Dien Bien Phu, Vietnam Travel Blogs

Rock Falls, where has the road gone?
Jul 29, 2005 (3 photos)

... previous nights stay in the rustic stilt house. Tuan Giao was a village built around a t-junction joining roads from Lao, Northern Vietnam and the road we had come along. It wasn't at all quaint and appeared to be another business hub with pho stalls ...

damn you Dien Bien Phu!!
Aug 6, 2007 (25 photos)

... all, we made it, one bus headed the other way was stranded mid river...). We crossed the boarder that evening and arrived Dien Bien Phu about 9pm. Nobody speaks english in D.B.P....its a big enough joint but so far we have also struggled to find food! ...

The Road to Dien Bien Phu
Mar 21, 2008 (12 photos)

... the mountains on the rough, dusty road to where the French met their final defeat. It was the battle of Dien Bien Phu that helped the French decide to abandon their colonial aspirations. Unfortunately the U.S. decided to take their place. I stumble ...

the one place in vietnam we didnt invade
Jun 20, 2009

The French invaded, not us. We were her for a night...not much went down.  The people were nice and friendly, and acted like they had never seen white person before. We are now traveling with Irish and Israeli girls.  Loren hates the Israeli ...

Welcome to 'Nam!
Jan 31, 2009 (3 photos)

... driving through small rivers, mountains and switchbacks with 200 tons of rice to the border town of Dien Bien Phu, Vietnam IS a long bus ride. I think the bus actually went above 15km/hour at one point, which was an accomplishment ...

Lai Chau to Dien Bien Phu
Aug 25, 2006 (17 photos)

... to it...kind of a cross between vodka and sake. Only a few more K to Dien Bien Phu. Something you noticed whilst travelling through Vietnam was that where you would normally see advertising hoardings you see larger than life Communist illustrations ...

Dien Bien Phu into Laos
Oct 7, 2007 (6 photos)

... visa at the border, which is not always possible. Its pretty easy to see how the French got burned at Dien Bien Phu. It is the most remote area of Vietnam with a small area of flat plain surrounded by mountains. On the plane and in the airport I hum a ...

Dien Bien Phu + En Route From Hanoi
Mar 21, 2009 (31 photos)

... Dien Bien Phu at 6.30pm, a 12 hour journey as opposed to the 16 hours advertised. It was still light when we arrived into Dien Bien Phu. We booked our tickets to Laos for the next day and checked into a cheap hostel opposite the bus station. Had a walk ...

War sites and museums (again...)
Oct 14, 2005 (9 photos)

... . Well, I know now that they are o.k. - I mean, I've seen worse, so don't tell me these roads are bad. Dien Bien Phu is a site of a famous battle for Vietnamese liberation in 1954, after which the French army surrendered to Ho Chi Minh on the 6th May in ...

More culture shock
Aug 14, 2009 (12 photos)

... scheme is completed in about 5 years time. The existing one was built by the Chinese and Russians so as to ferry suppliesfrom Lai Cai to Dien Bien Pho in the war against the French. We reach Moung Lay and check into the Lan Anh Hotel.   It must have a ...

finale Vietnama
Feb 10, 2009

Ni cajta, ni cajta pisat bloga. Trenutno lahko povema samo to, da sma v takih rovtah na severu Vietnama, da bi se se posast izza devetih gora in devetih voda zgrozila in rekla: " Pa gdje ja to zivim?". Velik zaostanek v blogu je nastal zaradi problemov ...

Ole tus huevos, Dien Bien Phu!
Mar 21, 2009 (5 photos)

Hemos llegado a Dien Bien y la gente es muy simpatica y agradable. La mejor gente que hemos conocido hasta ahora son los Vietnamitas, vale la pena venir aqui solo por el trato que se tiene con ellos. Chapeau! Por lo demas esta pequena ciudad cerca de la ...

Dien Bien Phu, Nord-Ouest Vietnam, 15 Janvier 2008
Jan 15, 2008

... de la defaite francaise, il n'y a pas grand-chose a faire ici... Alors c'est ce qu'on a fait : le musee de Dien Bien Phu (pas tres riche, decevant), la colline A1 et ses tranchees, le cimetiere des soldats vietnamiens...etc. On s'est balades dans les ...

Battles and brothels
Feb 28, 2005 (5 photos)

Here we are then, Dien Bien Phu. Part of collective memory in Vietnam and maybe also France, although they'd rather forget. Again ripped off in the bus from Lai Chai to DBP. But this time we got our money back after bargaining. No we don't pay for our ...

Dien Bien Phu, Nord-Ouest Vietnam, 17 Janvier 2008
Jan 17, 2008

... est tellement mieux au cybercafe pour ecrire, plutot que d'errer sans but dehors alors qu'il fait pas beau ! Le Vietnamien de Dien Bien Phu ne travaille pas... On est arrive a 8h ce matin. Un groupe de 10 d'environ la trentaine bien tassee a debarque ...

Dien Bien Phu, Nord-Ouest Vietnam, 16 Janvier 2008
Jan 16, 2008

Apres 'Ninh Binh, la ville des tares', il y a 'Dien Bien Phu, la ville ou on se fait chier'... C'est la premiere fois que ca m'arrive au Vietnam et ca me terrasse. On a fait le tour de la ville et de ses environs en 1 jour et demi, et ca fait le 3e qu' ...

BILAN VIETNAM + PHOTOS
Jan 17, 2008

... Vietnam. Si vous pouvez, retirez a l'Agribank, ils ne prennent pas de frais. Sante Alors c'est bien simple, vous ne risquez quasiment rien au Vietnam. Et je n'ai pas forcement les intestins et estomac plus accroches que quelqu'un d'autre. On a ...

Border Town
Mar 31, 2009

... .   In less than half an hour the bus conductor called us to get on the bus for another 4 hour trip to Dien Bien Phu.  Luckily for us he did not share the same death wish of the previous driver and we enjoyed some of the scenic landscape we ...

Last stop in Vietnam
Nov 24, 2007 (54 photos)

... . Builing workers live in shaggy tents. But where are the people who're going to move on here?! - Dien Bien Phu. To be visited tomorrow... - Vietnam: a dragon shape over-crowded country with busy people. Noisy, very noisy, over noisy. Great and ...

PLANNING PREVISIONNEL
Jan 17, 2008

Pour ceux qui aimeraient me rejoindre en Asie, voici un petit planning previsionnel. LAOS         &a mp;a mp;a mp;n bsp;      18/01/2008 - 17/02/2008 (1 mois - visa) CAMBODGE ...

Dien Bien Phu, Nord-Ouest Vietnam, 14 Janvier 2008
Jan 14, 2008

... langue, ca s'est degage plus tard et effectivement, la vue merite qu'on souffre autant :) On arrive donc completement defait a Dien Bien Phu. On trouve un hotel pas cher, une bonne douche, on part manger et on file au dodo (sans mettre un reveil, c'est ...

Do it yourself tribe tour
Mar 27, 2009

We had to be picked up by a taxi at 4:00am.  It was still dark but we could see that someone was already sweeping the streets; we had never seen something like this in India; perhaps we had never woken up so early.  No taxi showed up, so at 4: ...

Sa Pa to Dien Bien Phu
Sep 22, 2007 (5 photos)

... drive on a semi-paved road, though we had an hour-long wait to clear rocks that had been dynamited.  In Dien Bien Phu, we toured the Military Museum which had a very good diorama and film depicting how the Vietnamese defeated the French in 1954.  ...

Dien Bien Poo and the journey from hell
Mar 16, 2009 (21 photos)

... out Scott, Marco Polo, Magellen, Neill Armstrong and all the rest. History has spoken. Travellers Tips Our bus from Sapa to Dien Bien Phu cost us 200,000 VND which seemed pretty standard. Took 8 / 9 hours. When you arrive at the bus station in DBP ...

sleeping on stilts
May 24, 2007

... .. Of course, we thought, let's go that way. Thank god we did cos it was beautiful. Easily the most beautiful scenery in Vietnam so far. A few minor public bus hitches and we were in the hills, cadging a lift from the post bus up into the mountains. ...

Driving the Dien Bien Phu Loop
Aug 20, 2009 (54 photos)

One week travelling from Hanoi to Sapa by train and driiving from Sapa to Hanoi

Day 25
Mar 3, 2009 (3 photos)

Today we traveled from Luang Pabang to Dien Bien Phu . This is where the French were defeated in 1954 by the Viet Minh. This defeat ended the French presence in Indochina and ultimately lead to the Vietnam War. We toured the battlefield on departure. The ...

Xin chao Vietnam
Sep 2, 2009

... Tagen in China und insbesondere in Yunnan haben wir vor einer halben Woche China verlassen und sind jetzt in Vietnam, genauer gesagt in Dien Bien Phu. Dort haben die Franzosen in den 1950er-Jahren mal kraeftig eins auf die Muetze bekommen, weil sie, wie ...

Dien Bien Phu
Nov 2, 2007 (1 photos)

... Ho Chi Minh airports, you can get an electronic visa but you need to book it in advance. From Tay Trang border to Dien Bien Phu, the landscape is gorgeous and, besides rice fields, one can see corn fields. I confess i was not expecting to find these ...

Northern Vietnam - Day 6
Oct 18, 2008

... as we rounded another corner to warn oncomming traffic that we were comming! The trip took about 8 hours and when we arrived in Dien Bien Phu we found out that the bus to Laos was "broken" so we needed to find our own way there - the border adventure ...