Dien Bien Phu

Days 83-85

We have arrived in Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam and what a welcome sight it was to us as we came off the journey from hell from Laos. Cruel though it was, undeterred we are, as we make another trip across the mountains tomorrow to the French Hill Station of Sapa, hopefully a more pleasant journey than our last bus trip.

Our first leg of the journey began at 8am on Wednesday (14th Nov) morning in Luang Prabang by boarding our minibus to Udomxai. It was a tourist minibus and although it would have been a tight squeeze had it been full, the bus was kitted out for 9 or 10 and there were only 6 of us so we could stretch our legs. The road conditions were intent on making life for our rear ends very difficult, deteriorating as we ascended through the mountains. The scenery though was magnificent with green jungle covered mountains and grey cliffs creating a dramatic landscape. The land in Laos is pretty much untamed and the few villages that we passed through had allocated themselves just a few acres worth of land for their provisions, which was mostly used for rice. It was quickly apparent why Laos has such a low GDP, many of these villages appear to be at a virtually subsistence level with bamboo huts and minimal livestock.  Although someone was making money in town because every village we passed through had at least a few of the ever popular twin cab pickups.

Luckily, we reached Udomxai an hour or so before the bus left to Muang Khua, the village that would be our stop over for the night before making the crossing to Vietnam. The bus this time was a rickety little affair which shipped goods as well as people. The seats were much too small to sit in comfortably, clearly made with a different body size in mind. The route took us along a river valley and passed some beautiful countryside. The hills were lined with bamboo forest, the bamboo grew in great bunches and resembled giant ferns as each stalk drooped under their own weight over after growing so tall.

The light had just faded by the time we reached the remote village of Muang Khua. There isn’t too much to this town but like a lot of Laos it does get a number of tourists passing through so it did have accommodation, if you could call our room for night that. I have seen suck calves on our farm have more luxurious digs that we had the night. It was only for one night though so we went off to bed early as we had to be up for a bus that left on Wednesday at a miscellaneous time. We had been told “6 o’clock”, “6.30”, “8 o’clock”, “10 o’clock” and “11 o’clock”, every person who we asked (that could speak English) told us something different. One thing they at least seemed to agree was there was a bus going so we decided to be up and at the village cross roads for 6 o’clock, we were in bed by 9pm so this should not have been a problem.

The much sought after sleep for the tough day ahead was hard come by that night. The first problem presented itself was the lack of windows in our room and abundance of children who were up past their bedtime. This along with karaoke persisted until about 10.30pm. But then by wife’s stomach starting rumbling… Despite eating an identical diet to myself for the previous 2 days prior, my wife took ill with a bout of vomiting. And despite a limited night’s sleep and feeling dreadful she bravely made her way to the bus stop at 5.45am on Thursday (15^th Nov) morning.

We meet a Belgian chap who was also waiting for the bus and he too had got lots of conflicting information about the time the bus left. We were optimistic as there was a bus sitting at the bus stop pointed in the direction of Vietnam. However 6 o’clock came and went, so did 6.30 and our hope started to wane. Our optimism rose to fever pitch when a driver came to the bus but then he quickly squashed our hope by turning the bus around and heading in the other direction. One of the shop owners then told me that the bus would be leaving at 11am, than we got the same information again, it looked like our early start had been in vain. It was particularly demoralizing for my wife who had to go and be sick again behind a pile of gravel when she could still have been in bed recovering.

The bus arrived at 11.10am which I was impressed with, for Laos this is razor sharp efficiency! In the meantime a total of 10 foreigners had gathered for the bus. The bus looked to have only a few seats available but in our now well prerehearsed drill my wife took our small bags and herself onto the bus thus booking our seats while I waited outside with our backpacks to hand them up to be put on the roof. When I entered the bus I was in for quite a shock. Luckily my wife had got us seats, but the entire floor of the bus was covered with red bull boxes, in affect raising the floor level of the bus. The knee space in these buses is pretty much nonexistent anyway but the boxes on the floor meant wedging yourself into the seat and leaving your feet with about an inch of movement. 

By comparison the back two rows of seats in the bus were stuffed with a variety of goods for transport, including live chicks, yes we were officially on a chicken bus! Four of the tourists squeezed themselves in between this assortment of goods and the roof of the bus. We had it lucky! The people continued to pile onto the bus and by the time the bus pulled out it had enough goods to fill two transit vans and 28 people on board.

After a few stops and starts the bus got going in earnest after about an hour. Luckily the Lao authorities have been upgrading the road and we had a great surface to ride on into the mountains, although it followed the contours of the land and was full of hairpin bends.

We stopped after about an hour for lunch, the stretch of legs was most welcome but I would really have preferred to keep going as the stop was about an hour in total. When all the passengers got reloaded on the bus it appeared something was not right. The driver was blowing his horn and looking very agitated, it looked like someone was missing. In my country and in just about every other country I have been to, if you aren’t there when the bus driver is ready to go its tough luck, but I guess in Laos it would be bad karma to leave someone in one of these mountain villages for the night. The driver although clearly exasperated wasn’t going without all his passengers. So he turned the bus around and went through the village blowing his horn, the two tardy ladies appeared from a house in the village and upon much smiling from the local passengers and frowning from the foreign ones they were back on board and we were heading upwards to the border.

The road now ascended relentlessly through some stunning wild country. Endless green valleys as far as the eye could see with no villages for miles, only jungle. The road as well was empty with little or no traffic passing us. Eventually we got to the Lao border post and we were duly stamped out apart from one French man. This guy had decided he would try and get into the Vietnam before the entry date on his visa. Since it was only a few days difference he thought it would not be a problem. The Vietnamese border officials thought different and he was sent back on his way back down the mountain to Muang Khua. He hitched a ride with a lorry driver who was near delirious on receiving a few US$ for the lift. I felt sorry for the guy having to make this pointless trip but after a bit of consideration I didn’t feel any at all. Why did he come anywhere near the border before his date of entry? 

It was then back on the bus for the few kilometers to the Vietnam border post and were we were duly stamped in. The road on the Vietnamese side was very poor by compassion and in the fading light we made our way down past a Metso powered quarry to the town of Dien Bien Phu. Our crazy journey was at an end 35 hours after leaving Luang Prabang.

Dien Bien Phu is locating on a flat piece of ground and is completely surrounded by mountains. In 1953 the French colonial forces built a huge garrison here that was supplied by an airstrip. The French had been struggling in their war against the Vietnamese nationalist forces and the purpose was to cut their supply lines and draw them into a battle that would bleed them dry. The French of course didn’t count on the Vietnamese having anti-aircraft guns or heavy artillery, and if they did manage to get some it didn’t matter as there were no roads to Dien Bien Phu to get them there. But the Viet Minh did have artillery and they pulled them through the mountians to lay siege to the French garrison. With AA guns on the scene and their only supply route through the air, it was ominous for the French and the Vietnamese overran the garrison in May 1954 after some ferocious fighting. Since the French had invested so heavily in the garrison and with the nature of their defeat, their rule in Indochina was all over, bar the shouting.

After a smelly night in our initial hotel we spent Friday (16^th Nov) morning finding a new one before heading to the museum of the battle of Dien Bien Phu. The museum has some decent artifacts and a propaganda video to the battle but it is slightly one sided as you would expect but more disappointingly lacking in detail on the battle. But the beer here is $0.50 for a 450ml bottle so a few of those numbed my disappointment.

With my wife now on the mend we have nominated ourselves for another early start we are now heading for Sapa to the north. The mountain scenery on the bus trip is touted as being spectacular. Our trip is now got less than two weeks remaining and while we are glad in some ways to be heading home we are still keen to see as much of Vietnam as possible.