What to do with a million in your wallet!
Trip Start
Sep 02, 2008
1
19
68
Trip End
Mar 10, 2009
Kontum,
Vietnam
Monday, October 27, 2008
Our trip to Vietnam was rather scary, the driver, being Vietnamese goes a fair bit quicker than the Laotians tended to, sticking to the middle of the road as he cornered, and always having a cigarette in his mouth. We only had 1 near miss though luckily all oncoming vehicles were crawling.
The border crossing at BoY was no problem, although we have never seen any official check the details of the landing card, visa and passport so thoroughly. It was then also incredibly important to stamp the passport in just the right corner of the page. The first Vietnamese official we met was incredibly friendly, wished us a 'Welcome to Vietnam and enjoy your trip', which we hope bodes well for the duration. Coming out of beautiful dense forested Laos you could definitely feel we had moved into a different zone as the hills this side are comparatively tree-less, there are a few organised logging forests, and a lot more cars and people!
We must appear like the travelling circus, as we continue to stop all traffic that is coming past. Most of the people in the streets stop whatever they are doing (including a chatty table of blokes) to stare at us, or run up to compare their heights with Mike, then run away again laughing! All the kids try out there English which mostly doesn't go past 'hello'. We are staying in Kom Tum which Lonely Planet described as the friendliest Vietnamese town, and we are definitely feeling it. This was a great introduction to Vietnam and we both hope it continues to stay this way. There are suddenly loads more people but none of the hassling and roughness we have been told about.
Let's hope it continues...
