The Voss Dufour World Tour

We were visiting the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum in Hanoi. A HUGE concrete building all for a man who wanted to be cremated. The grounds are decently big and you wind your way around, dropping off luggage, cameras and lining up before you even approach the actual mausoleum. As soon as we entered the fenced enclosure, a man in uniform pointed at me and I was directed to put on my long sleeved shirt to cover my shoulders in a sign of respect. Luckily I had read about that and planned ahead, but it sure made my body temp rise as the day was not a cool one.

After leaving my bag at the checked bags place since you can’t bring anything inside, we walked a bit further along and merged into what resembled a line. We didn’t go very far until another man in uniform indicated for us to stop. (The sign said this was a “Pause.”) He asked us to remove our sunglasses and stand two by two on the right side. We lined up and after a small wait, were given the sign to keep walking.

A little further along, a woman in uniform indicated for us to remain in line until we approached the x-ray mags that we were to walk thru for security. Sunglasses in hand, we walked thru and continued ahead. Now we maintained our two by two approach on a particular side of the road, a bit line snaking its way around. At one point, we crossed paths with a group, also in 2×2 lines, who wanted to cross  the other side. They were being held by a man in uniform. Imagine walking on a sidewalk and coming onto a fairly empty road. You would cross. Except not in Vietnam. You wait for the armed guard to tell you its okay to cross the street.

We approached another small checked luggage area where James and Matthijs were to leave their cameras. Kyra and I gathered with other people waiting, not wanting to step out of our allowed area of traveling. We regrouped and kept walking, passing signs telling you that cellphones must be visible in your hand. Finally, we approached this huge building, similar to  Boston City Hall in that concrete jungle kind of way overlooking a gorgeous lawn with amazing green grass–not to be walked on of course.

Maintaining our 2×2 approach, we lined up outside. Cellphones and sunglasses in hand. Hands out of pockets. In silence. Until a couple minutes later when we exited the building.

Gotta admit, seeing a dead guy, embalmed like that was pretty cool. Could have been the atmosphere, the armed guards around him, the history of the man, the impressiveness of the building, but it worked. I was awed. Interestingly enough, we were one of the few tourists in line. Uncle Ho is revered by his people and they hold him in high regard….well the North Vietnamese do.

On a side note, Uncle Ho goes to Russia for two months every year in the late fall for maintenance.

The ride turned out to be 26 hours long, after being told it was 18. I have been on a bus for 24 hours before. It wasn’t that bad. It’s just a matter of expectation and managing it. We were all going stir crazy at about hour 18 and wanted off that bus so badly.

Sleeping on the bus was, well better than trying to sleep on the previous buses we had  been on. We drove until about 1am at which point we pulled into a parking lot and sat for about 4 hours. With the bus turned off. This meant no A/C, turning our bus into an oven so sleep came and went for me. I woke around 6am in a very sweaty state, feeling not too tired, but not too rested,,  somewhere in the middle. Then at 6:30am or so the lights and music came on as we began again on our trip. Pretty much everyone was trying to sleep at this point so it wasn’t good timing. Around 7:30am, we arrived at the Laos-Vietnam border which apparently opened at 8am. We were about the 5th tour bus in line to cross and people were just milling around.

So James and I got off to stretch our legs and check out the situation, wandering into the Laos departure checkpoint office. The Post Office in Mattapoisett is more organized and secure than this place. It was a long corridor about 30 or so feet long, very drab inside and poor lighting. We were the only foreigners in the building surrounded by a handful of Laos people. Until they started to gather in droves.

Apparently there are a couple methods of getting your passport stamp when leaving Laos. The first one  involves pushing your way thru a crowd from 1-4 people deep who are in front of some sort of window. Most likely you have more than one passport in your hand (your fellow passengers’?) and a wad of cash which, as you elbow your way to the front of the line, gets thrust in the open window, into the face of an Immigration officer. The other option is similar except your end destination is the open door next to the immigration officer and instead of throwing the passports thru the window, you hang on the side of the door frame, swinging into the office with official documents and cash in hand. Those are your two options.

But once your passport is in front of an Immigration Official, that doesn’t mean you sit back and wait for them to call your name or anything once you get stamped. Oh no. Every couple minutes, you push your way back thru the crowd (who is also trying to push their passport thru the window) and see if your passport has moved from wherever you left it. Once you find it (how they do that is beyond me as there is no way to distinguish…..but I digress) you can either pick it up and relocate it on the counter, yell at the Immigration officer or shove it further into their face.

As if that’s not funny enough to watch, the counter and window are a little below neck height of an average Laos person . This  forces them to stand on their toes as they are at the counter if they want to see anything. How did that happen? I would assume that someone from Laos built the counter for the Laos people…Oh well. There I go trying to make sense of something in the 3rd world.

So we stood at the back, or well pushed to the back of the line, for a bit taking this all in. Was there a window for foreigners? Was there a drop off and pick up window? Was there any order? Turns out there wasn’t, so we joined in. This is where it helps to have a tall boyfriend, especially when he becomes really tall next to the locals

James gathered the passports of the four of us and easily strode his way to the front and put them thru the window. They immediately got shoved to the side by the Immigration guy. Perhaps it was because we were foreigners you might wonder; except that other non-locals were leaving their passports here, getting stamped and getting their passports back. Hmm….

We tried the tactic of rearranging them. That didn’t work either as other passports got piled on top of ours while other people got theirs processed. Eventually it just took lots of standing around and waiting and we eventually got our stamps, the last four in the corridor. Now we had to walk 10 mins to Vietnam and get processed on that side. Not as chaotic, but still leaving a lot to be desired in the infrastructure and organization department

All the time, we are getting hustled by the bus workers back towards the bus. As if it’s our fault we got processed last after being the first there! Eventually we made it to the bus and were on our way again.

But only for a couple hours until for some reason, which no one knows, we stopped by the side of the road at a bridge for 2 hours. There appeared to be a traffic jam on the bridge and we happened to be on the other side of the road ie not on the right hand side with the proper flow of traffic, but along the left side. Now, to drive on the other side of the road isn’t a big deal, but nobody could figure out why we were parked there. Our bus driver disappeared and then police arrived and he spent the time with them. We all had our ideas about what happenned–he hit a moto, a pedestrian, they were arresting him, the list went on. Granted he was driving like a bat out of hell and using the horn incessantly.

Finally we got back on the road, only to stop for another 30 minutes on the side of the road with cop cars next to us. All this just past a sign saying 80 km (~50 miles) to Hanoi, all of us counting down until we were off the bus.

When we did get on the road, it was as if the driver wanted to make up for lost time. He drove like a mad man, pretty much laying on the horn for about 45 of every 60 seconds, making for a very chaotic ride.

I view that ride as a lost day of my life I will never get back!