Vietnam, 19. Mai - 21. Mai 2023
Fahrt von Hanoi nach Südlaos
I am sitting on the platform at Hanoi's main train station, crying. Karli asks if I want to sit on the nearby bench, but I just shake my head and continue sobbing. My mind keeps repeating, "I don't want to continue." "I don't want to continue." "I don't want to continue."
We missed our train. But honestly, that was just the eruption of the volcano; beneath the surface, it had been simmering for a while. I am going through a personal crisis, a relationship crisis, a travel crisis, an all-encompassing crisis. I simply don't want to go on anymore.
Visa Issues
But now, let's start from the beginning. I think it all began four weeks earlier in Laos when we were stuck in the small, boring town of Sam Neua due to Vietnamese visa problems. The fact that the town was not touristy didn't bother Karli and me, but the heat and the air outside made us practically trapped in that hotel room (see the section about Sam Neua in this post).
Visa Issues
Secondly, the visa problems resulted in us being able to enter Vietnam only one week later, and we didn't get that week back. Instead of having 4 weeks in Vietnam, we only had 3 weeks. At first, we thought it wouldn't be a problem because we could simply extend the visa. We did a lot and tried to extend the visa: we spent hours researching on the internet and contacted five visa agencies in Vietnam. In the end, we had to accept that there is currently no visa extension possible. Before COVID, it was possible, but not now.
The only way to stay longer in Vietnam is through a "border run." In a border run, you travel to the border, exit the country, enter the neighboring country, and then return. Unfortunately, for the country you "enter," even if you are there for only a few minutes, you still need a visa. In our case, Laos is the nearest country, and the Laotian visa costs about 40€. But that's not all; you also need to get to the border and back (approximately 50-100€) and still need the Vietnamese visa. So, it costs about 100 to 150€ per person for the whole process. The second thing is, you still need to get to the border. On the map, everything looks so close. However, the mountains and the less-traveled route multiply travel times significantly. In fact, from Hanoi, the nearest border, the one we entered Vietnam through, is just 150 km as the crow flies. However, during our entry, we took a ridiculous 11 hours for those mere 150 km. We really don't feel like doing that again. We researched other border options. The problem is that each of them has some issue - long travel times or not finding any buses online or so on.
Connected to this is also the question of which places we still want to see in the remaining 1.5 weeks in Vietnam. We have come up with dozens of different options, discussed and discarded them. We played out 5 different travel routes for the next 10 days, and each of them had travel times of about 50 hours. It's a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea.
In fact, a visa agency advised us to simply book a flight to Bangkok and back (even though he wouldn't earn money with that, unlike the first alternative he mentioned). A border run by plane would have been much more pleasant and even cheaper. Unfortunately, we had decided to only fly if there was no other way. We would have saved ourselves a lot if we had chosen that option.
Dark Sides
In addition to the reasons mentioned above, there are a few other things that accompany us permanently. We haven't written about them yet. In the end, you can only tell a fraction of what happens here every day, what we experience, see, and learn.
The moments that are rarely mentioned in blogs are the negative and challenging moments while traveling.
Traveling is exhausting.
It's crazy to have your whole life in a backpack. It's just so small. And every third or fourth day, we unpack and pack our things again. And there are no routines. I wouldn't have expected to miss routines, but every day here is different, and sometimes I just miss the constants. Constantly, you have to adjust to a new place: where do I get what? Where can I get unpackaged drinking water? Where can I find good restaurants? What's the price level here? How do I get from here to my next destination?
Heat
It's incredibly, unbelievably hot here. Words can't describe it. The hot season in Vietnam is always hot. YouTuber Uyen says in a video, "Vietnamese sun is melting your skin off."(hier ist the video at minute 1.30 is the quate. By the way the video is about German dating culture, it was quite funny).
And this year it's particularly bad. At least that's what the media says. As soon as you step outside, you're melting, and after 20 minutes in the city, I'm simply drained and exhausted. It's not enjoyable. It's like being trapped. I didn't come here to lie on the sofa or sip one cool drink after another! I want to see things! I want to experience things! I want to meet people! I want to see the world!
Karli and I arguing
One thing we haven't mentioned here is that Karli and I have been arguing for a while now. The real problem, however, is that we don't understand why we're arguing. We argue about totally small and unimportant things. So far, after our emotions have cooled down, we have always been able to sit down and calmly talk about the reasons and causes of the argument. But here, neither of us understands why we're arguing. It's terrible because it leaves us with no way out and no hope of finding a different solution than arguing next time.
Fear of missing out - FOMO
There are so many things we want to see, and in the end, we have to make a choice about what we can see. There are so many decisions to make. And then there's this phenomenon that I have observed in myself. I see so many amazing things that other people are experiencing on Instagram and other social media. And I look at my own life and think, "damn, my life is already boring. Everyone else has a more exciting/better/happier life than I do." It may sound strange to you, but even when traveling, one is not immune to this feeling. It's crazy, isn't it? But even here, when we see other people's pictures and hear their stories, we think, "man, I want that too! And then we look back at our last months of travel and think, "wow, it was so boring compared to what xyz was telling. Oh, I should have gone there and done this or that."
It doesn't help for now, we have to continue to Laos
Back to the moment where I am sitting on the train platform crying. Now you know why I am sitting there crying. Missing the train was just the sluice to open the inner waterfall that had built up over the past 4 weeks. But it doesn't help. Our visa is expiring, we have to leave the country. While I was still sitting there crying on the floor, Karli took care of the further planning. On that evening, no more trains were going to our original destination. As I explained earlier, we had thought for a long time about where to do our border run. In the end, we decided to travel to the south of Laos for four, five days. That has a very long journey. But the advantages were good. First, we had not been in southern Laos yet. Secondly, we can take part of the journey by train, which is more comfortable than buses, and thirdly, there are fewer mountains, so the remaining bus rides are not so hair-raising.
Our original plan was to take the train to the city of Dong Ha, which is 11 hours away. From there, we would look for a bus that would take us across the border to the Laotian city of Pakse, which would probably take another 10 hours.
The odyssey began with the missed train....
On that evening, no more trains were going to the city of Dong Ha. Only a regional train to a city halfway. We took that one and had to wait for the next train there for 6 hours. Finally, 10 hours later, at 7 o'clock in the evening, we arrived at our intermediate destination, Dong Ha. We spent one night here. Everything is rather untouristic here, and it's also the low season. We looked everywhere for an organized crossing to the city of Pakse, our destination in Laos: We searched for this bus connection on 4 different online portals; we contacted two bus companies, even a hostel at our destination asked for help. No chance. It's the low season, and all the tourist buses are not operating. So we had to figure it out on our own, which means finding a local bus station and asking around there. It's always an adventure to figure out where you have to go at what time. The people don't speak English, and even Google Maps is not helpful. Here in Dong Ha, for example, we found 20 bus stations on Google Maps, but 95 percent of them are not actual bus stations. It was exhausting to find out where we had to go, but we made it. The next morning at 7 o'clock, we were sitting in a small minivan to the Laotian-Vietnamese border. Small detail on the side: on the two-hour journey, we were surrounded by 20kg boxes/bags. And in these boxes was buffalo meat. Boneless, halal-slaughtered, frozen, and good until April 2024. Yes, you read that right, meat. Unrefrigerated. Most of the boxes were behind us, but there were also a few at our feet.
And finally, we have arrived at the border! Borders are often a place where people try to cheat you. Usually, you have to pay some extra fees - but you never really know which fees are "legitimate" and where you're actually paying the officials a bribe. It's best to observe the locals and read the Google Maps reviews of the borders beforehand. And then, if you are indeed asked for a bribe, having an "empty" wallet is worth its weight in gold. Just have another wallet ready with only two small bills that together are worth less than a euro.
On the Laotian side, we boarded a local bus. The difference between Vietnam and Laos was immediately noticeable again. In the local buses in Laos, both people and goods are always transported. This time, the entire back half of the bus was filled with crates, and even the aisle was full of them. There were more crates on the roof. And, we also had a goat on the roof. People were sitting on the crates in the aisle because all the seats were taken. The bus lacked air conditioning entirely. Instead, the door was permanently open. The slight breeze was very pleasant. And having the door open wasn't too dangerous either, as the maximum speed was probably around 50 km/h. Going uphill, we slowed down to walking speed.
We had to change buses again in Savannakhet to get to Pakse. Finally, after a 19-hour journey, we arrived in Pakse at midnight. The bus driver dropped us off at a bus station 7 kilometers outside the city, which we didn't know beforehand, and it's not fun to be standing at a deserted bus station in a foreign country at midnight, but there was nothing we could do about it. Luckily, there was a tuk-tuk driver there who took us into the city.
Although the journey was an absolute ordeal, I enjoyed it in retrospect. On one hand, it gave me the opportunity to reflect while the landscape passed by. On the other hand, I feel that traveling from tourist destination to tourist destination in tourist buses somehow doesn't give me the sense of aliveness I crave. During trips like the past two days, I feel the adventure, the vibrancy of the land and its people.
However, such trips are really, really outside my comfort zone. In other words, whenever my brain has the choice between a safe tourist bus and a journey like the last two days, it always wants to opt for the tourist bus. It feels like... okay, imagine you're at the swimming pool and want to get into the water. There's the staircase into the water, and there's the 10-meter diving board. Of course, you take the stairs because you've taken them so many times before, they're safe. You know that. You're familiar with the stairs. And then you think about jumping from the 10-meter diving board. Just thinking about it, your brain starts to go into overdrive, collecting reasons why it's the worst idea of your life. That it's simply suicidal. And at the same time, you know that jumping from the 10-meter diving board would be an incredibly fantastic, pure adventure, the experience of a lifetime. Applied to our journey, the stairs into the pool represent traveling to the usual places that other tourists visit, using comfortable buses. The jump from the 10-meter diving board represents traveling off the beaten path, like the last two days. Every time we've ventured out of our comfort zone, it has been one of the most fantastic experiences ever, but finding the courage to do so was incredibly difficult. In the case of the trip to Laos, we had no other choice because there were no stairs into the pool, and we were forced to jump into the cold water. It was definitely worth it. But I know for sure that the next time I'm faced with the choice of "stairs" or "10-meter diving board," my brain will tell me to "take the stairs" and provide me with many, many reasons why anything else is reckless.
I would like to list the reasons my brain always brings up against the 10-meter diving board, but I think the post is already long enough. That's enough for today, maybe another time.
📷 You can find more great pictures in the photo album
Comments