Crossing the border - Vietnam

1-4-2011 - Vietnam, Dong Ha

Waiting for my train to Hanoi. The kamikaze sequence of events leading here is nothing short of amazing. Having missed the VIP bus for Danang from Thakek, I boarded the truly Viet-style bus to Danang, overnight. There were no sleepers. Half of the bus was filled with items ranging from flowers to chicken food and bags of rice [that took up the spaces between the seats where one's legs would ordinarily rest]. We rode in the dark with a trance-inducing LED buddha sculpture, that rhythmically blinked blue-red-white circles into the gloom of the bus. I felt completely unphased by it all and just relaxed into it as an adventure. It's never caeses to amaze me how surreder makes even the most uncomfortable experiences painless....and how resistance to what is has a way of innevitably generating suffering. 

So, with a healthy doze of my favourite benzodiazepine, I happily slept until the 3 AM sleep-over stop on the road. Some enterprizing woman had her pho cafe open.....and we ate some heart-warming soup that now feels like a dream I dreamt in my embryonic position on the bus. I dreamt of traveling these magical lands by train....and of being in the land where there is one SOON.

However, the morning gifted me a surprise. I came with two passports, given that many of the Asian countries now let the Russian citizens visa-less entry, I figured, it would be wise to use what I have and not bother with a visa. However, it turns out, the Lao are meticulously particular about the document that one enters the next country with. Never mind that the Vietnamese border patrol said directly they would let me in if they only got an exit stamp in my U.S. passport [containing my month-long Lao visa]. The Lao border has made a big deal of it, which has resulted in my bus leaving without me. They tried to send me back [7 more hours] to get a Vietnam visa in my U.S. passport....which I have protested, of course. By that point, my "it's not fair" young conversation has occupied my brain....and just then I remembered who is generating this whole story. So, I've concentrated and changed the story on the spot and completely surrendered to the outcome. Just then, out of the blue, a kind gentleman has showed up and let me go with the needed stamp.....Amazing. I'm present to just how much my ego gets wrapped up in being wronged. Grossly unproductive. Ahem. [DRY RESIDUE: ENTER LAO-PDR WITH THE SAME PASSPORT AS YOU ARE GOING TO ENTER THE NEXT COUNTRY WITH].

Then, after the uber-efficient passport control on the Vietnam side, I found a comfortable empty bus that was heading to the coast where I could catch a train to Hanoi. Seamlessly, it has picked me up, and I got the exact class, train type and type of bed that I imagined - for a train that was heading north in just 3 hours from my arrival! 

"When one lets go....

it all gets done....

the world is won by those who let it go....

but when you try and try, the world is beyond winning." 

Sun Tzu was right indeed.

I feel relief in leaving Laos. After the wildly scenic north, the dusty post-Soviet-type cities of the south/central provinces felt old and tired....and irrelevant to me somehow. Not enough water for me.....the ocean pull is high. I can see now why most people don't go much more south than Van Vieng. 

Also, the Lao ways have gone against my grain in many ways. EVERYTHING takes its time. Lao time. Including the time when you need to catch a once-a-day bus. Integrity gets a second place to getting a quick buck. The chase for short term profit rules the day, alas. Reservations/bookings are meaningless in many cases. I am not tempted to come back. Though, the scenery is spectacular and the tribal wilderness in the North is unparalleled... My original desire was to see the 4000 islands in the deep south of Laos, but somewhere in the dust of Vientianne, I've reached a tipping point.

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A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It makes the hand bleed that uses it. 

~R. Tagore