus smells like Egypt" I have never been to Egypt 👁‍🗨 (at Upper Walthamstow)

[classicalcliche]

"I'm on the #highwaytohell No stop signs #Speedlimit Nobody's gonna slow me down" #ACDC #publictransport #busfromhell #bienestarjalisco #malestarjalisco #transportepúblico #ruta27 (at Highway to Hell | ACDC)

[hesheadingeast]

02.10.14 – day 129 [somewhere, balkans]

The bus is the main mode of connecting the Balkans– they travel from country to country, boarder to border by using a simple network of navigating the mountainous terrain. I must say it’s one of the most beautiful and diverse landscapes I have seen. I have rode by bus all through the Balkans, seen various characteristics of terrain and landscape: from the coastal regions of Croatia, to the mountains and tight bends of Montenegro, through the villages in Bosnia and the concrete mills of Kosovo – it is all so different and unique.

This one, however, is a bus ride I will never forget – it was far different than any other I have experienced, nor want to experience. An eighteen-hour journey turned twenty-eight: I was going from Kotor, Montenegro to Sofia, Bulgaria. It was supposed to be two busses one from Kotor to Skopje Macedonia and another to Sofia. But what was originally a long bus ride, just had to get longer. The original ride was destined to be long from the start – just shortly after 6pm we departed Kotor and was off, but not long before we stopped to transfer a bus – was this planned, I do not know, but was it welcomed – NO! We had a lovely clean, fresh vacant bus; but why would a bus company want that, so they (as if we were sardines) packed us on to an already full bus. After everyone found a seat and the bitchy pregnant lady shuffled people around so she could keep two to herself, we were off once again. But no, no, no – it wouldn’t take long until our second stop was due: a 30-minute coffee and smoke break. It is as if some of these people couldn’t last an hour with out inhaling smoke. At that point I knew we were doomed, but luckily I had made two friends on this leg of the journey: a fellow American and a German, they both were my saviors on this ride; without them I would have gone mad.

Unfortunately due to our slow start, we were doomed to get stuck right behind a life ending car wreck between a truck and a car. It was a sad and scary moment. The road was shut, we were parked next to a field of power plants buzzing in the rain, surrounding that was a junk yard full of the lifeless cars and trucks that probably met their same doom on that turn as the cars tonight. It was an eerie place to stop for an accident and an eerie place to be for the next two and a half hours. We were getting no where fast – so my fellow American friend broke out some emergency stash of Oreo Cookies to ease the burning oil of the late night bus: we still had two boarder crossings ahead of us and we were to arrive in only 5 hours (that clearly was not happening). Thankfully, the road was slightly opened and traffic was allowed to move on. We drove and we drove and we drove, we made it through boarders and into new countries, however, our entrance was shortly lived when we were made to turn around and go back due to a passenger neglecting to have their passport, so back to Montenegro we went and good bye Kosovo. Luckily this hour detour was not too bad, seeing that we kept moving and did not need to re-enter through customs. I wish this were the last of our troubles… The trip continues on with more delays, struggles and headaches. But luckily for me, I met some friends to keep me sane and to feed me some of America’s finest: Nabisco Oreo Cookies.