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Published: December 12th 2008
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Sapa
Main Street. Hi Everyone
We finally made it into Laos after a lot of travelling! Last time we wrote we were in Sa Pa in Northern Vietnam. We left the next morning at 7:30 for Dien Bien Phu in the midst of extremly thick fog. We spent about 9 hours driving along extremly windy roads with steep drop offs on the side. We knew when we had to stop for the first landslide which had blocked the road that it was going to be a long trip. In the time we were driving we saw many, many land slides including one which started when we drove past!
The highlight of the trip however, was when the road was comlpetely blocked for about an hour. Along with all the other people in our minibus we wandered down the road to see what the problem was. When we got there we could see an excavator had fallen down the side of the mountain and rolled when the bank on the side of the road had given way! When we got there it had been tied to some other earthmoving equipment to stop it falling further and they had a tow truck to try
Road to Dien Bien Phu
Clearing a landslide. and bring it up. The locals loved it because they could spend half their time taking photos of the excavator and half their time taking photos of the foreigners (We were a bit off the tourist trail!)! There was added excitement when the crane on the back of the tow truck broke loose and crushed the cab of the truck!
Eventually we got past and continued onto Dien Bien Phu, a town about 35 km from the border crossing with Laos. We booked our tickets for 5:30 the next morning and went to get some food and a hotel. As there are not many facilities in DBP we didn't have much choice of accomodation so we checked into a very average guesthouse for $6.5 US and went to find some food. After walking about a kilometer we found an English sign for a cafe, but no, they didn't have any food so we got pointed a few buildings up the road to a place that had no english signs. We went in and after a bit of hunting by the staff we got an english menu. Then the staff guy brought over some chips and asked if we wanted
some so we agreed so he went and cooked some for us. We then decided to order some normal sounding meals (we avoided the liver and heart) and asked the price which he said was 20,000 dong ($2 AUS) which was good value. After a bit of a wait we got our meals which gave us a bit of entertainment. Chicken in this restaurant means chicken bone/marrow with a tiny bit of meat. And herb meant a pile of soggy grass. At this point we knew we were going to go to bed hungry but we accepted it as we did not pay a fortune for it. So the point came where we asked for the bill to which we found out we were up for 235,000 dong ($23.5 AUS). once we picked our jaws off the ground we pointed to "expensive" and "there is a mistake in the bill" in our Vietnamese phrasebook to which they shook their heads. We tried to leave 150,000 (which was quite reasonable we thought) on the table and quickly walk out but they quickly jumped on us dragging us back by our trousers. After many more minutes of frustration and trying to find
someone who could translate our english into vietnamese we eventually paid the full amount and walked out disgusted. As if they would charge the locals that price!!
After this we went to bed and tried to get some sleep before our 5:30am bus trip the next day. At our guesthouse we got the chance to use our newly purchased silk sleeping bags as we did not dare to touch the bed sheets we were given in our room.
The next day we got on the bus and headed off for about 3km then had some random stop on the side of the road for an hour then continued moving. When we finally got to the Vietnamese border we managed to get our passports stamped with no problems and continued moving to the Laos border station a couple of k's away. This border was situated on the top of a mountain and was really beautiful as you could see ages in every direction. After paying for our Laos Visa plus a weekend fee and a stamping fee we descended in Laos. On this road we experienced the worst driving either of us had ever seen. The previously sedate driver
Muong Khua - Main Street
This is a town of 20,000 according to Lonely Planet. We think not...unless they are including dogs and hens. had decided to switch personalities at the border and to make up for lost time was skidding his back wheels around the corners on a gravel road with sheer 100m drop into a ravine below. This was enough to nearly make one of the other westerners on the bus start screaming and on noticing this driver laughed and slowed down...for the next corner. We were very happy once we got to Muong Khua.
MK was a nice little town situated next to a river, unfortunatly the only way over this river was to pay a ferryman to take us over. This was a little difficult as we were in a new country without any of their currency. Kip cannot be exchanged in any other country except Laos so luckily other westerners with us had met other tourists in Hanoi and exchanged some of their kip for dong. So after borrowing money we scoped the town to work out how to get some money. We had about $35 US with us (thanks Mum!!) after paying for Visas but as there was no ATM and it was a Sunday, the 1 bank was not open and we had to organise how
to pay for accomodation and food till we left for a real town. After a walking around town we found a restaurant owner who was willing for us to pay with dollars and she even agreed to exchange some of extra money we had. There was a catch however, they had to be perfect notes so no tears or creases, which meant we could only exchange about $16. This meant however we could pay for accomodation and some food. The next morning we managed to do some black market trading in the market and get rid of most our remaining dollars (at a price we were happy with we should say). This meant that we were able to get to Udoumxai (spelling may differ in real life) where there was an ATM we could use! This reduced our stress levels greatly as we were quite worried if we could ever leave MK!
After getting money, we booked an onward bus ticket to Luang Prabang with the highlight of that trip being a bus which had fallen and rolled down the slopes crushing the cab.
Luang Prabang was a refreshing change from Vietnam as there is very little traffic
in Laos. We couldn't believe how quiet it was and we didn't have to jump out of the way of any motorbikes. It was a nice old colonial town with lots of Buddhist temples. Unfortunatly accomodation was a bit pricey but we managed to find somewhere for 80,000 kip close to the centre.
Our accomodation didn't seem like such a great deal when we realised that a window facing another wall and no power meant our room was very dark for most of the day. For the time we were here the power turned off at 6am and turned back on at 6pm as they were changing lines over somewhere in Laos.
After spending a day here we travelled to Vang Vieng but we shall report on that in a next blog. We will put a couple of pictures in just for a teaser though!!!
Ali and Mic.
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