Vientiane 26th March 2006 - Laos

The journey to Vientiane by bus was a killer !!
We spent 8 hours on a bus that was so full, that the driver had to provide plastic garden chairs for those having to sit in the aisle.
There was even a motorbike on board, which locals were made to sit on for the whole journey.
The heat was extreme, and we had it good as we both had seats with windows that opened.
You could see those in the middle losing the will to live by the end of the journey.
We have already decided to pay the extra and travel on a tourist bus, if any exist.

Vientiane is well set up for backpackers, with every building offering lodgings, washing and motorcycle hire.
We managed to share another jumbo into town, and picked a guest house out of the Lonely Planet guide book.
We struck lucky, managing to find a really clean place with staff that were not only friendly but a little bonkers as well.

Our first day in Vientiane was spent recovering from our bus journey, so we decided to get up early the following day and do a walking tour of the city.

We jumped into a jumbo and headed to Patuxai.

One Jumbo


One Dumbo - Read on !!


The first thing that strikes you about Vientiane, is the amount of French influence that still exists.
They even have their own version of the Arc De Triomphe.

From here on, it was more temples, although I did have to accept that these were in better condition that some we have seen in the past few months.

The monks here seem to do better than most we have seen, if their accomodation is anthing to go by.

On the way back from the walking tour, we past a sign with motorbikes for rent.
Alison who is normally not that interested in motorbikes seemed quite keen to use them to see some of the countryside that we had passed on the bus.
I thought my luck was in, until I realised that she had no intension of accepting pillion with me !!.

She seemed to think that ridding with me would be too dangerous, where as her with no licience and never having ridden a bike would be far greater - It must be something to do with how a womens brains funtions or lack of it !

We signed up for the day with the owner, and agreed to turn up the following day.

We both arrived on time, with a rucksack containing just enough clothes for one nights stay away.
The plan was to ride out to a lake where we would spend the night, then return the following day stopping off to take photos on the way.

We picked up the bikes and requested crash helmets ( not required here !!).
Alison took her bike up and down the street a couple of times to learn where the brakes were !We then headed out of town, with her in the lead and me following behind.

All was going well, until Alison signaled to pull over.
She had seen a sign to a waterfall, which she fancied going to see., so we turned around and headed down an unsurfaced road.

We managed to get about 10 minutes into the direction of the falls, when Alison decided to impersonate superman and ended up face down in the dirt.
After the initial shock of falling off, she stood up to reveal a body completely covered in red dust from head to toe along with a graze to her shin.

Looking a real state and still feeling a little shakey, she stood up and moved to the side.
This instantly brought out a local man who took us into his garden where he provided Aison with a bowl of water and some tissue to clean herself up.
He then disapeard and return form his house with bottle of different creams and lotions, which he was desperate to to apply to her shin.
He managed to apply a drop of Iodine, but Alison's language and body signalls was enough for him to stop !!

After 15 minutes, she felt able to ride again, so I set about fixing her bike.
The gear and foot lever was so bent, that gear changes were impossible.
With a lump of food and several smashes later, the bike was once again in working order all be it minus one mirror.

We cut short our planned trip, and stopped at the first guest house that we could find.
Alison made a hasty retreat to the shower to clean both herself and the clothes that she had been wearing.

The following morning, we got up early and made our way straight back to town.

Not one single photo was taken, and its only now that she will accept the "Told you so" without biting my head off.
It didn't go down too well when I mentioned that "You cant teach an old dog new tricks"

We are now back in Vientiane, where Alison needs to rest her leg before we move on.
She decided to see a doctor at the Australian embassy just to make sure that there was no infection from the dirt.
All she got for the $111 bill was a tube of Savlon and a pad to keep the dirt out.
I managed to buy a new mirror and borrowed some tools to sort out the bike - Cost 1$

These are big boys toys which little girls should not play with !.
The idea of traveling around Vietnam on a motorbike is no longer a discussion for future travels.

Laos Boarder 25th March 2006 - Laos

Prior to entering Laos, we spent a very uneventful night at Dong Ha.

We did have a little bit of a problem with our accomodation, which was booked in adavnce by our previous hotel.
We paid for a room with A/C, TV and on suite, and ended up being offered a room with a fan and no bathroom.
Needless to say we didn't stay, and opted for a much cheaper room at the aptly named DMZ Cafe guest house with A/C.
It was more like an old style B+B, the ones where you really don’t feel the need to sleep under the covers, but it was cool and only cost $5 !!

The next day, we crossed the road from the guest house and picked up our bus to Laos.

The only real saga of this story, was the customs point between Vietnam and Laos.
We were made to get off the bus at the exit point, and go through no end of paper work, then re-join the bus and move to the next section which was the Laos boarder check.
The Laos side was much more of a challenge, as every official that you had to deal with would request different amounts of US Dollars.
I quickly learned to explain, that I had already paid and pointed to the man at the first desk !!

The whole exercise of going through the check was nothing more than an excuse to rip of foreign visitors.
The passport checks were a token gesture, with Alison even ending up with Tipex all over one page where an official was making too many mistakes.
All they were interested in, was asking for more Dollars !!

We finally made it through the checks, and made our way back onto the bus which was heading for Savanketh in Laos.

The first thing you notice about Laos is that compared to Vietnam, its much drier.
All the fields in Vietnam were well irrigated, whilst Laos didn't seem to have any rivers to irrigate from.

The villages on route to Savanaketh, all had houses that were all raised up on stilts.
I can only guess that during the wet season, the whole area must flood which is why they live so far off the ground.

We stopped of on a number of occasions on route, and were lucky enough to see a local festival in full swing just as we were about to get back on the bus

We arrived in Savanaketh around 4pm, which didn't really allow much time to walk around before it was too dark.
From the quick glimpse that we had of the area, it seemed very sleepy and not really set up for western tourists.
We did however strike lucky with accomodation, and ended up staying in the same house with a girl from Denmark and another British guy.
Both of them had been traveling for some time, so it was great to swap stories and recommendations on places we had all visited.

The following morning, we managed to share a Jumbo ( large Tuk Tuk) to the bus station to catch yet another bus.
This one was going to be a local bus, which would mean no A/C and probably too many people !!

DMZ 24th March 2006 - Vietnam

The advantage of being so close to the bus station was that we didn't have to get up early for our tour to the demilitarized zone.

Our first stop or the day was at a famous bridge that linked the old North and South.
We were only given 10 minutes to take as many photos as possible, before being rushed back onto the bus for our next stop.
The best part was that the bridge that we were all taking photos of was not even the original.
The original was blown up during the war !!

This is a very poor picture, as we chose the only cloudy day of our visit in Vietnam.
It show the re-built bridge that links the old North and South.
It no longer has any vehicle access, as an even newer bridge has been built next to it.
The statue that is in the distance, was to remember the women of the South who could look across to the North where their husbands were fighting for the Vietcom.


Our next stop was the highlight of the trip.
We visited a section of tunnels created by the North Vietnamese, which we were told was only used by local families to protect themselves from bombs.
This story didn't quite tie up with some of the old photos in the museum, which showed people carrying Russian made guns etc.
This was the first time since being in Vietnam, where the spin on the war was all one sided.

This photo is of one of the many tunnel entrances.
These tunnels were massive, with a network of over 2Km and depths of over 24m.


The start of the entrance was fully supported with wood, but as soon as you made your way down, it was just soft soil with no supports.
It was a little worrying, as other sections of the tunnel were no longer accessable due to theitr collapse !!



Once underground, there were loads of small dug out sections where whole families would have to stay durring attacks.


There was one toilet in the whole section of this tunnel, which was located at the beach exit.
The one who drew the short straw had the job of collecting the buckets each day and running the risk of being shot at whilst emtying their contents into the sea.

This is the tunnel where the toilet was located, leading out to the beach.





After leaving the tunnels we headed to Ke Sahn, which was one of the major American airbases during the war.
Unfortunately all the Vietnamese had nicked all the steel covering the runway, along with anything else that could be sold on for scrap.
All there is to see now, are a small collection of bomb casings and the odd plane etc.
All of these look as if they have been brought in from other locations, and give the whole feeling of a staged scene.











The last stop on the tour, was at a bridge that marked the start of the Ho Chi Minh trail.
As you can see, there isn't much to be seen


The best part of this stop, were the local kids who scambled over each other to have their photo taken.



On the journey back, someone pointed out that the tour should have included a visit to an ethnic village.
The bus driver was quickly made to pull over, which we were made to get off.
It turned out that this was our ethnic village stop off point !!!



In all a very long day, which would have been much better with just the tunnels.
We didn't complain though as true to their word, we were dropped of at Dong Ha which is where we were to catch our next bus to Laos.

Hoi An 21st March 2006 - Vietnam

Well after a very early rise, we ventured out into the streets of Hoi An.
The first thing that supprised us, what the fact that the place was alive with people.

We made our way to the market place to check out the sights !!





Fresh Bird Flu anyone


All the food at the market is brought by boat.
I am not sure what the men do here, as its only the women that can be seen working.
I guess all the men must have been working late last night !!



They even have women labourers here.
The women do all the carrying, whilst the men do all the skilled jobs.
This place is just too good to be true !!!


Hoi An is full of old buildings, most of which have a French look to them.


All the fully restored buildings have been turned into Cafe's.
Not quite what we were expecting, but it makes a change from eating rice.

Hue 23rd March 2006 - Vietnam

We arrived in Hue by bus from Hoi An.
We thought that we had negociated a great deal, when we found a hotel for $15 a night, with A/C, TV and breakfast included and a free transfer from the bus station to the hotel.
When we pulled into the bus stop, a man was waiting for us with an A4 sheet of paper with our names on.
We gathered our bags, and asked him where his car was.
He looked rather confused, and kept pointing to the other side of the road although there was no car parked up.
We walked with him, crossing the road and straight into our hotel !!!
What a sales pitch.

Hue is not a place to visit on its own, its more of somewhere to stay and tral out from.
Everyone including our hotel, is trying to get you to part with your money for one of their tours.

Never ones to take the easy option, we chose to take a tour with a guy who owns a restaurant that we were eating at !!
It gets worse - The owner is both deaf and dumb !!
We paid him $10 to take us both on mopeds to all the local sites, which seemed a good deal as the tour would take all day.

We were picked up by Mr Luc and his partner in crime outside our hotel at 8am in the morning.
It was quite a fun start, as he doesn't speak and his friend didn't know any English.
Needless to say a guided tour was not an option !!

This is the famous Mr Luc who kept grabing at the Lonely Planet guide to show us that his restaurant was mentioned - He even knew the page number.



Well as is normal on tours in the far east, you get to see loads of temples.
We are now becoming a little too familiar with temples, although it has to be said that it was nice to see some and not be cold.





The idea was to show how small these status were, as the Emperor was so short that he wouldnt have them made taller than him.
The idea gets lost with Alison, as she's about the same size as these minitures !!















More female labourers hard at work in the mid day sun.


On the journey back to Hue, I had built up enough courage to take photos whilst sitting on the back of Mr Luc's moped.



I am getting quite desperate for a haircut, but this looked a little too cheap for my liking




Whilst on the way back, I managed to explain to the very deaf Mr Luc that we would like to stop at the vendors selling insence sticks.
It took some doing, but in the end he pulled alongside these two girls who were actualy making them.
Outside the stool, was loads of insence that had been raked over the verge side to dry.


Well after that exciting day, we decided to book another bus trip - This time its to the demilitarized zone.
We have managed to negociate with a tour company, that they will drop us off on the way back in a town that has a bus going to Laos.
We aren't too sure how this is going to pan out, so expect some laughs when we next get to an internet cafe !!