Back In Action

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So it's been a while again but this time I have the excuse of Spring Festival for my absence. Ignore the date above, I know it's almost February now but I'm going to write this as if I've been keeping up on my blog during the trip.

Zak and I left Shenzhen on the night of the 15th for Hanoi via a night train from Guangzhou to Nanning and then Nanning to Hanoi. The last time I entered Vietnam I came on the same train from Nanning so it was kinda interesting to be back on it and be able to recognize the way. As Zak and I had both been to Hanoi before we felt obliged to take a much more relaxed pace to the city and laze away our days there without much worry about cramming all the sites in. After our arrival we went to pay our respects to Uncle Ho and then wander around Old Town gaining our bearings and frequenting my favorite place to eat in the all of Hanoi, the Bun Bo place near the alley where our guest house is.

The next day we awoke early to catch the bus out to see the Perfume Pagoda, about 2 hours outside of the city by car and another hour by boat. The boat ride is through countryside filled karst hills and quite beautiful. Once at the hill the pagoda is on, it's about another hour hike uphill to a cave at the top where the pagoda is situated. We arrived as they were making preparations for the rush of visitors sure to come during Tet and I was happy to have averted that absolute mess of people that are expected.

The following day was our last in Hanoi but we had until 6 pm to explore before catching a night bus south to Vinh in order to cross into Laos. Once again we took it easy, exploring the city and for the first time not getting lost in the maze that is the Old Quarter. I went and checked out the Ho Chi Minh museum and Zak and I tried to hit as many cafes as possible. We boarded the bus to Vinh that evening for what we anticipated to be a pretty straightforward journey to the border crossing. It turned out to be anything but.

We got dropped off in Vinh at 2:30 in the morning and told we could not catch a bus to the border for two days. Deciding we don't want to waste time in Vinh, we hire a taxi to take us out to Cau Treo, the border town on the Vietnamese side. Arriving at 3:30 we had three hours to kill sitting around a fire in the dark with Vietnamese policemen until we could start the walk to the border, which we were told would only be 4 km. About 2 km into the walk we realize that something seems off and start trying to flag down cars. Eventually we were picked up by two very nice Laotians headed to Laksao, Laos and we happily climbed in. After stopping to load the back of the van with fish, picking up 5 more people to cram into 2 more seats, and seeing a fist fight break out before 7 am we started towards the border, which turned out to be an extra 35 km through the mountains. It was an arduous journey into Laos that we hadn't expected to be so difficult but at least we'd made it.

And now I'm getting annoyed with blogging so I'll write about Laos later.

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