Biking the DMZ - destination, LAOS

Day 247, 2nd February

DMZ at coast - Truong Son - Cam Lo

Nick and Rory woke us at 7.30am after their camping suareé in the DMZ, they’d not been blown up by un-exploded stuff, and we were on the road just afterwards. We looked on the nearby Ben Hai estuary, and beyond to the south was and endless white sandy beach stretching into South Vietnam. As we were looking south, we notice that the bluff we were standing on was actually a bunker, and that there were loads of overgrown trenches, many with rusting remnants of barbed-wire from the war time.

We continued along country roads, paralelling the Ben Hai river. There was nowhere selling food until we reached the main road, and then it was a short ride to the bridge crossing the Ben Hai and into the south.

South Vietnam looked just the same as the north. Toby had two more spokes break again, so he went off alone to the town of Dong Ha to get his wheel rebuilt. The town was not on our route, we needed to head west now, to Laos. Toby would have to make his own way to us over the next days. We would leave roadside messages in the usual way and hope he would find them. Failing that, we arranged to meet in Savannakhet - Laos.

The rest of us set out to Troung Son National War Cemetary along un-made dirt and mud roads. The cemetary was on the border of north and south in the old DMZ, and when we found it we saw that it was a mass of well-kept graves and monuments. Old generals were there, wandering around, trying to find the graves of lost comrades. There were even buffaloes wandering between the gravestones, keeping the grass short.

Back on the road south to Cam Lo, a strange thing happened. A truck load of young army conscipts passed us and were so happy to see us that they threw us souvenirs; badges, epulets, and even army hats! I managed to get a “star” for the front of my Vietnam hat I’d bought earlier, and Scott, Stephane, and Rory got actual army hats.

We waited till 4.30pm at Cam Lo for Toby as arranged, he didn’t turn up, so we went on. The landscape changed to rugged, forested hills and river valleys. In the distance were the peaks that marked the Lao frontier. We managed to find a nice place to camp near a river where we ate dinner un-disturbed. There was just a local guy going about with a home-made gadget he used to electrocute frogs in the river. Apparently, they are a delicacy around these parts. We went to sleep to the sound of frogs and crickets...

Total Miles: 11170.08 Todays Miles: 52.43 Average speed: 10.1 Time on bike: 5:09


Day 248, 3rd February

Cam Lo - Khe Sanh - Lao Bao Border - LAOS - Ban Dong

Our night at the river was undisturbed except for the lights of the occasional frog fishermen with their electric fishing nets. We set off at 8am on our last day in Vietnam, the morning was misty with low clouds over the mountains, the landscape became rugged and very tropically forested. The villages were now a collection of straw huts on stilts and children cried “Hello”! at every opportunity.

There was a big climb up a hill, then the sun came out, and I was soaked with sweat by the time we reached Khe Sahn village. Just a short ride away up a bumpy road was a former US combat base with rusty tanks and a helicopter outside. An old guy came out with a tray of war trinkets he had found. For a dollar I bought 2 old bullets: a Viet-cong AK47 bullet and a US 11mm round. It’s worth pointing out that the older people can speak French, the middle-aged generation can speak German because loads of them were invited to the former East Germany when it was communist - to study socialism. And the young generation? English reigns!

We carried on up to the top of the hill where there was a bizarre billboard which proclaimed: “Vietnam - a destination for the new millennium”, which was facing an old communist tank with its guns pointing at it!

At the last town of Lao Bao we stopped and ate. We managed to change money into Lao Kip at a rate of 9,500 Kip to the US dollar, then headed off for the border with still no news of Toby. The border formalities on the Vietnamese side were no problem at all, they stamped the loose-leaf visa and took it, then we were on our way. It’s a shame nothing got stamped in the passport, though.

There was a small bridge across an equally small stream that marked the actual border line. No fences, just a crumbling concrete obelisk on the Vietnamese side that was presumably a border marker post, however nothing was written on it to confirm that fact. Once across the stream we were now officially in our third communist country, “The Lao Peoples Democratic Republic”. Scott didn’t know it was communist as he asked us, “Why is there a hammer and sickle flag flying over the border station”? It is also our 21st country on this trip!

After the easy passport formalities, it was 100 yards before the sealed road ended and gave way to gravel. We’d seen a bar from passport control and rushed to it for our obligatory border-crossing-beer, leaving Stephane behind as he was the last to go through customs. A cold BEER LAO was irresistable ecstacy. And we never noticed Stephane, who also never noticed us, ride straight past! After an hour, we reckoned he must have just sped on trying to catch us up - we never caught up with him and ended up camping 5 minutes along the road near old bomb craters, the stars were beautiful…

Total Miles: 11219.25 Todays Miles: 49.17 Average speed: 10.6 Time on bike: 4:37

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