Northern Vietnam and Laos

The adventure continues. From China we made our way to Ha Long Bay in Vietnam to see the karst limestone islands that are scattered in the ocean. We took a boat tour for 2 days and 1 night on-board. Our group was a bunch of nice people and we had a good time despite a little foggy weather. As always here though you can never rely on the word of the tour sellers...


Our "english speaking" guide got daily lessons off an English couple who were on the tour and the crew was feasting on seafood when we ate dry toast.





Hanoi was next. A crazy fast moving sea of motorbikes, vendors and people. We loved it - somehow it just worked. We hung out with a Spanish couple that we met in Ha Long who were really cool and together we sat on tiny chairs and took US$0.15 draft beers in the street.


Ho Chi Minh was out of town. His corpse was getting it's yearly embalming upkeep ( three months worth in Russia)! We saw his monument anyway, built in true communist style. The city was a mix of old chinese architecture, shacks and communist buildings. The food was really good and supercheap, vietnamese coffee also hit the spot.





We decided to explore some things in the countryside so we went 2hrs south to Nihn Bihn and Tam coc. The place is similar to Yangshou in China, with the limestone peaks, but here we took a row boat ride through the peaks. The river had carved caves under the mountains. It was spectacular, even though the weather was not on our side. A storm had moved over northern Vietnam and an early exit to Laos became the best option.



With bad weather and worse roads we opted for the short flight to Luang Prabang. Set in a bend on the Mekong and dotted with Buddist temples, this place was the perfect laid back start to Laos. We hired bikes and went on the "easy" 72km round trip to the magnificent Kuangsi waterfalls and natural swimming pools. Showing complete disregard to the Laos landscape we trudged and sweated up and down hills on gear less bikes through beautiful scenery with many "excited to see foreigners" children wanting high-fives as we cycled past. The hard slog to the waterfalls made the swim all the more rewarding and gave us plenty of time to relax before the homeward journey. Aaran as has become the norm lost his chain and had it jammed requiring some locals assistance to get it back in place.

After some great days in Luang Prabang we took the grueling 11 hour night bus along the worst rd in Laos to the capital Vientiane. The city itself didn't seem to have that much to offer but we met some great people and had a great time taking in the sunsets each night with cheap beers on the Mekong river. The crazy budda park, an hours local bus from town was one of the highlights here.

A more relaxing sleeper bus journey alongside the Mekong found us in the town of Pakse. After a frustrating search we found a place that rented motorbikes to our liking and headed towards Champasak and the ruins of Wat Phu. Chapasak used to be the capital of Laos but is now a relaxed and charming little village that requires a strange ferry (planks nailed to two canoes) to carry the motorbikes the 1km across the river. The Wat Phu religious complex was amazing, set at the foot of some lush mountains with stone carvings and a natural spring feeding it.

Next day we continued on the motorbike doing a 220km round trip on the Bolaven plateau to the east of Pakse. It is criss crossed with rivers and accentuated with many stunning waterfalls. We visited a tea plantation and an Animist village (where the locals live subsistence lifestyles). It was quite an adventure on the bike on some challenging roads but the best way to see the countryside! (as usual got a puncture with about a km to the drop off point.....)

Last stop in Laos was the 4,000 islands in the Mekong delta bordering Cambodia. Wet made the last chicken bus of the day to Nakasang where one needs to take a fishing boat to the southern most of the islands. As it was pitch black when we arrived all the locals had packed up for the night but to our luck a guy on our bus had a boat and small guesthouse on the southern most island Don Khon. This eerie trip in the darkness was a great experience idling past the ghostly forms of islands and trees in the river. Next day we walked around much of the island, to the main waterfall past rice paddies and local grass and wooden houses and eventually ran into an old guy herding a few water buffalo. He asked where we were going and we said to the river to try and see the dolphins. His son, a local fisherman, had a boat and took us to the dolphin watching spot (technically in Cambodia and requiring a little bribe to the border police to turn a blind eye). as there is only 15 river dolphins left in the Mekong and the water a little murky we didn't pin too high hopes on seeing them. We were wrong in a big way, and got an hour or so show from these magnificent creatures fishing and playing with each other and a few just before the sun sank giving us a few jumps out of the water. Back at the fisherman's little hut, his dad wouldn't let us leave without a few shots of the local Lao Lao home brew whiskey.

Next day was the short walk over to Don Det island. Another relaxed little island with nothing more to do than take a beer and read a book in hammocks overlooking the Mekong as life slowly went by. Great finish to Laos before another gruelling night bus over the border and back into Vietnam, but that's for another entry.