The Battle of Dien Bien Phu There is a book in the Kinsley Kansas library called The 20 Most Decisive Battles in World History, or it might be called The 20 Most Decisive Battles in Vietnam. I can’t remember which is true. Whatever is true, I am amazed that I was personally involved with two of these battles in my relative short military career. The two battles I was associated with were the 2nd Battle of Bau Bang in Operation Junction City and The Battle of Snoopy Nose in the early phase of Operation Coronado. All the battles were brutal, fierce, [View Full Entry]

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Điện Biên Phủ is a remote city inside the Mường Thanh valley in the north west of Vietnam, only 36.5km from the Lao border. The ethnic minority people living in this area are the Thai and H'mong. The city is famous for the site of the battle, where the French troops were defeated by Việt Minh (the League for the Independence of Vietnam - Việt Nam độc lập đồng minh hội) forces on 7 May 1954 after a 56-day siege, resulting in the end of the French rule in Vietnam (1858 - 1954) and its colonial control in Indochina. To a [View Full Entry]

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Viet Nam Lo ginge es in Điện Biên Phủ, die Hauptstadt der Provinz Điện Biên in Nordwest-Vietnam. Sie liegt im 20 km langen und 6 km breiten Mường Thanh-Tal, nur 35 km von der laotischen Grenze entfernt und somit meine erste Stadt die ich im Viet nam besuchte nach meinem Aufenthalt in Laos!. Die Stadt ist jedoch eine der beruehmtessten im Vietnam, wegen seiner Geschichte. Sie hat 25 000 Einwohnern. Die Bevölkerung besteht nur zu etwa einem Drittel aus ethnischen Vietnamesen (Kinh), den Hauptanteil stellen Thai, in geringerem Maße Hmong, Si La un [View Full Entry]

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Dien Bien Phu - the town which gave its name to the decisive 1954 battle between the besieged French colonial garrison and the Viet Minh forces which signalled the end of French colonial rule in Indochina. Stay tuned to hear about Hil and Lock's change of direction, and our venture into market capitalism on a street corner! That's right, we sold our bikes! Goodbye Cruncher (Hil's bike) and Poirot (my black bike - still a mystery to me after 2 weeks). Also stay tuned for a culinary (mis)adventure and danger averted... :) [View Full Entry]

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Stay tuned for the excitement of Hil and Lock's long bus ride from Lai Chau to Dien Bien Phu - roadworks ahoy! Plus... 38 mobile phone shops, but is there an ATM in this town??? [View Full Entry]

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So here we are, Linda dying in bed the last 2 days of flu and I, running errons and foriging for food. This town should not exist. There is sweet nothing here to do but slit your throat, if you can find someone here who speaks english so you can ask for a knife! Our pland was to leave Sapa and come here to sort out our money issue as my card was stollen a few days ago and Lindas card was running dry. The bus to Laos leaves this hell hole on Monday, wednesday, Friday and Sunday. So we left [View Full Entry]

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First I would like to thank sweet baby Jesus, sweet infant Jesus for allowing Linda and I to make it from Sapa to Bien Dien Phu alive! Oh my God what a trip. We left Sapa at 8am for a 7 hour bus ride to Dien Bien Phu. This is one journey I will never ever do again. We booked tickets for a bus, what comes to pick us up? A mini van! This shitmobile was on its last legs. So we throw our bag into the back which the guy had to kick and pull to try open. So on [View Full Entry]

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I am sorry for no pictures, i am typing this on the 8th of November and between our visit to this place and our visit to Hue my old little Sony camera was stolen from my bag on the bus. I blame no one but my self. DO NOT LEAVE YOUR BAG UNATTENDED ANY WHERE! Der! I do not care so much about the camera and we backed up most of the pictures but we lost about 1 week of pictures and that is the hard thing. Dave and I wanted to get off the beaten track and head south west. [View Full Entry]

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We crossed into Vietnam early in the morning with tender backside from sleeping on the benches at the Lao border. We decended to Dien Bien Phu with heavy rain and a skeptic mind as Carl had filled both me and Carter with scare stories of Vietnam when he visited 10 years ago!! The next 6 days we cycled through unspoilt mountain scenery towards Hanoi. Along the way we came across some mega friendly hill-tribes as they waved at us, shouting "hello", giving us fruit and posed for pictures in their colourful dresses. This was the opposite of what Carl and Rob [View Full Entry]

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We both rose bright and early today feeling much refreshed after a good nights sleep. First order of the day was to go back to the bus station to arrange transport to Sapa tomorow. This turned out to be an easy chore and was completed with no hassles all we had to do was say where we were we wanted to go and hand over the money 250,000D for both of us nd we were booked on a bus to Sapa tomorow morning that is leaving at 6.00am. Bus tickets in hand it was time to go and get some breakfast, [View Full Entry]

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