Him Lam Hotel Dien Bien Phu

... weil die Franzosen danach die Segel gestrichen haben.

Das eigentlich sehenswerte an Dien Bien Phu ist aber die Fahrt von Sapa aus dorthin: knapp 10 Stunden Busfahrt, davon die Haelfte auf Lehm- und Geroellpisten durch tolle Landschaft und malerische Doerfer. Bin gespannt, wie nachher die Weiterfahrt wird.

Vor kurzem kam eine Mail von der Firma, dass wir uns darauf einstellen sollen, evtl. schon vor Ende Oktober zurueckzukommen. Das hat natuerlich ...

... on the video screen. The warmth and genuine attempts to engage in communication is forever present. Next the torturous trip to Moung Lay as the road follows the Da River for a good part of the way and a new road is under construction higher up the mountains above the water level when the new Hydro power station is completed. It is a massive project and many villages relocated just on this river and a new road on both sised for ...

... asked of them and a little more. Last but not least is Vinh and son Hao.. Vinh has been like a granddaughter to us and we are extremely sad to have to say goodbye but that is one of the perils of travel. Good bye’s said it is time to move on . The first stop is the Silver Waterfall and the 180 steps . Gwen declines to climb a good decision. With Vung I make it to the top and the ...

... bus to Luang Prabang. Dont be fooled by the short distance, maps dont show every possible roadblock you could imagine.

We should have had a pretty good idea that this journey would be one to remember when our 10 seater minibus pulled up with at least 20 vietnamese people crammed in. It was so funny because Me and Meg were discussing the night before that it would prob just be a bunch of travellers. We drove across town and to our surprise we were picking ...

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 ones.

We had quite a long way to go from Mai Chau straight to Dien Bien Phu so after an early breakfast we took a motorbike taxi up to the junction. A few minutes after we arrived the same guys who drove us, signaled to a bus heading to Son La and we crammed inside. We had VIP seats - on the platform just near the driver, so could enjoy the same scary cocktail of the day before made up of winding roads, low ...

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 4:15am we decided to walk the 1km to the bus station. It is not very long, but considering the weight of the bags we would have gladly paid for the taxi. As soon as we arrived at the bus station a ...

22/03/2009 The local bus was pretty awful, new-ish but very cramped, especially with luggage and extra people. Slept a bit and the scenery was pretty impressive winding along mountain passes. At one point I woke up and the smallest woman I've ever seen was perched on top of my bag in the aisle (no more seats) being sick into a plastic bag. This lasted around 4 hours, though 'luckily' she moved onto the seat across from us when ...

... mucho mejor. Manana sale nuestro bus para Muang Khua a las 5 y media de la manana. Tenemos que pasar la frontera con Laos y ya veremos cuanto tardamos. Desde Muang Khua bajaremos el rio Nam Ou parando en pueblecitos solo accesibles por rio. En tres dias esperamos llegar a Lou Prabang. Este trayecto va a ser el mas "dificil" de nuestro viaje pero seguramente que el mas recordado. Ya os contare como nos ha ido. Me voy que me estan comiendo los mosquitos!!Cabronesss!

... plastic bags were filled with stomach contents and hideously flung out open windows. Our greatest fear was that these airborne puke-bombs would re-enter the van through another open window and explode on us poor foreigners. We survived though. Nine hours later we reached the unremarkable town of Dien Bein Phu, the town were the French were finally defeated in the 50's. We needed a comfy bed but had to make do with a skanky room which we gladly took in comparison to ...