April 13, 2010 We made the executive decision to traverse the land border crossing between Vietnam and Laos rather than fly as the flights were very expensive and, although the land crossing is pretty recent and much less frequented, we had read posts and blogs/articles stating that it was in fact legitimate and doable in a day. That being said after the experiences we faced over the 13th and 14th of April (notice 2 days) I would strongly encourage anyone to front the money and fly (unless you're looking for some stories for the kids.) This marks day 1 of the journey: Hanoi to Dien Bien Phu. After an evening of shopping and eating in Hanoi's busy, Communist flagged streets we retired to our hotel only to wake up soon thereafter for our 430 a.m. alarm. We made our way downstairs to find the front desk guy asleep on the couch cushions on the floor, not awake like we had discussed so he could call us a cab to the bus station. Startled he woke up and made a groggy phone call to the cab and off we went (Cya Hanoi.) We got to the bus station and found the bus to DBPhu, but were a little unsure about it as we thought it was supposed to only take a few hours and this one was scheduled to take 11. We spent some time using our language guides in the back of the Lonely Planet to try to understand when we were going to get to our destination and if there were other buses. In the end, after boarding several buses and not really getting any definite answers, we just bit the bullet, paid the driver and got on. Well, the bus turned out to be fairly comfortable for most of the ride. It wasn't full and I actually had my own 2 seats to myself until about the last hour. We passed the ti
me sleeping, talking and looking at the beautiful Vietnamese mountains and countryside; it's literally straight out of a book--rolling green hills, cone-hatted people working in rice paddies, small hut villages, etc. At one point we even got the whole bus to watch the movie UP (we couldn't get the subtitles to work, but there isn't a whole lot of dialogue, so everyone seemed to enjoy it.) Nothing like bonding with a bunch of Vietnamese over a Disney movie on an 11 hr bus ride to the Laos-Vietnam border! We stopped once for a bathroom break early on and then spent a little longer at our stop for lunch. We found ourselves inside of a large concrete building at a table with a bunch of our co-passengers grabbing for food from the same bowls with our own chopsticks and just sticking them right back in the mix! I guess it goes to show that not everything has to be SO strict and sanitary at home, plus it's another great way to get to know eachother. The last hour of the ride before our final stop was a little more like we were used to: stops about every 5 minutes to pick up random people on the side of the road and just cramming them all in regardless of the heat and/or space. Thankfully we all had seats and didn't have to stand up for the duration. We were dropped at the bus station in DBPhu, which literally looked like some old mission in a ghost town on the border of Mexico, and went straight to the ticket counter. Just our luck--there was one bus a day that crossed the border and it didn't leave until 5am the next morning. We had to stay the night, but where? DBP is literally dust, a bus station, a couple of seedy restaurants and, as we discovered, 2 hotels that were actually the same price. Sort of twilight zoney. We booked 2 rooms and were really happy we were only there one night. Josie had to switch rooms because there was a red 'prophylactic' floating in her toilet and my room was covered in a fine layer of ash (as it was still burning season in SE Asia and they decided leaving the window open was a good idea.) Not to mention when you opened the bathroom door it smelled as though a small animal had died and was currently decomposing in the shower drain. Why didn't we switch hotels you ask? Well it was pretty obvious we would have the same service at the other hotel in town as it was owned by the same people. We immediately left to find food and realized there were only 2 options nearby a
nd they only served 1 thing: Pho--the Vietnamese national dish, which is okay, but not my favorite. Oh well, food is food and it was an excuse to get out of the hotel. We weren't sleepy and didn't really want to lay amongst the remnants of the burnt crops, so we played some cards in the lobby; we may have slept better had we not done this. After a bit a man came into the hotel with a scantily clad woman and checked into a room (this is about 830p) We didn't think a lot of it, although it is rare to see women dressed as such in this part of the world, especially in rural Vietnam. Cards continued. Then came in a group of about 3-4 men carrying metal briefcases, with who knows what inside. They were followed by a string of ladies dressed in similar attire as the one we'd seen before and, upon seeing us, got really embarrassed and tried to hide behind the only pillar in the lobby. We couldn't help but laugh at the scene, but were also a pretty grossed out as they all checked in for the night and the front desk ladies smiled at us awkardly. It was time to go upstairs (when we saw the first couple check out about an hour after they'd checked in) and try to sleep as the sounds of stilettos and high heeled shoes echoed through the halls of Hotel Brothel, Dien Bien Phu.
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