Hanoi Part 3: The Bus Ride

I get picked up just after 5 pm by one of Hanoi's infamous motorcycle taxis. He drives me to another Hotel where a bunch of other people are waiting for the pick up. There he leaves me and I start a conversation with a woman who says she was dumped here as well, which probably means that a larger vehicle is coming here to pick us up. This is very understandable as I cannot see a bus or minivan drive around in Hanoi's Old Quarter picking up people from their hotel without it taking a couple of hours. We wait and after much longer time than we would have wanted a bus finally stops in front us and we are allowed to enter. I sit down next to a boy my age and we soon realize we are both heading for the same destination, namely Luang Prabang. The van drives out to the Bus Station and when we get off we see a Vietnamese man waving his hands saying "Laos! Luang Prabang, Vientiane!" and we follow him through the bus station and he gives us our tickets. He then points us in the right direction. We find our bus, but now we starting to feel that something isn't as it supposed to be. My new travel partner Peter says that this is not the kind of bus he traveled with on his way to Hanoi. We are also not allowed to enter the bus, even though we see that a there is a lot of passengers on it already. Another odd thing we realize is that all other passengers are Vietnamese, not a single tourist except us. After about 20 minutes we are finally allowed to enter the bus, and as soon we enter the door closes behind us and the bus starts to move. We see now that there is no seats for us, but one of the workers are building seats in the aisle. We tell them that we cannot possibly sit one those seats for 24 hours and he then moves on two other passengers and gives us their seats. We feel little bad about it, but are glad we have somewhere to sit. Lastly, we realize that these are no normal locals going on a bus ride, but a group of old war veterans. One of them stands in the aisle speaking while everyone else are listening carefully and they then applaud him before he return to his seat. We assume that they're sharing old war stories. Sadly, no one speaks a single word of English and we spend the first hour of our bus ride listening to probably amazing stories told in Vietnamese. Then it goes pretty smoothly for a while. I manage to sleep for several hours and don't wake up until we arrive at the border. Also this goes without any problems and when we continue to drive I manage fall asleep again. By noon we arrive to Phonsavanh, the city where you find the Plain of Jars. We believe this is just a lunch stop, but starts again to worry when we realize the old Vietnamese soldiers take their bags with them when they leave the bus. However, the driver says somethings that sounds like "Lunch Stop" and we go to grab some food, always keeping an eye on the bus. We then ask the driver if he will continue to Luang Prabang and he positively nods. The other who works at the bus starts to laugh and say "only two" and we figure out that yes, the bus will continue but we will be the only passengers. Suddenly very delighted with our situation we claim the best seats in the bus and the last ten hours are surprisingly pleasant.