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Laos – Vientiane

Vientiane, Laos – Day 25 (Feb-23)

In the morning, we look around the town center and locate the budget traveler staples; ATM, mini-market, bakery, travel agency, and restaurant. We eat at a Tex Mex restaurant, which sounded really good at the time; but for them it seems tomato sauce and salsa is “same, same, but different”. Reading the book, we find there isn’t much to do in this city, so we book a bus to Luang Prabang for tomorrow.

enchilada with steamed rice…interesting combination

In the afternoon we take a Tuk Tuk (taxi) to Pha That Luang. This is the most famous monument in Laos, and its picture is on their money. This is convenient, because we point on a 50,000 bill to our Tuk Tuk driver; “take us here”.

Lao money with Pha That Luang image

A Tuk Tuk is basically a motorbike, where the rear end is replaced with a two wheel axel, covered truck bed, and one or two padded benches. Most Tuk Tuk can take six people with their luggage on top, but not all Tuk Tuk are created equal.

tuk tuk

Coming from Vietnam, Lao people are kind of lazy. As described in the travel book; where the Vietnamese driver runs you over for business, and the Thai driver takes you to a pearl shop along the way; the Lao driver needs to be woken from his nap, and persuaded to take you. Compared with Vietnam, we find Laos has much less people, moves much slower, and volume is turned down to a 6 from 11. (Vana: It seems that there are more foreigners on the street than locals. The city looks abandoned.)

The monument is cool, and the gold color looks great against the blue sky. We take a quick look in a few Wats (temples) nearby, and then Tuk Tuk back to the hotel.

Pha That Luang

nearby Wats

For dinner, we enjoy a dinner theater show featuring Lao food , dance, and music. The theater is really clean, and they check your shoes. The food has some interesting flavors, but the overall combination tastes awkward to me. I thought I was going to be treated with the tasty Indian donut sweet balls, but turned out to be deep fried hard boiled eggs.

dinner theater

Lao food

half lady half bird dancing

The show is a little cheesy, and the end has Vana dancing on stage but realizing it’s been a while since dance class. Also, we got a good luck white strings for our wrists, which they typically wear for New Year in April.

Vana dancing on stage

Lao New Year good luck white strings ceremony

CLICK HERE to see pictures from this day.

Vientiane to Luang Prabang , Laos – Day 26 (Feb-24)

In the morning we check out. I am not happy to pay full price for our room with broken air conditioning. Rooms with no AC are half the price at other hotels. Last night, I explained that I don’t intent to pay full price for our room. After a few calls to his manager, he offered us a room above their kitchen and the hotel’s screaming water pump. In addition, the restaurant had been using the room for its bathroom because the lobby toilet backed up. How generous of him to offer us this room at 10 PM after the restaurant is closed and he knows we are leaving early.

After offering 10%, then 20% discount, I pay him half. I then open my wallet wide with my money showing and ask him to take the rest. He doesn’t like this idea, and after another call the matter is settled. He is actually a nice guy, but it takes some arm bending to understand my complaint.

While rips offs, bait/switch, overcharging, and other scams are normal (and widely accepted) in many parts of the world, stealing is universally considered wrong. I think my gesture demonstrated that selling me an incomplete service at full price is like supervised stealing. When travelling in foreign countries, you have to accept getting ripped off from time to time, but you don’t have to make it easy.

We take the 8AM VIP bus to Luang Prabang. The bus is a bit run down, but looks stylin’ with its turquoise, yellow, and purple curtains. While in the bus station, we see five guys roll a motorbike up the side of the bus next to us. They secure it on the roof, with with other boxes and sacks of goods for transport. We are very impressed, and Vana shoots a great sequence (See Slideshow).

The bus takes a well maintained scenic two lane road through a large mountain range. We pass a lot of villages along the way. Some of the villages are a bit make-shift, but most of the houses have a proud look to them. Some of the bamboo wood houses with thatched roofs on stilts are quite attractive.

In the mountains you can see a lot of slash and burn on the steep hillsides, which are replaced with bananas. It seems they just plant the bananas in the middle, and then let it weed out the cleared area. Now is the dry season, and the air quality is really terrible from burning vegetation. With minimal breeze, the air is trapped in the river valley between the mountains.

Overall, the ride is comfortable and after eight hours, lunch, and three pee breaks, the bus arrives at the bus station in Luang Prabang. We take a Tuk Tuk into town with a French guy. The Tuk Tuk driver stops at a few guest houses, and we are happy to take a look and bargain. When we arrive at our guest house (Silichit Guest House), the Tuk Tuk driver drops us off. We phoned ahead, and I am guessing he doesn’t get a commission from us. We head into town, and stop at a candle lit Café for dinner along the way when the power goes out.

Vietnam to Laos

Hanoi, Vietnam – Day 23 (Feb-21)

We arrive in Hanoi at 5AM and taxi to our hotel without incident. Our hotel has their metal door pulled down. The only thing open is a noodle shop across the street, where three women are busy setting up shop. Soup noodle is the breakfast staple in Vietnam. We watch them working for an hour. Apparently their restaurant has no running water, as they cross the street and use a hose on the street next to our hotel to fill their pots and buckets. They fire up coal on the street, which they use to cook the soup noodles. Vana has their chicken soup noodle later for breakfast and says it tastes great.

noodle shop

6AM comes, I tell Vana she can probably knock on the hotel door. While one of the guys rolls up the metal door, another is seated neatly at the hotel reception desk, and a third is scurrying to fix up the lobby. Vana is bent at the waist in hysterical laughter because one of the guys is sporting some major bed head. They try their best to pretend they were not asleep on the lobby floor just a few minutes ago.

We like the Viet Fun Hotel because the staff is really nice, friendly, and we enjoy talking with them while waiting for our room to be ready. We make fun of them for waking up, and pretending to be working. We help them with their English, and play with the owner’s little one who comes in around 9AM daily. Vana give him a nickname – Little Buddha.

Little Buddha

After lunch we walk to the lake in Old Town, and buy tickets for the Water Puppet show. Then, we taxi to the Temple of Literature. The taxi driver has a completely bogus meter, and asks for $50 for the ride. We tell him no way, and pay him $5. Vana gets a nice shot of his license plate. The temple is nothing special, and we spend about 15 minutes to look around.

Temple of Literature gate

We are pissed about the taxi. We taxi back to the hotel. This taxi has a more legitimate looking meter, but is also bogus, and he charges us $5. While I am paying him, Vana gets lots of shots of his car and the driver. We learned from the hotel stuff that each ride should cost $2-3, and we overpaid two to three times. The travel book says you should always negotiate the price ahead or get a fixed price, but we are tired of negotiating all the time for everything. Our taxi from the train station in the morning used a valid meter and was cheaper than the typical negotiated price.

We are upset and complain to our hotel stuff about this experience. For the second taxi, the hotel calls the company to complain, and they say they will fire the driver (we doubt it). For the first taxi ride, we go to the police station to report him. Ironically, we take a taxi to the police station. We get sent (and walk) to two other stations, and by that time, we are only a few blocks from our hotel.

The police station is an interesting sight with a portrait of Ho Chi Minh on one wall, and a Sir Roger Moore movie playing on the opposite wall. It seems Ho Chi Minh spends as much time watching western TV as the police do. They don’t seem to be happy to be interrupted during the film.

The police get a nearby shop worker to translate. It turns out the guy who tried to charge us $50 was a fake taxi. We show them a nice shot with license plate number, but they don’t take a report, because we did not have significant damage. I feel better because I did my part, and don’t need to press the issue. After leaving the station, Vana gets really upset because they don’t do anything. Also, they don’t show her any respect. They are frustrated that she doesn’t speak Vietnamese. Vana hates getting the local treatment because she has Asian features.

We were not expecting much with the police, but decided to try. In our China trip in 2005, when we lost Vana’s green card and needed a police report, we were sent to three different police stations, and they didn’t take a report until Vana pulled out a mobile phone and started to dial 911 (inside the police station).

Dear Vietnamese Police: Here is a fake taxi if you decide to look him up; license plate 29M7760

The second overcharging taxi

All said, it’s not much bother because the incident kills a few hours before our Water Puppet show. We tire of Vietnam and eat dinner in a KFC near the lake. Their kitchen is clean, and they have soap in the bathroom; incredible!

The Water Puppet show is much better than we expected. I thought it would be mechanical like “It’s a Small World”, but they have live music, and the puppeteers are waist deep in water behind a curtain, controlling the puppets with rods in the water.

A particular highlight is an instrumental piece featuring a 1000 year old instrument called dan bau. The instrument is placed horizontally in front of her, and has one string. The musician plays with a pick, at different points on the string. The musician uses the palm of her right picking hand to make every plucked note a harmonic. In her left hand, she uses a vertical chopstick looking pitch control, which provides large and very fast changes in pitch. Apparently, they now use modern guitar electronics, and that chopstick thing rocks it out; making Floyd Rose’s wammy bar sound like Sunday church.

Dan Bau

CLICK HERE to see pictures from Water Puppet show.
CLICK HERE to see more Hanoi pictures.

Hanoi to Vientiane, Laos by Plane – Day 24 (Feb-22)

Today we fly to Laos. To sum up Vietnam:

• The cities are crazy, unpleasant places to walk on the street. There are too many people cramming in and out of every corner. We constantly felt like we are in someone’s way.
• The south of Vietnam could be skipped. The sights around Hanoi in the north are the best.
• Northern Vietnam seems more educated and modern than Southern Vietnam (from our observation). They also speak a different dialect which is 20-30% similarity to Cantonese.
• The food is pretty good, but not very distinctive. Compared with Chinese food; you could say “Same, same, but different”.
• The Vietnamese people are hard working, courteous, and very helpful. Whether or not they work efficiently is a different story.
• The hawkers are annoying. You’ll start to say no thank you in your sleep.
• We also observed that there are a lot of westerners traveling in Vietnam in all ages. According to our hotel stuff, there are 50% European visitors, 20% Australian/New Zealand, 15% American.

We arrive in Vientiane, the capital of Laos, and purchase our Visa on Arrival without incident. On arrival, we notice the airport is mosquitoes infested, despite having air conditioning. The weather is a steamy and humid 90 deg. The air quality is poor from burning vegetation.

view from the plane, you can see the poor air quality

We arrive at a hotel we picked out of the book and go through our routine. The first room is minimal, and doesn’t seem worth the price. The next room smells like a sewer. The third room seems fine, but this hotel screams mediocrity. We check another hotel from the book next door. It seems much nicer, but it is full. Around the corner, we choose a room in the New Laos Paris Hotel. The room seems ok, and the hotel is a bit nicer than the first. Laos is malaria area, and we didn’t bring sleeping nets, so we choose a room with AC. Unfortunately, the AC craps out in the middle of the night.

Hanoi – North Vietnam

Hoi An to Hanoi by plane, Vietnam – Day 18 (Feb-16)

In the morning we taxi to DaNang, and then fly to Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam. Apparently, DaNang is experiencing a mass build up along the beach, with a new DaNang International City. The promo pics look like Dubai. Oddly enough, the flight to Hanoi is similar cost as the train, and saves us some time.

(1 hr flight)

We arrive in Hanoi at the Viet Fun hotel. Walking the streets of Old Town is like playing Frogger. I feel like I’ll be squashed at any minute. We eat some really delicious food at Little Hanoi restaurant. Later I find that it is delicious because it is swimming in so much garlic, I can’t sleep later. Vana gets eaten alive while sleeping; I thought the bugs don’t like garlic! Also, the fan in the back of the hotel was making noise all night. Note to self; ground floor in hotel is bad, better to pay for the first floor (first floor is US second floor).

the delicious meal that made KR restless

We book trips for the rest of the week at the hotel; an organized tour of Halong Bay, and train tickets to Sapa. It’s non-stop action!

Halong Bay aboard a Junk, Vietnam – Day 19 (Feb-17)

In the morning, the bus picks us up for the three hour ride to Halong Bay. In Halong bay we board a 3-star refurbished junk (boat) for a one night cruise. The boat and rooms are really nice; better than most of the cheap hotels we’ve stayed so far. We thought there was four boats (one for each star rating), but there are several hundred junks in the harbor. Ours has 8 cabins for 16 guests, two levels, and a roof to chill out.

junk

our room, small but clean

Legend has it; a dragon appeared, blew fire to kick foreign aggressors out of Vietnam, spit thousands of pearls to become protective islands off the coast, and then jumped into the bay to sleep. We thought that was really fantastic, so we asked our tour guide if the dragon could do it again so Vana could take a picture.

On arrival in the bay, we climb 422 steps, and take some great sunset pictures. The scenery is similar to GuiLin in China, or in the south of Thailand, with the steep limestone rock formations covered with vegetation. Surprisingly, the 50 junks anchored in a cove for the night, actually add to the charm of the bay. The Bay is beautiful and the pictures turn out great.

We are alarmed to find that the tour we booked pays for everything except for drinks (even water). Fortunately, there is a woman and her son in a fat rowboat selling boatside; water, booz, cigarettes, snacks and TP. The kid puts on a huge smile for a photo.

rowboat, cheaper water

Halong Bay Junk to Sapa night train, Vietnam – Day 20 (Feb-18)

After a dreamy 10 hours of sleep on the Sleeping Dragon (Halong) Bay, we take a kayak ride around the cove where the junk is anchored. We find the Bay is very beautiful, until you decide to get down in the water. With all the boat traffic and raft villages, the water is not very clean. Vana spots a dookie while paddling out of dock. We pass a school in session in the raft village; the children wave and smile. We paddle along the cliff edges where you can see caves and stalagmites. The boat cruises back to Halong City.

Kevin gets to drive the junk. The Captain steers right a few turns and gives me the wheel; which sends the boat into oscillation which takes five minutes to correct. I drive for about 20 minutes until the Captain spots a freighter 90 deg starboard, and takes over. He points it out to me, and it takes me a minute to find it. You mean that huge freighter on an intercept course?

First Officer KR

We bus back to Hanoi, repack our 22” suitcase and night train to Sapa. The couple in our cabin is a fowl mouth Vietnamese woman with western boyfriend. She is a piece of work (unlike anyone we’ve met anywhere in Asia). Vana and her get in a small tiff over the power outlet (meow…).

This train leaves on time, arrives on time, and hauls ass all night. The train is rockin’, and I almost back flop into the bowl when coming out of the WC.

CLICK HERE to see Halong Bar photos (Slideshow).

Sapa, Vietnam – Day 21 (Feb-19)

The train arrives on time at 5:30AM. The hotel arranged bus service has our name, and we follow the pickup guy to the bus. We see the back of his shirt says “BUT DIFFERENT”. And we know immediately the front says; “SAME, SAME”, which is pretty funny at 5:30AM. The Bus ride goes up the mountain and is pretty; reminding us of California (without the burning vegitation). The weather is significantly cooler and we are wearing shoes and socks for the first time on this trip. We are only a few hours’ drive from the Vietnam/China border.

Sapa is the main stay for tourist and is accessed via a developed road. The surrounding mountains are famous for Hill Tribes (54 minorities). The villages close to Sapa are touristy, but easy to access with maintained trekking paths. Fanspin mountain opposite the valley from Sapa is Vietnam’s tallest mountain at 15000 feet.

When the bus arrives, it becomes swarmed with hawkers dressed in the traditional Black Mong tribe outfit yelling “buy from me, buy from me” (actually, this has been our daily experience in Vietnam at any given time rather it’s 5AM or 11PM. Hawkers everywhere and westerners are constantly harrassed). They are all over town, but leave you alone if you ignore them. We stay at the Mountain View hotel, which is pretty ok. The weather is a bit foggy, and we don’t see much of the mountain until few hours before we leave town. We think we they should give us a discount.

beggars, hawkers, flying around Westerners. This is when I’m really thankful for my Asia appearance 🙂

We take a rest and then trek down the road to Cat Cat village; we trek way down the hill. We pass terraced rice field, although now is not rice season so they are not as pretty as the promo pictures. We walk through the village, and along the river. Vana takes some great pictures of the children.

his playmates just took off on him

CLICK HERE to see pictures from this day (SLIDESHOW).

Sapa, night train back to Hanoi, Vietnam – Day 22 (Feb-20)

After researching some guided tour options and talking with some fellow travelers, we decide the tours are not worth it. We pack a lunch, and hire two motorbike drivers outside of the hotel. They drive us out of town and drop us at the dirt road to Lao Chau village. It’s a fun ride on a cliff side road, and we stop to take pictures. Vana looks quite the pro with her biker helmet and camera gear.

It’s a beautiful trek down the hill to the river. The village is in a river valley with mountains going up 5000 feet on each side. About 2000 feet up in all directions is completely terraced for growing rice. Some of the terraces are flooded, but most are dry; cut to a few inches which feed their water buffalo in the winter. It’s unlike any “nature” scenery we’ve experienced, and pictures turn out great.

Although we start our trek with eight hawkers following us, it reduces to one by the time we arrive in the village (30 min later). In the village we look in the school and take pictures. We are really stoked about this hike even though the rice is not in season. It must be really incredible in the spring when all the rice is green, and summer when the rice blooms yellow. We take a look in a home stay in the village. Apparently you can stay in the village to visit, or work in the rice fields as you like. They are at least fifty villages in the area, and some people spend weeks trekking between them, or visiting by motorbike.

Nap Time!

We trek to Tan Van village down the river, and met our motorbike driver. Vana and I hop on his bike and ride back to town. He is very concerned about police because he doesn’t have enough helmets. We think we got scammed because the other driver took off, but our driver has a very heated conversation with the other driver as soon as we arrive in town. In the late afternoon we bus back to Lao Cai train station and take the night train back to Hanoi.

CLICK HERE to see pictures from this day (SLIDESHOW).

Hoi An, Central Vietnam

Nha Trang to Hoi An by sleeping bus, Vietnam – Day 15 & 16 (Feb-13, 14)

Today is a lazy day, waiting for our night bus. During lunch, Vana tries some desert treat sold by an elderly lady on the street with an amazing smile.

There was something about this elderly lady that was so compelling to me. She’s probably in her 80’s, but still works hard everyday. She’s probably been through the war, but she has a big graceful smile on her face. I think of her when I think of Vietnam

Taking a stroll on the beach, we met an interesting Australian offering watersports on the beach. Apparently there is surf nearby, but not today. He enjoys living in Vietnam, and really enjoys the people. He tells a story of befriending a 14 year old local boy when he arrived, who is a street vendor. Recently, he tried to hire the fellow who is now 18, but his mother will not let him work a “normal” job, because he makes more money as a street vendor. Apparently this mentality results in low unemployment, because the many people you see on the street (who seems to be doing nothing) are technically working and perhaps making money.

Most the street vendors offer a legitimate product or service. But, whereas China has widespread fake CD/DVDs, the tourist areas in Vietnam seem more in to fake books. Interesting to note; our Lonely Planet doesn’t mention anything about the widespread availability of fake books. We took a quick look at these professionally bound photocopies; just say no to IP and copyright infringement! On a bright note, the tourist areas have book exchange stores, and one owner seemed honest about telling you if a book is real or fake.

We return for more lobster at the same street restaurant, and we also try their shrimp and squid. We convince a group of three French women to try, whose skepticism quickly turns to more pleasured disbelief.

The night sleeping bus is a pretty sweet concept. It’s very cheep ($12), and it takes you from center to center. The downside is there isn’t much sleep on the sleeping bus. The seats are almost fully reclined, but are a bit short for westerners. We are in the back, five across, elbow to elbow. The road is not a freeway, has some dirt spots, but it not too bad. Next to us is a Swedish couple on their honeymoon; 6 months backpacking. I make some comments about how great friends we are going to be, and apologize if I wake up with my arms around him in a spooning position. He says; “don’t worry, I’ll be the little spoon”. So the nickname ‘Little Spoon’ stays. We ran into them later again and exchanged travel blog. But theirs is in Swedish.

(Amanda, Little Spoon, and KR)

I probably sleep four hours. I can’t really complain, it is better than an airplane. We arrive at 6:30AM, and two motorbike drivers convince us to ride with them, with luggage to our hotel. It is too early for debate. Fortunately, Vietnam has a helmet law, and everyone is required to ride with helmet.

Our hotel, Huy Hoang I, is kind of a dump. The travel book lets us down this time. We change rooms three times, from $12 to $18 room to get something sleep-able. (Vana: the first room has a dead cockroach and the bathroom light won’t turn off. The second room smells like a dirty toliet with mold everywhere) On the plus side, the hotel is on the river right next to the central market, and we quickly head into town. (Vana: I felt like a big baby after getting upset with the room condition. After all, we are travelers.)

(sun-rise view from our hotel)

Hoi An is a working village mixed with tourism. The morning market is a buzz with local women buying and selling fish, vegetables, live chickens/ducks, and almost everything else. With barely enough room to walk, and no head room at all; people, bicycles, motorbike, and carts are jamming in and out everywhere. Kevin gets a minor leg burn from a motorbike tailpipe. Around the colorful town, there are restaurants, craft shops, and tailors making custom clothing. (Vana: ladies, this is heaven. The entire town is a shopping mall. You can get almost everything custom made for a much cheaper price. Just bring the picture you like from the magazine)

Market

really, any size you want, even if one feet is a different size than the other

lamp store

We enjoy a lunch of local specialty dishes including cau lau noodles with pork, and white rose shrimp dumplings. Vana takes picture of the art and local people who are very friendly. Cooking classes, riding bicycles, strolling the colorful street, and buying custom clothes/shoes are the main tourist attractions.

Cau Lau noodle with pork

White Rose (it looks like white rose, but it’s rice noodle dumpling with shrimp)

Beef Satay Spring Roll

CLICK HERE to see more pictures from this day.

Hoi An, Vietnam – Day 17 (Feb-15)

We had an action packed day in Hoi An. In the morning, we rent bicycles from the hotel, which make a huge difference. At last we are free to go with the flow, and don’t feel in the way everywhere we go. First, we book plane tickets to Hanoi. Then we head to a tailor shop and Vana gets fitted for a stylin’ custom tailored wool jacket. KR helps customize the collar design. Then, we head to the beach. The beach is pretty, but coming from California, we could have skipped.

It gets rather hot, and our bikes are not so top notch, so we hire a boat to take us back, no extra charge for our bikes! We pass a lot of fisherman along the way. Neat how they have so many different styles of net fishing; big nets with lights for lowering at night, drift nets, and traps. The most scenic is a small boat with two people. One person paddles, while the other spins out a circular net. We’ve seen this before in China. It’s really cool to watch. Vana gets some great pictures.

CLICK HERE to see more pictures from the boat ride.

After lunch, we take a cooking class at the Red Bridge restaurant. It starts with a tour of the Central Market, pointing out cooking tools, and explaining the different vegetables and herbs used for Vietnamese food, medicine, and home-made cosmetics. Then we take a boat back down the river to the restaurant. The restaurant has an outdoor tourist cooking kitchen next to the river. The instructor demonstrates a dish, and then we go to our stove and copy his example. Their staff meanwhile does the prep, and the class goes pretty fast.

We are in the class with 2 other couples, one from Mississippi, but lives in New Zealand. The other is from France.

Prep work

A highlight was making fresh rice paper, and removing it from the cheese cloth atop a boiling pot, using a bamboo stick. It’s a bit tricky to put it off in one piece. Then we made a fresh roll with shrimp and herbs. We did great!

1) circle the soaked rice water on the cheese cloth atop a boiling pot

2) Quickly cover the lid for about 1 min

3) removing it from the cheese cloth with a bamboo stick and flip it upside down

4) roll it with some fresh vegetables and herbs

Ta-da! Kevin’s finishing product!

Kevin’s work, I think it looks better than the instructor’s

After class, we ate all of our tasty ‘hard work’. By the way, if you like your food, don’t say ‘yum yum’, it means horny in Vietnamese. 🙂

We enjoyed the meal with our classmates

CLICK HERE to see more pictures from the cooking class

After the class, Vana has orders custom made sandals. They measured your foot, and a few hours later; wham-o! We then head back to the tailor making her Jacket and order an alteration to the collar. By the time we retrieve our bikes, the jacket is ready and looks great. Kevin is jealous because custom tailored clothing is dreamboat; especially for things like jackets and shoes.

While eating our dessert along the river, the shoe tailor brings by the shoes (Vana: talking about customer service!). They look great, but Kevin thinks the straps are too long, and will drag on the ground. We order an alteration, which is finished while we take a night bike along the river. A small boat is putting water lanterns on the water, while we bike past brilliantly lit paper lantern shops. The city is really pretty at night along the river.

It seems Ho An is the Paris of Vietnam. As the Vietnamese like to say; “Same, same, but different”.