There’s a place in Hanoi you should avoid. The hotel is called Camellia Star hotel. Their address is 37 Yen Thai St. The email address is t&ttravel@hotmail.com. Be sure to email them a nasty letter, and if you happen to be in Hanoi, please give them the finger for me. They seemed nice when I was checking in, as they all do when you are perhaps going to spend money at their business. They were actually pretty nice all the way until I was checking out, then things really went downhill.

I’ve heard a LOT of similar stories while traveling in Vietnam about being lied to, ripped of, misinformed, and just getting serious attitude from the people if you don’t want to buy something, so it may be something to do with the culture, but I don’t want to sound prejudiced. I DID meet many wonderful Vietnamese people. Anyway, on with the story…

In order to stay a month in Laos, you have to get your visa ahead of time at a Laos Embassy. Two days before I wanted to leave Vietnam for Laos, We all rented bicycles from my hotel to do our visa business. We waited around for nearly a half hour, and when they finally arrived, two of them were the usual upright one-speeders, and then there was the shitty little mountain bike. I immediately went for the tallest bike, and Marc went for the other. Nada got on the mountain bike for about 10 seconds and then flat out refused to ride it. I did the chivalrous thing (and I didn’t want to wait around for another half hour) and took the little bike. It was to be a key element in my future horror. After spending too much time getting fruit shakes and coffee, I left Marc and Nada to go to the Laos embassy to get my visa. It was only about 3 kilometers away at most, but it took a few stops to refer to the Hanoi map to be sure I was on the right track. Although my guidebook said otherwise, the Laos embassy closes at 4 pm. I got there at 4:06. 6 minutes too late! As I was riding home through the Hanoi traffic, I started to notice my ass was getting mighty irritated by the skinny, tiny, rock hard seat on this little bike that had my knees nearly hitting the handlebars when I peddled. Hotels, agencies, and guesthouses all over town advertise that they offer visa services, and for a few extra bucks, I thought it would be worth it to use my guesthouse’s services to get my visa just to be sure I got it in time. I made it very clear I needed the one month visa, and that I needed it by the following day. “sure sure, one month, 40 dollars plus 3 dollar commission.” They were certain they could do for me, and I would even “get it cheaper through them” than if I bought it myself since they “knew someone at the embassy”…so they said. The next morning I ask about my visa, and they show it to me, and it says Laos Visa type TR-B63. Nowhere does it show how long the visa is for, so I ask them,” is this a one month visa?” ” yeah yeah, one month, don’t worry. ” Ok, fine. (Cue the ominous music…)
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That morning, I feel my hemorrhoid swelling up painfully. Fabulous. I take baths all day, visit a pharmacist to get prep H and constipation pills (don’t ask how I explained it), and start popping the codeine I brought from home, but nothing is working. It just keeps getting sorer and sorer. By late morning, it’s a trial to just sit down on one of the tiny chairs that seem to exist everywhere in Vietnam. Getting up from them is even worse. I move in slow motion. If any of you have ever experienced the joys of a swollen hemorrhoid, you know what I’m going through. If you haven’t, let me suggest that you get your thumbnails removed with a pair of rusty pliers rather than the constant discomfort and embar-ass-ment of this. Traveling with a swollen hemorrhoid comes recommended only if you love pain.

So, I’ve been at this Camilla Star hotel for several days. I bought my visa and bus ticket to Laos from them, and I brought them more business by having Nada stay here too. The night before, I sat down with them and had rice wine and food along with their friends, and felt like I was really starting to develop a little friendship with them. So that morning, since my 22 hour bus to Laos didn’t leave until 6:30 that night, I explained to them that my ass was killing me from the bike they rented to me, and could I check out of my room a little later, say, 2 pm instead of the usual 12? Oh no, if I want to stay longer, I have to pay for another night. “But, my ass is killing me, I gave you a lot of business…how about a discount for just a few more hours..” No no. Nothing doing. I stay longer, I pay for another night. End of story. I could have paid the 6 bucks and stayed in my room, but it was the principle of the thing. So, I pack up, check out and hang out at cafes all day, trying to give my poor bum a little rest before embarking on what is sizing up to be a wonderful little voyage into the depths of hell.
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The bus is supposed to leave at 7 pm. The motor scooter driver picks me up at 6:30 sharp to take me to the bus. I sit very slowly on the back and we take off. Every little bump feels like hot needles. The 5 minute ride to the bus…no wait, to ANOTHER hotel is mercifully short. I sit at the hotel along with about 20 others, waiting for the bus to Laos, but the others aren’t going to Laos. One by one they all are whisked off to other places by taxis and scooters. By 7:20, a new moto driver arrives to take me to the bus. My backpack is stacked in front of the driver, nearly blocking his view and giving him little ability to turn, while I sit ever so carefully on the back with my camera and daypack hanging from me, and praying for a short ride or a quick death…

…25 minutes later, we arrive at a dark parking lot well outside of town. I tried to just leave my body during the ride, so I can’t tell you what I saw or where we were exactly. In the middle of this dark lot is a big shitty bus. I am asked to take all my bags on board, which I thought was unusual, since normally the bags go in the side of the bus. Getting on board I’m nearly knocked back from the stench and am simultaneously greeted by the 4 other fellow riders; A young Scottish guy, two women from San Francisco, and a Japanese woman who is traveling with them. I then see the piles of onions in the back third of the bus, and the backpacks stacked on top of them. It reeks of onions, and the floor is wet with red liquid that looks frighteningly like blood a la “The Shining”. This should be an interesting trip. We all introduce ourselves and I just can’t resist telling them my current health problem in order to receive some sympathy and perhaps break the ice. We start taking bets on how many times the bus will break down. We all settle on three as the magic number. After about a 1 hour delay, the bus rumbles to a start with about 7 people on board, thankfully, and we start out of the parking lot….only to stop and back up again. Trouble with the transmission. Breakdown #1 is underway. Two hours later, we head out again. It’s after 10 pm at this point, and after reading with our headlamps for a short while, everyone tries to settling in for a sleep. We were naively hoping to awake at the boarder at 6 am, as we were told. At around 4 am, the bus stops and the drivers get out to start loading the inside of the bus with…more onions! I mean about 50+ more very large bags of onions…not only filling the back half of the bus, but overflowing into the empty seats and stacked high into the aisles around us and all the way to the driver up front. Getting out of the bus would now require climbing up on the bags, and nearly crawling our way to the front. The good thing is that now we have a place to put our legs – on the onion bags, and the other good thing is that onions keep the mosquitoes away. At several points in the early morning, the bus picked up a few more passengers, and let some people out for peeing, and at one point, the bus stopped on the side of the road for about an hour or so so the drivers could sleep. By 8 am, everyone was up and hungry…but there would be no stops for breakfast, no stops for water…we were obviously quite late for the boarder. The boarder didn’t come until around 11 am. We all climb out and walk about a half mile to the Vietnam customs building in this dusty ghost town of large empty government office buildings. The mountains around the “town” were beautiful towering misty mountains which I only barely noticed because I was sore, hungry, and had a burning ass which demanded most of my attention as I slowly walked to the customs building.
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The customs office was like something out of a movie. The very stern, frowning customs officials came in behind us and then proceeded to dust off the counters so they could get down to business…leaving a cloud of dust in the air. Three officials each took long looks at each of our passports in turn, using a magnifying glass on some of them, and a special scanner on others, and murmured things to each other about each of our passports. After a considerable amount of examining and discussing, we eventually each got our Vietnam visas stamped USED with a tiny red rubber stamp. So, off the four of us go to Laos… but first, we have to hike there. The bus sat back beyond the boarder, so we were told to walk to the Laos customs up the road, actually quit a ways up the road, and over the summit, and back down the hill around the corner, about a 30 minute hike in fact. We were all hungry, thirsty, grumpy, wondering if we would ever see our bus and belongings again, and I was certain that soon blood was going to start seeping down my leg.
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We turn another corner and finally arrive at the Laos customs “office” which is little more than a roof over a concrete table and 4 chairs. The officials are very friendly compared to the Vietnamese freaks, and we all feel relieved about finally getting out of Vietnam…but there are problems. many problems. The Scottish guy and the two Californians were told by their travel agents back in Hanoi that they could get their Laos visas at the boarder. Well, apparently not at this boarder. The customs officials didn’t know a lot of English, and not surprisingly, there was no phone here either. It seemed there was nothing that could be done for my three new friends but for them to turn around and head back to Vietnam, hopefully get their visa cancellations cancelled (that could take some time), and then somehow get a ride to a different boarder that WOULD give them a visa upon entry. What a nightmare! The Japanese woman and I had gotten our visas in Hanoi so we weren’t about to turn around and head back, so we handed our passports over to get stamped. Surprise surprise, my visa also had problems. The one month visa I was assured I got…turned out to be a 5 day transit visa. A transit visa is the most ridiculous visa imaginable. It allow for only 5 days of travel, assuming that you are only going through the country on your way to some other country. It’s clearly not what I asked for, and after checking my Laos guidebook about it, it costs 15 dollars. Those bastards at my hotel ripped me off and got me a 5 day visa for 15 dollars, pocketing the other 27 dollars I paid them. Well, at least I am going across the boarder, right? I figured I’d just explain my situation at the immigration office in Vientiane and all would be ok…
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The Japanese girl, Chieko, said a sad goodbye to her two American travel companions and the Scottish guy who all had to go back. After an additional 90 minute mystery delay at the Laos boarder, the onion bus and it’s remaining 2 foreigners, along with 4 other Vietnamese/Laos people, started down the mountain into Laos. There was a little trouble in the bus, because a woman on the bus took Cheiko’s 2 liter bottle of water, opened it, drank about half of it, then put it back where she found it while we were out of the bus at the customs office. Cheiko was so sweet about it it made me immediately like her. She was angry, but she has such a good nature, she couldn’t even show her anger on her face even though she tried. She didn’t know what to do. She handed the bottle back to the woman trying to frown and explain that this was not cool. The woman just shrugged her shoulders and said that her little girl drank it. She didn’t even apologize! She just pretended it wasn’t their fault. She tried the give the half-consumed bottle back to Chieko like that would settle everything. So I gestured that she should keep the bottle she stole, and buy Chieko a new bottle at the next stop. That seemed to be understood.
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I don’t remember much of the rest of the afternoon. I tried to stay on my back as much as possible, trying to keep my butt from contact on the dirty vinyl seats and ignoring my hunger pangs. I realized that I hadn’t taken a poop in about 3 days, mostly out of fear, but I knew that I would have to soon, and this made me very nervous considering the smallest fart was bringing tears of pain to my eyes. Mercifully, at around 4 pm, our bus blew a tire. I say mercifully because the timing of the blowout was perfect. The bus came to a stop directly across from a Laos restaurant, and about 100 meters from a tire repair shop. So, while the tire got repaired, we got to finally stop and eat something. Getting out of the bus was a struggle. There were so many bags of onions to crawl over, my back was stiff, and my brain was only functioning at about 10%. The restaurant had no menus, and nobody could speak English. Walking into the kitchen and pointing also proved to be useless, as there seemed to by only a bowl of weeds on the floor. Fortunately, Chieko had a Japanese guidebook for Laos that has photos of all kinds of Laos food. She just pointed and they made it. I pointed at the same thing and finally we had fried rice and my first Beer Lao in Laos. That cold beer tasted like nectar from the gods. The woman who stole her water bought two small bottles and gave us each one.

Back on the bus an hour later, we heading through some beautiful limestone karst mountain/jungle scenery, but I couldn’t be bothered to sit up and take a single photo, I was just trying to get though this journey with as little movement and pain as was absolutely necessary. It was a struggle to get on and off the bus, so at a certain point, after that beer has passed through me, I really really really had to pee. So, I cut a hole into one of the empty 1.5 liter water bottles laying on the muddy floor and nearly filled it up, Then, at an opportune moment as I saw a big garbage pile on the side of the road, I chucked the bottle out the window into the garbage.
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After another several rounds of reading, sleeping, waking, gazing out the window, reading, sleeping…we finally arrived in Vientiane at midnight. the total duration of the bus trip from the moment we first started up the engines in Hanoi to stopping in Vientiane was 27 and a half hours. My clothes were filthy and reeked of sweat and onions. Climbing off the bus only half awake in yet again a dark parking lot well outside of town, we were left with the option of either paying 2 dollars each for a single tuk tuk driver who waited there for us, or walk. Since we had no idea where we were, it was very late, and there were no other options, we settled on the tuk tuk driver, after talking him down to 3 dollars for the two of us. I picked out a hotel from the guidebook that sounded promising, but arriving, we found it full except for one room with a large bed for 9 bucks. Chieko said she would look elsewhere if I watched our bags. She’s very clever. She came running back after about 5 minutes and said there was a dorm available up the street. We wearily checked in and after begging, were made some fried rice for dinner for a dollar each. The dorm bed cost $1.50. After showering, we both climbed into bed at around 2 am. Today I got up, found a better, though much more expensive place to stay, where I have been typing this story, and after leaving Shieko a note about where I am staying, headed to the immigrations office to try to straighten out my visa problem. Naturally, it was closed when I got there, so I went to the market across the street to kill some time. Who do I meet but my Japanese friend! We walk around a while and agree to meet for beers later. I head over to immigrations and am given the bad news. I can’t buy a one month visa here. I can only extend my visa 15 days max at an additional cost of 2 dollars a day. If I overstay my visa, it’s a $10/day fee. So, my current rip-off $42 transfer visa ends in 4 more days. I guess I will buy the 15 day extension and try to get though Laos quickly.
It’s sad, I really wanted to spend a whole month here, but fate has forced other things. In order get a one month visa, I would have to go back to Bangkok, get a 1 month visa there, and come all the way back. Why does that sound completely retarded? Because it is. Those fuckers in Hanoi have forced me to cut my trip to Laos short. I’ll be sure to post complaints online at the lonely planet thorn tree, and boots ‘n all, and as many other traveler’s web sites as I can to warn them about this hotel scam. So, now I’ll just stay here for a few days in Vientiane, letting my poor ass recover, prepare for my journey, and get my emails/website/finances in order before traveling on.
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12/3 Many things have happened to me while I’ve been recovering here in Vientiane. I have writing many stories about it, but I will spare you the details for now. But here’s the lowdown:

1.) Got my visa worked out. I now have a MONTH in Laos. It took crossing the boarder into Thailand and coming back (about 3 hours), then a few more visits to the immigrations office for an extension.

2.) Catherine emailed me to tell me that we couldn’t be boyfriend/girlfriend right now. This wasn’t a surprise since we’ve hardly spoken in the last two months. It was inevitable, and we both knew it. Back to being good friends.

3.) Grover has an ear infection or polyp or broken eardrum and is getting an operation today, Friday. Please send good thoughts to the little guy. I miss him very much. I just had a dream about him the day before I found out about him.

4. Now I must go because I’m going to Vang Vein now!!!!