Run, Forest Run!

Monday 1st November

Well we have made it into Vietnam with absolutely no thanks to the Chinese tour operators! We had contacted a guy called Forest who offered a deluxe sleeper bus from Guilin directly through to Hanoi. All seemed to be great, the website was professional and the reviews seemed to check out so we took a punt and went for it!

We were told that we would be picked up from our hostel and taken to the bus, technically this was a correct stateman as some guy came to meet us and then proceeded to drag us through the streets of Guilin before leaving us stranded outside a hotel. When he came back he hassled us to pay him as our luxury bus was just moments away, repeating the mantra "Don't you trust me" as we repeated "No" in unison. It was a pretty uncomfortable 20 minutes as he started to have arguments with his boss on the phone, but there was bugger all chance we were paying him unless we had transport.

Then we saw it. The ramshackle 1960s coach that careered around the corner had definately passed it hayday, not only did it have a distinct lack of sleeping facilities but also a distinct lack of available seats. With little other option we were eventually hearded onto the bus and the nice coach lady kicked three other unsuspecting people out of their seats so that we could sit down and brace ourselves for the 15 hour onslaught.

We had been lucky enough to get two seats together so I sat next to Tyler whilst Pauline sat with the randoms in a different row. As always Tyler took no time at all in making himself comfortable and was soon sprawled across both seats with his head nestled against my leg. This in itself sounds fine but the Romans never made it as far as Guilin so the roads are less than straight and extremely bumpy all the way.

So as I braced myself once again to be pummled by Tylers forehead whacking into my groin, whilst the man to my right used his elbows to gently and repeatedly fracture my ribs, I found inner peace by thinking of the various ways I would reek revenge on Forest. I had visions of wheilding a rather large implement and shoving it right up his.....

But wait, what was this, the bus had made a stop and we were ushered off, only to be told that we were to join the coach behind us. We looked tenteatively around the corner and to our surprise in all its gleaming glory there was a luxury sleeper bus with our names written all over it!

We couldnt have been happier and spent no time in getting settled in and trying to get some sleep after the 5 hour body massacre of the last bus. To say we were a little gutted when, after 3 hours, we were once again ushered out of the bus at the border is an understatement.

With no instructions and only a vague idea of what direction we should head in, we dutifully followed another group in the hope that we could make it across the border and board yet another bus through to Hanoi.
After going through umpteen security checks and hiking for 5 miles through a very scenic courtyard we emerged into vietnam with fresh anticipation, excited to see exactly what type of vehicle would be our saviour for the remainder of the trip.

We were a little perturbed when there wasnt one to say the least, by now having had less than a few hours sleep my sense of humour was pretty low and to top it off Tyler had just left his iPod on the last bus so I was less than pleased!

Still we plodded on and eventually found a small bus station, we showed them our ticket and they ushered us once again onto a mini bus. As it turns out the ticket wasnt valid on the bus they just wanted to fill it with as many tourists as possible, but the 3 hour journey cost us less than 3 pounds each so I guess we cant complain and the bus dropped us straight into the old quarter which meant no hassle at the bus station.

As we were already having a very lucky day we were so pleased to find out that we had booked the most difficult hotel to locate in all of Hanoi, that laid on a road that was too small to be on even the most detailed of maps. Ohh how we all laughed as we lugged all of our backpacks through the congested, manic streets of Hanoi, avoiding death at every intersection by milimeters.

Still, we are here in the hotel now, it has a lovely building site next to it which seems to operate 24 x 7 but I am too tired to care and I have to get some sleep so that I can dream about all the things I am going to do to Forest if I ever get my hands on him.