Lao international busses are not customer service oriented, they are focused on transporting as many passengers and cargo in one trip as possible. My second time riding the bus from Laos to Vietnam proved to be *slightly* more pleasant than my first (with Preston in 2005). At 6:30 AM in Phonsavan, Laos, thirty-five tourists ambled onto a bus with 29 seats headed for Vinh, Vietnam. Luggage was stored across the back five seats and hoisted in through the back windows. We later determined that this was because entire bottom compartment of the bus was full of scrap metal destined for Vietnam. After seats ran out people started getting angry.. we all paid $15/ticket expecting a seat. They piled 9 people (including Lisa and myself) on top of the luggage, which was stacked about 5 feet high in the back of the bus.

The bus stopped every couple of minutes to pick up more locals who ended up sitting on small stools in the aisle and in the first seat which had been converted into a couch like area that could cram 5-7 people. It turned out that the people in the aisle were the ones in charge of the load of scrap metal. In total we counted about 45 people on the bus. Each time we stopped more people got on, additional cargo was strapped to the roof of the bus and more people would cram into the already full aisle and be passed a small plastic stool from the back.

The trip was not entirely unpleasant as we met some very nice German and Japanese tourists with whom we shared the same nest of luggage in the back of the bus. It was also not extremely humid which made the trip much more bearable than the first time I attempted such a trip in the middle of August.