Good morning (from) Vietnam

You can probably tell we have left Thailand and are now in slightly less developed countries by the frequency at which we are posting. It is a lot harder to find Internet cafes in Laos and Vietnam!

So, since last time, we did the two days boat trip on the Mekong river from Chiang Khong (Thailand) to Louang Phabang (Laos) - that's about 300 kms. It was quite an experience: not exactly on the comfy side (two eight-hour days sitting on wooden benches = sore backsides) but well worth it for the landscapes. The water was camel brown with huge, sharp rocks coming out of it, and there was thick jungle along the sandy banks of the river. Every now and then you could see groups of four or five bamboo huts and people fishing in the river. Seeing that people live there in the middle of nowhere and in such basic conditions really made me think about the life we all have back in Europe. The landscape was like this all along:Louang Phabang was a little jewel: a very clean, quiet and peaceful colonial looking town full of posh looking shops and cafes (all decorated in that "tropical chic" style) and dotted with stunning temples (Wat Xiang Thong is the oldest one and dates back to 1560). We spend a whole day visting them and, although we were very far from having seen them all, we were pretty "templed out" by the end of it! We also spend a day cycling around the neighbouring hills with a guide. We went through small villages and along the Nam Khan river (where we saw French explorer Henri Mouhot's tomb - he was the guy who discovered Angkor Wat).

From Louang Phabang we took a bus through the mountains to Phonsavan. We spent one day there visiting the Plain of Jars, an archaeological site where massive jars carved out of stone are scattered. They are thought to be about 2,000 years old - though no one is really sure what their use was (maybe funerary urns). It was quite eery looking at these ancient "kitchen implements" and seeing right next to them the front line from the time of the Vietnam war and quite a few enormous craters left by bombs. Amazingly enough hundreds of jars are still standing. Here's what they look like:
In Phonsavan shops and guest houses, deactivated bombs are stacked up on display and some Lao people use them as flower beds or pillars for their huts. Even the spoons you eat with are made up of scrape metal from bombshells. We learnt that an estimated 1.2 million tonnes of bombs were dropped on Laos by the Americans as part of the "Vietnam War" between 1964 and 1973. Although there are organisations working at defusing them, there still are a lot of unexploded ordonance on Laos ground (30% of the 1.2 million!). Nowadays still, peasants either get injured when working on their land and hitting a bomb they haven't seen, or they find a bomb and, wanting to sell the scrape metal from the shell, try to handle it and it ends in disaster. We all know about it but well, it's so sad...

The day before yesterday, we got up bright and early to get the 6.30am bus from Phonsavan to Vinh (Vietnam). We waited for about half an hour and were told that the bus would not be going and we would have to come back the next day. Since there isn't much to do in Phonsavan once you have seen the jars etc. (I certainly wouldn't risk going for a stroll in the countryside!), a group of 10 of us who were waiting for that bus decided to go for Plan B (which we made up as we went along!) and hired a minivan and a driver to take us to the Vietnamese border. So we dropped off there, and it was a bit of an adventure to cross the border between Vietnam and Laos on foot with our big backpacks! We then found a way to make it to the nearest town and caught a local bus to Vinh. It was great fun to sort it all out ourselves, and amazingly enough it didn't cost more than the initial bus ticket.

A word about Vietnamese driving... it's mad! There are so many bikes, scooters, motorbikes and buffalo-drawn carts on the side of the road that cars, buses and trucks are constantly overtaking and therefore sit mostly in the left hand lane (I know you Brits will think this is not unusual, but they supposedly drive on the right hand side of the road in Vietnam...). This means that very often, you find yourself on a bus which is overtaking another bus, and there is a truck coming up right in front of you from the opposite lane (which your bus is sitting on!). Given that apparently here it is the biggest vehicle that has priority, it's best to pick a VERY BIG bus. The other thing is, they use their horn incessantly to tell other vehicles to get off the road. Our guidebook sums it up perfectly when it says that the Vietnamese "use their horns as a surrogate brake".

Vinh was very hard work, we stayed there for only one night and it was a struggle to get food as we could find nowhere with an English menu or an English (or French) speaking waiter. We were glad to leave yesterday (although sad to leave Eric, a really nice French guy we had been travelling with since we left Louang Phabang. Gary and him spoke French for 4 days solid) and to arrive in Hue, where we are now.

Although we have not seen much of it yet, we are happy to be in Hue after the past few days (two solid days of 12 hour bus journeys... I think we deserve a rest!) and we are going to spend a couple of days relaxing here. There is a little bit of town where all the backpackers stay and where it's easy to find food and information - a breath of fresh air after Vinh! I know this sounds like it defies the point of travelling around and trying to discover foreign cultures, but when you are in a place where you are unable to communicate with anyone and people look and laugh at you because you are white (that was strange! I suppose it's more racism than anything else, as they must have seen white people before), it is nice to get a break. So far, the people in Hue have been really friendly and helpful by comparison.

Until next time, then...

C.

P.S.: Gary's post in French below for the froggies... enjoy! (makes it look like an alarminly long post today!)
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Ça fait presque deux semaines depuis que j'ai écrit 'le blog français' - ce n'est pas que je suis paresseux, mais c'est juste que nous nous sommes déplacés beaucoup, et que nous avons passés par quelques endroits sans y demeurer longtemps.

D'abord, nous avons fait une randonnée à pied pendant trois jours, dans les collines près de Chiang Mai. Il y avait une groupe de dix personnes, très sympa, compris trois suisses avec lesquels nous avons parlé français. Ils habitent à Rolle et Nyon, pas loin de nos amis Mark et Beatrice. La randonnée était intéressante, pas trop difficile, mais il faisait très chaud. Nous avons dormi dans cabines de bambou, avec une bonne ambiance. Pendant le soir, nous pouvions voir beaucoup de feus dans la jungle, qui nous approchaient à une vitesse alarmante. Cependant, il n'y avait pas de raison d'être inquiet, les feus était tous contrôlés - apparemment ils ne se répandent jamais, au contraire de ceux de l'Australie par exemple.

Après avoir quitte Chiang Mai, et après avoir passé deux nuits à Chiang Rai, nous nous sommes arrivés à la frontière avec Laos, où nous avons pris le bateau-touristique pour Luang Prabang. Le voyage a duré deux jours, sans beaucoup de confort, mais le paysage était impressionnent avec le fleuve d'une couleur marron, et collines couverts en jungle, dans lesquels on pouvait voir des petits villages de cabanes de bambou. Le voyage de bateau était impressionnent, même si plutôt inconfortable, bien que parfois il fallait imaginer qu'il n y avait pas autant de touristes autour de nous.

Au fin de deux jours dans le bateau, nous étions très heureux de nous trouver a Luang Prabang, une vieille ville qui a l'air colonial, avec un mélange d'influences françaises et asiatiques. C'est très jolie, plein de restaurants et magasins, où nous avons passés deux jours.

Afin de arriver en Vietnam, il faut se diriger vers l'est de Laos, où il y a quelques endroits pour traverser le frontière. Nous avons décidé d'y aller par Phonsavan, une décision que j'ai regretté, après avoir passé huit heures dans un petit minibus sur des routes très montagneux. Apparemment il y avait un paysage spectaculaire...

Phonsavan a l'air d'une ville de 'Far West', où tous les hôtels et restaurants ont une grande collection de bombes, mortiers, missiles et autres armes de "la grande guerre américaine", comme ils appellent la guerre du "Vietnam". Aujourd'hui le Laos est encore couvert par des bombes qui n'ont pas explosé - par conséquent c'est important de s'en tenir aux chemins marqués, pendant qu'on est dans la campagne. C'est pour ça que nous nous sommes joints à une groupe organisée, pour voir la 'Plaine des Jarres', qui est un site archeologique où il y a des centaines de grands pots de pierre, de taille entre un et deux metres. Personne sait pour quelle raison ils y se trouvent, peut-être ils s'étaient employés à entreposer des restes humaines.

Le lendemain, nous sommes partis pour Vinh, en Vietnam. Malheureusement le bus était en panne, et à la gare routière ils nous ont dit de revenir le lendemain. Cependant il y avait une groupe de dix 'farangs' (comme ils appellent les routard ici), c'est à dire beaucoup de dollars, alors nous sommes retournés au centre de Phonsavan, avons trouvé un minibus et chauffeur, avons négocié un prix, et, en bref, nous sommes arrivés au frontière trois heures plus tard. Un autre minibus loué et une voyage de bus de cinq heures plus tard, nous sommes arrivés finalement à Vinh à six heures du soir.

Je ne recommanderais pas Vinh pour destination de vacances; c'est laide, il n y a pas de restaurants, l'hôtel avait un air sombre, et les gens n'étaient pas amicaux - dans la rue une jeune fille a meme montré Carine du doigt et a ri!

Finalement, après une voyage de huit heures hier en bus, nous nous trouvons maintenant à Hue. C'est très touristique ici, parce qu'il y a une ancienne citadelle et beaucoup de temples et autres sites d'intérêt. Pourtant nous allons profiter de tous les bars et restaurants pendant quelques jours, avant que nous partions pour le sud de Vietnam.

Gary