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Thakhek

I arrived in Vientiane, the capital and felt completely alone and very lonely. This city seemed to be filled with mostly bars and restaurants, activities usually enjoyed by groups. I had to get out and decided that the next day I would get on a bus and leave to the next stop. I took out the map and tried to figure out whether I wanted to do a northern loop in the country or travel directly south. I had read a lot about each place and remembered that Thakhek had something cool to offer and so I purchased myself a ticket and arrived there the next night.

I found myself a hotel and headed out to get something to eat for dinner. I decided now would be a good time to figure out what to do next. I read through the Wikitravel article on Thakhek and realized the single reason people come to this town is to do a 360 mile motorcycle loop through the jungle. I had two options, get back on the bus and head somewhere else or learn how to operate a motorcycle. I opted for the latter and picked adventure over wussing out.  

I inquired at my hotel where I could go about getting a motorcycle  The attendant said he could have his friend there early in the morning with a motorcycle. I retired to bed and woke up early to get started learning how to ride a motorcycle. The man showed up and he gave me a five minute lesson and then tossed me the keys. 

At this point I assessed the state of the bike. Various parts of it were falling apart or already broken. I remembered from months ago, reading a blog about the motorcycle loop and how the guy had a broken odometer and indicated its value. If I was recalling correctly, I was now sitting on the same bike with the same broken odometer value. The rental price for the bike was $8 a day so I couldn't exactly complain about the state of the bike. 

I grabbed a few key articles of clothing and other necessities from my big backpack, filled up the gas tank(with a broken gas gauge), and headed off for mile one of the journey. 

Hanoi to Vientiane

This bus journey was quite possibly the most bizarre experience of my travels. I booked the transportation through a travel agency that would take care of getting me from the hotel, to the bus station, across the Vietnam-Laos border, and to Vientiane, the capital. It all started with a shuttle bus which picked me up at around 8pm and then continued on to pick up other backpackers who had shared the same idea of an overnight bus ride to save time for more exciting activities. We continued  to pick up more people. Eventually we reached a comfortable maximum capacity and then continued to pick up even more people. By the time we were 'full' we filled a ten seat bus with fourteen people with a backpack for each person roughly the size of its owner. The bus then sat on the side of the road for another ten minutes or so with a driver who didn't speak English and the guy who picked us up missing in action. The bus driver received a call and we started moving again. We eventually made our way to the bus station, got just about pushed out of the shuttle and directed towards the entrance to the bus station. The group of us entered and found a very grumpy worker at the counter who refused to acknowledge us or let anyone go to the bathroom. He continued to not answer our questions but eventually started handing out bus passes and we were herded onto the two buses. I found my seat and tried to get comfortable for the bus ride that would occupy the next eighteen or so hours of my time. 

Surprisingly the ride went pretty smooth until we made it to the border crossing at around 5am. The group of us filed out and into the border crossing building. One by one we got our paperwork filled out and then directed out the next door. After a long wait and a small fee to line the employees' pockets, I found myself on the other side of the door. What awaited me was a scene from a horror movie. There was extremely thick fog which reduced my vision to a considerably shorter range. For some reason, we're not allowed to ride the bus between the two countries I had to walk to the other side. The road to the left ran back into Vietnam so I took to the right and started walking. I could see shapes of other travelers in the fog and so I followed them. On the sides of the road sat trucks waiting to pass through the border. They weren't turned on and no light illuminated from inside. This added to the creepiness of the whole thing. After a five or so minute walk, thinking something was going to attack me from the fog, I found our bus waiting to continue on to Vientiane. 

Odds and Ends Cambodia Vietnam Collection

One of the best hot sauces I've had. 

Live fish market

If I convert my USD to Vietnamese dollars, I'm rich!

Go on vacation, take pictures with iPad..

Monkey hanging out snacking on some food.

Hanoi: Last Stop

Seventeen wonderful hours later, the train finally pulled into Hanoi. We disembarked and were greeted by a much different climate than when we boarded. Just days ago we had suffered from sunburn and now we were bundled up in all the cold clothes we had.

We made a beeline for pho, dropped our stuff off at a hotel, and then continued on to a tourist agency. The only destination high on my friend's list of places to see was Ha Long Bay and so we made a reservation to leave on a shuttle the next morning.

After making the purchase, we wandered the city for the night without any real goals.

The next morning we woke early and headed to the shuttle. Several hours later we arrived at the entrance to the bay. Since most of it was a lazy cruise I'll place a few pictures below of the last two days of our trip.

Our boat for two days one night.

The view looked like this for miles.

We got kayaks and went paddling into different caves. 

Fresh fruit and vegetable vendor. 

Catching some sun. 

There were several floating villages throughout the area. This is a floating school. 

A True Test of Patience and Related Matters

To set the stage for this post, we must go way back, several months before travel began. Way back when, during my planning for travel, I had read about the Tet Holiday. It was one of those things that required caution, except it occurred for a week and since the year was filled with 52 weeks, the chances of arriving during this time was slim to none. The Wikitravel article about Vietnam states "...Then a few days before Tết the pace begins to slow down, as thousands of city residents depart for their ancestral home towns in the provinces." The grounds for a terrible situation slowly start to materialize...

China celebrates three week-long holidays throughout the year. One of these is Chinese New Year and this is the week we planned for our travel. The thing about the Tet Holiday is that it is very similar to the Chinese New Year in various aspects, including the dates on which it occurs. Instead of having a 1 in 52 chance of ending up traveling the same week, our odds had been narrowed down to 1 in 3 weeks and of course we arrived during that time.

This was great during our time in Hanoi, a little annoying during our time in Nha Trang, but now... we were in for an interesting journey. The preceding story had taken place in Hoi An, just a little ways outside of Da Nang, where we would be taking the train from. At the train station in Da Nang, we went to purchase tickets and our original desired time of travel was completely booked. Uh oh. I inquired about the next train and was told that only "hard seats" were available. Due to the time constraint of my friend needing to get back to Hanoi in only a few days, we had to pick these seats. For those that don't know, hard seats are wooden seats that have backs that are nearly vertical. The trip was only seven hours and I'd dealt with challenging bus rides before so I figured this would be a non issue. 

Thank you to Vietnam Online for this picture of a hard seat. 

We boarded the train and it was almost empty, not bad. My traveling partner and I took opposite seats and prepared our space of four total seats for the long journey ahead. After two or so hours we rolled into the next station to pick up a few more people. The two seats extra in our group of four seats were not taken by anyone boarding at this station so we retained our spots. After a few more hours, we rolled into the next station. 

There was a massive crowd waiting to board the train. I figured we would depart at the next stop and so I was not worried by the mass of people that was about to join along my journey. I pulled out my map of Vietnam, looked outside to find the name of our stop, and then looked back at the map to figure how close we were to our destination to Hanoi. Panic shot through my body as I realized we were not in for a seven hour ride but closer to a seventeen hour ride... seventeen hours of nearly vertical wooden seats.

As the situation rushed into my consciousness, so too did the passengers waiting to board the train. What was once an empty train, comparable to the picture of above, was now completely filled with people. The workers of the train started pulling out plastic chairs out of the closets for people to sit on. Instead of four seats between two people, myself and my friend, there was a family of three sitting within our section. That brought the body count up to five people for a group of four seats. 

This madness propagated throughout the train and a heap of people, bags, pillows, and blankets formed. At this point, myself and my friend were sitting straight up in our wooden chairs, expecting little sleep due to the situation that was presented to us. In my head, I realized if I didn't bite the bullet and sleep on the floor, neither of us would get any sleep. And like that, I found myself sleeping in the fetal position underneath a seat that was only a foot or so off the ground. 

I've got the Adidas pants and blue shirt to the left

In the morning, I woke up, surprisingly well rested, with a greater sense of patience about the madness life throws at you. Over the coming weeks I would travel several more times on comparable overnight trips and they barely affected me. 

Haggling for Something More

When it comes to shopping in China, outside of the chain stores, haggling is the norm. If you don't learn the skill of it you'll walk away paying too much. If you're a foreigner you'll walk away paying too too too much. In my pursuit of purchasing presents for my return trip to America, I decided to buy a few scarfs. Out the gate the lady wanted $35 for one "100% silk scarf." At this point I'd been in the country for several months and had grown accustomed to bargaining and so my reaction was to laugh at the exorbitant price, and countered with a more reasonable price of $5. Bargaining was attempted on my part but the shop owner was relentless about lowering the price, until I walked away. As soon as I turned my back the price dropped to $5. It's rather funny how that works.

The same applies in Cambodia and Vietnam and if you don't bargain hard you're going to walk away a sucker every time. One night in Hoi An, after a day of tours, my friend and I sat finishing dinner. He was still hungry for more meat and I wanted the dessert I saw a few streets back. We parted ways and soon I was munching on a delicious bread of some kind. As I wandered back, I happened upon a bookstore. Having just finished my previous book, I decided to take a look. I got carried away since book prices are so cheap and ended up with three I wanted.

The bookstore owner started the bargaining at $17. Not quite happy with that price since I'd seen cheaper prices earlier i the day, I began my typical routine. Before I continue I have to make a quick interjection that the day was spent sipping beers and playing chess so I was a little off my game. As I offered my first price, he countered with $17 and a beer to celebrate the Tet holiday. We countered a few more times unsucessfully to convince each other. Until, probably due to the beers in my system, I countered with $17, one more beer, and the chance to hang out with his family until my tour bus was scheduled to leave.

It was an interesting look into a typical Vietnamese family's home life. The first floor was split with half being a book store and the other half being a living room. One of my tour guides had previous informed me that land is very expensive in the ciyt so many familes will convert a part of their home into a shop. The living room portion of the first floor was very simple. There was no furniture, only a mat on the floor. I didn't get a tour so I didn't see the rest of the house. I also asked to take pictures but didn't want to be potentially disrespectful so I only took three.

As for the family, I was introduced to the store owner's wife, son, niece, and mother who you can see in the picture. He was the only one who could speak English. Sadly I didn't get to ask much more since I only had 30 minutes to begin with until I had to leave.

Hopefully I can bargain my way into similar encounters again in the future. The cost of the books was well worth the experience.