Monday, December 8, 2008
Buy the ticket, take the ride
Some of my most memorable moments while on the road have been accidental. A week-long cargo boat ride from Brazil to Colombia because any other means of transport would have been too expensive. A frenzied exit from a near-rioting crowd at the Champs D'Elysses on New Years Eve. Driving through a pedestrian-only street market in the wee hours of the morning in La Paz, because the locals we were with didn’t know how else to get us back to our hotel.
These are moments when each decision goes beyond the everyday what to eat and where to drink, and each choice could either help or hinder the cause, with no in-betweens. Moments when senses feel just that little bit more attuned to risks, adventure and a bargain.
Crossing the Vietnam-Laos border was another one of those precious moments for me.
Max, Jim and I had decided to cross overland on a whim while in Hoi An, and had little planned besides our destination, Vientiane. Driven by a desire to leave the fast-paced, overly aggressive Vietnam as quickly as possible, we set our sights on the closest convenient border town, Lao Bao.
Said to be the most popular overland crossing between Vietnam and Laos, Lao Bao is located in Vietnam’s Quang Tri Province, some 150 kilometres North-West of Hue and 300 kilometres from Hoi An. Arriving at Lao Bao and crossing the border is achieved via Highway 9, which once served as a tributary of the historic Ho Chi Minh Trail.
Our adventure began in the early afternoon of December 6 with a bus ride to the Quang Tri provincial capital, Dong Ha. We had planned to spend one or two nights in Dong Ha, visiting the nearby DMZ before crossing the border to Laos. As soon as our bus set us down in the seedy-looking town that evening, however, I became anxious to leave.
Bypassing a very persistent and somewhat creepy tour agent, we found the Lonely Planet-recommended DMZ Cafe for advice on visiting the DMZ and crossing the border. DMZ Cafe's proprietor, Mr Tinh, is an elderly, personable, proficient English-speaking man who ably sold us a government-endorsed tour of the DMZ for the next morning.
As per Mr Tinh’s advice, we toured the DMZ and the Vinh Moc tunnels, where North Vietnamese troops and their families lived from 1966 to 1972. The tunnels housed 500 people during the six-year period, and include designated caverns for ‘family rooms’, a meeting room, a hospital, and a maternity ward where 17 babies were successfully birthed.
The tour then took us down the Ho Chi Minh trail to Khe Sanh (yes, we hummed the song, quietly), where we visited a museum filled with anti-American propaganda. We farewelled the tour group at the tiny town of Khe Sanh to catch a local minivan to the border -- a ride that was an experience in itself for the friendliness and quirkiness of the 17 locals who were crammed in with us in the 12-seater van.
We arrived at the Lao Bao bus station at 3.45pm, and walked to the border under an optimistic blanket of sunshine. Thanks to the relatively late hour of the day, the border crossing was entirely devoid of queues or crowds, and our visas were processed with great efficiency and lots of smiles.
The Vietnam-Laos cultural difference was apparent the instant we crossed over onto Laotian soil. We were approached by motorcycle taxi drivers as soon as we entered Laos and were surprised and somewhat humbled to find that they took our usual ‘no, thank you’ at face value. Our lesson came in the form of a two-kilometre-long hike to the Laotian border town of Daen Sawan.
And the walk was one to remember. We walked past leafy green valleys, witnessing village life as locals lit cooking fires for the evening. We walked past children who swarmed around us yelling the Laotian greeting, ‘Sabaidee’. We walked with no knowledge of our destination, into a warm, pink sunset.
These are moments when each decision goes beyond the everyday what to eat and where to drink, and each choice could either help or hinder the cause, with no in-betweens. Moments when senses feel just that little bit more attuned to risks, adventure and a bargain.
Crossing the Vietnam-Laos border was another one of those precious moments for me.
Max, Jim and I had decided to cross overland on a whim while in Hoi An, and had little planned besides our destination, Vientiane. Driven by a desire to leave the fast-paced, overly aggressive Vietnam as quickly as possible, we set our sights on the closest convenient border town, Lao Bao.
Said to be the most popular overland crossing between Vietnam and Laos, Lao Bao is located in Vietnam’s Quang Tri Province, some 150 kilometres North-West of Hue and 300 kilometres from Hoi An. Arriving at Lao Bao and crossing the border is achieved via Highway 9, which once served as a tributary of the historic Ho Chi Minh Trail.
Our adventure began in the early afternoon of December 6 with a bus ride to the Quang Tri provincial capital, Dong Ha. We had planned to spend one or two nights in Dong Ha, visiting the nearby DMZ before crossing the border to Laos. As soon as our bus set us down in the seedy-looking town that evening, however, I became anxious to leave.
Bypassing a very persistent and somewhat creepy tour agent, we found the Lonely Planet-recommended DMZ Cafe for advice on visiting the DMZ and crossing the border. DMZ Cafe's proprietor, Mr Tinh, is an elderly, personable, proficient English-speaking man who ably sold us a government-endorsed tour of the DMZ for the next morning.
As per Mr Tinh’s advice, we toured the DMZ and the Vinh Moc tunnels, where North Vietnamese troops and their families lived from 1966 to 1972. The tunnels housed 500 people during the six-year period, and include designated caverns for ‘family rooms’, a meeting room, a hospital, and a maternity ward where 17 babies were successfully birthed.
The tour then took us down the Ho Chi Minh trail to Khe Sanh (yes, we hummed the song, quietly), where we visited a museum filled with anti-American propaganda. We farewelled the tour group at the tiny town of Khe Sanh to catch a local minivan to the border -- a ride that was an experience in itself for the friendliness and quirkiness of the 17 locals who were crammed in with us in the 12-seater van.
We arrived at the Lao Bao bus station at 3.45pm, and walked to the border under an optimistic blanket of sunshine. Thanks to the relatively late hour of the day, the border crossing was entirely devoid of queues or crowds, and our visas were processed with great efficiency and lots of smiles.
The Vietnam-Laos cultural difference was apparent the instant we crossed over onto Laotian soil. We were approached by motorcycle taxi drivers as soon as we entered Laos and were surprised and somewhat humbled to find that they took our usual ‘no, thank you’ at face value. Our lesson came in the form of a two-kilometre-long hike to the Laotian border town of Daen Sawan.
And the walk was one to remember. We walked past leafy green valleys, witnessing village life as locals lit cooking fires for the evening. We walked past children who swarmed around us yelling the Laotian greeting, ‘Sabaidee’. We walked with no knowledge of our destination, into a warm, pink sunset.
# posted by liz : 10:28 AM
