Walking to Vietnam

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We spent the day after our last post hiking in the beautiful hills around Luang Prabang. The next morning we boarded a minibus to Nong Khiaw, a town about 3 hours drive from Luang Prabang. It took us four hours because our driver kept stopping every 10 minutes or so, for smoke breaks, to deliver fruit to a friend, to fix the malfunctioning gas pedal, etc.

At Nong Khiaw, we had just enough time for a quick lunch before we took a public boat up to Muang Ngoi. It is only accessible by boat (on the Nam Ou), so there are no cars in the village. We spent a leisurely afternoon and evening there just enjoying the peacefulness and stunning surroundings. Our riverside bungalow had a porch with a hammock on it for maximum lounging. There was even electricity from about 6 PM until just after 10 PM.

Our peace lasted until dawn, when the multitude of fowl and poultry started yakking, some right underneath our bungalow. We then set about finding a boat to take us upriver to Muang Khua, where we could catch the bus across the Vietnam border to Dien Bien Phu. The bus runs on alternate days, so we had a full day to spend in Muang Khua. It's not such an exciting place, but we did hike up into the hills a ways for more beautiful views.

That brings us to the bus ride. There are 100 kilometers between Muang Khua and Dien Bien Phu. We had heard from travelers who had made the trip in the opposite direction that the frequent and heavy rains had made the road between the Vietnam border and Muang Khua challenging. One guy said it took him 10 hours, and that another woman had reported a 17 hour trip. We tried to be optimistic and boarded the bus at about 7 AM.

There were 13 seats in this bus, and when we left Muang Khua there were 27 people on board. The ticket seller assured Eric that people would be getting off along the way so there would be more room to breathe. About 5 minutes into the drive the bus stopped and two more people got on, bringing us to 29 people and all of their carry-on items that didn't go up on top of the bus. That included big bags of fruit and a 10 gallon container of hooch.

Oh yeah, and it was pouring rain.

About 15 minutes later we had to cross our first swollen stream. We all had to unpack ourselves from the bus, walk across the footbridge, and wait while the driver floored it through the water, trying not to get stuck. The bus made it across, we cheered, and then smushed ourselves back onto the bus in reverse order (there is a strict "same seats" rule on buses in Laos).

Another short while later we had to unload again because we were at the bottom of a steep and muddy hill. We hiked up the hill and met the bus at the top. It turned out to be not so worth getting us all back on because we were stuck in the mud within the next 5 minutes.

We got to know that area very well because the bus was stuck there for 6 hours. It was stuck in three different places in the same stretch of bad ruts and mud. Out came the hoes, shovel, rope, and cable. We pushed, pulled, dug, and levelled. We scooped out mud with our hands.

Motorbikes kept driving by on the sides of the road. After about 2 hours a guy on our bus from Malaysia who spoke English and enough basic Thai to communicate with the locals (they get Thai TV in northern Laos and Vietnam) arranged to leave on a motorbike. He offered to ask his motorbike driver to send some other bikes down to rescue us too. Eric was reluctant to leave the bus, so we got to stick around for another few hours.

Finally, some jeeps drove up and the drivers got out and helped with the pulling and pushing and the bus was free. We were very excited and sharing in the celebratory fruit that was being passed around the bus. We didn't even mind getting out another couple of times to walk up big hills. We even lasted through one more stint of moving mud to free the bus. But when it happened again, within minutes, something in me snapped. We grabbed our day bags (our big packs were up on top of the bus) and just started walking.

It had stopped raining, so we had a very pleasant walk through the hills. We passed a couple of villages that were only houses, no stores or restaurants. At about 6 PM we walked into a village with a little shop, so we were able to buy a bottle of water and some crackers. We sat down to wait for the bus there, and as it got dark a very nice guy who spoke a little English invited us into his family's house.

We waited about 1.5 hours, and there was still no bus. On our walk we had seen many places along the road where it was clear the bus would either get stuck or significant preemptive roadwork would be necessary. At the rate we'd been going earlier, we figured it would be many more hours untill the bus made it through. We had been told about another, much larger village down the road called Muang Muoi that had two guest houses, so we decided to just head for that village where we could at least bathe while we waited. It had gotten dark while we were in the family's house, so we pulled out our trusty headlamp and set out.

We had a scary moment with some water buffalo sitting in the road (they look ghostly in the moonlight), but otherwise we were all alone with a clear sky with many stars overhead. We walked another hour and a half, when finally we heard what we thought was our bus approaching. We stood in the road, blinded by the headlights, and flagged it down, only to discover that it was a jeep. The driver motioned for us to get in, and we jumped at the opportunity. He really saved us, because we found out were still a long ways from Muang Muoi. His passenger handed us little cartons of Vitasoy (soymilk); normally neither of us is a soymilk drinker, but we were so hungry that we emptied them quickly.

When we arrived in Muong Muoi we found that the river was very high, so the driver parked and we walked across a footbridge into the village. They pointed us toward a hotel, we thanked them repeatedly (our Lao vocabulary consists of "Hello" and "Thank you very much") and they were gone.

We got ourselves a room at the hotel and ran down to find some dinner. The restaurant by the river was still full of people, and when we went up there we found that the bus from Dien Bien Phu to Muang Khua had been waiting there since 1 PM for the river to subside so it could cross. At that point we were confident that our bus wouldn't make it across the river before dawn, so we scrubbed off the mud and fell into bed.

We awoke at 5:45 and headed toward the river. We found our bus parked on the opposite side of the river. The driver pointed across the river and drew "8 h" in the dirt, which we took to mean the bus would cross at 8 AM. We went back and gathered what little stuff we had and came back down to wait. Sadly, we missed the crossing of the river by our bus. It was belching water for a bit and had trouble getting started, but eventually it was good to go.

All of the people who had gone ahead of the bus the day before reappeared to board, plus three new people, bringing us up to 32. We wound up standing, but that was probably better than being packed into the seats. The trip up to the Vietnam border was slow and steady. There was only one spot that required roadwork.

We stopped at a village partway up the hill and the conductor demanded 10,000 more kip from each person. We were very low on kip (we had thought we'd be in Vietnam by the previous afternoon), so Eric handed her 12,000 kip and said it was all we had and she didn't argue. The driver ordered some of us out of the bus a few times and told us to walk ahead. It was better than standing in the bus.

We finally reached the Laos border post where we applied to leave the country. That day there was an exit fee of 4000 kip for foreigners and 2000 for locals. We rode the two kilometers to the Vietnam border post and made it through with no problems. The border guards went down to the bus to do a "customs check". This means the guards threaten to make the driver unload all of the cargo unless the driver pays them off. A little palm greasing later, we were off into Vietnam.

At this point it was noon on day 2 (or hour 29) of a bus trip that takes about 5 hours in the dry season, even with border delays. Dien Bien Phu is 34-36 km(depending on who you ask) from the Tay Trang border post. We were looking forward to lunch in town. We should have known it couldn't be that easy. That bus service includes stops pretty much wherever someone wanted to unload cargo. We didn't get to the bus station until 4 P.M. 100 km in 33 hours. We walked about 14 of those kilometers and hitchiked about 15 of them.

We spent the evening recouperating at our hotel in Dien Bien Phu, and went straight to the airport in the morning to get a flight to Hanoi. We wrote our names by hand in a notebook to put ourselves on the standby list. About 30 minutes before the flight was supposed to leave they allowed us to buy a ticket. Vietnam Airlines is the only game in town, and they accept only cash payment in Dong. The woman at the standby counter arranged with a security guard to change our USD into Dong. Why this security guard was carrying around that much cash I have no idea; the important thing is we got on that morning flight and were in Hanoi just after 1 PM. On the same day we left, even.

So far in Hanoi we've been eating great food and just walking around staring at everything. We are once again proud of ourselves for getting across streets without connecting with a car, motorbike, bicycle, or other moving vehicle. We went to the prison where American POWs were held during the war. The exhibit there about these pilots' experience is comical. Being held in Hanoi was liberating for these Americans because it meant they could read "certain books" without fear of "brainwashing" and they could think "certain thoughts."

Tomorrow we leave for Halong Bay. We are very exciting for cruising around on the big boat and going kayaking and mountain biking.

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Photos

This spider has the diameter of the length of a US dollar bill
We looked up and saw this above our heads while eating lunch on the day hike.

Our crazy-ass bus
Morning of day 2.

Comments

[Ned]

The long trek
The description of this long trek should be called the sky above, the mud below. Way to go. Liked the crazy-ass buss, reminds me of the trotros in Ghana. Service seems equivalent.

[Leah]

way more impressive than walking to Nevada
Woah. I would have cried. Nice work, guys. :)

[Maximus]

Certain Thoughts...
Soooooooo jealous... Work SUCKS!!!!!