Laos was a country which will hold special memories for both Judith and I. Not great memories but special ones. We spent most of our time in Laos travelling and the main places we stayed were touristy. It is a place I would go back to if only to see the real Laos and I would definately fly!
Patuxai Arch - Vientiane
Another mamouth journey saw us leaving Vang Vieng via minibus to Vientiane in Laos then to Vinh by 'VIP' bus to get a train to Hue (pronounced Hoo-way) in Vietnam. After Laos we decided to cut out a bit of traveling and bypass Hanoi. A bit of a disappointment but we have realized just how many places we have tried to cram in and after a while your body says take a break. A 16 hour bus journey and an 8 hour train journey got us to a decent hotel (decent by our standards, not average western standards). The Bus was fine, we got seats that didn't have 50KG bags of rice wedged in front and they were not too bad. A bit dificult to sleep comfortably but after moving our backpacs about, letting Jude spread out on the floor and being careful not to kick the head of the girl sprawled out opposite I managed to sleep 'comfortably'. That is sleep comfortably in bewtween police checks, snoring men, badly dubbed movies and swerving round corners avoiding cows, buses, cars, trucks and roadworks. It was comforting to know the drivers didn't drive tired. We stopped for 3 hours while the driver slept. Arriving at the border for opening at 7:00, crossing the border only took 3 hours of bagage checks, forms, and waiting.
The 'VIP' bus - Glad it wasn't the non-vip!
The 'in-flight' movie on the bus was a Jackie Chan film. I love his films, mostly for the funny fight sequences . Thai/Vietnamese programmes have an unusual dubbing service for their films and TV. The have one person will dub all the dialogue. Not one person per character or one male/one female, they have one female saying all the lines of all the charcters. In the background you can hear the original language (chinese in this case) and very faintly some of the music/atmospheric sounds. I plugged in my Ipod and just read the English subtitles which where mixed with the chinese subtitles. In a restaurant in Vinh (waiting for the train) we saw a soap opera which had all the sound removed and the same female talking for all of the parts. Very difficult to watch.
Our train journey wasn't a huge amount better. We had fun in the station waiting because we where a novelty. Several young people sat beside us and practiced their English skills with us, we even learnt how to properly say some vietnamese phrases much to the hilarity of the locals. The train was at 10:17pm and while waiting we got online in a local hotel foyer and checked out some bits and pieces. Trains come with many different carriages. Our seats where on the airconditoned soft seat section. No room on the hard or soft sleeper section and we didn't want to chance the hard seats. Climbing onboard the carriage was already filled with bodies, half asleep chairs fully reclined and we had to squeeze ourselves into our seats. It wasn't too bad once you fell asleep and we were that tired, it didn't take long.
Hue is a big and busy town, even at 6:30am. We intend to explore, sort ourselves out and sort out some plans for future stops. We should also take some more photo's, our camera's have been used very little of late.
Patuxai Arch - VientianeAnother mamouth journey saw us leaving Vang Vieng via minibus to Vientiane in Laos then to Vinh by 'VIP' bus to get a train to Hue (pronounced Hoo-way) in Vietnam. After Laos we decided to cut out a bit of traveling and bypass Hanoi. A bit of a disappointment but we have realized just how many places we have tried to cram in and after a while your body says take a break. A 16 hour bus journey and an 8 hour train journey got us to a decent hotel (decent by our standards, not average western standards). The Bus was fine, we got seats that didn't have 50KG bags of rice wedged in front and they were not too bad. A bit dificult to sleep comfortably but after moving our backpacs about, letting Jude spread out on the floor and being careful not to kick the head of the girl sprawled out opposite I managed to sleep 'comfortably'. That is sleep comfortably in bewtween police checks, snoring men, badly dubbed movies and swerving round corners avoiding cows, buses, cars, trucks and roadworks. It was comforting to know the drivers didn't drive tired. We stopped for 3 hours while the driver slept. Arriving at the border for opening at 7:00, crossing the border only took 3 hours of bagage checks, forms, and waiting.
The 'VIP' bus - Glad it wasn't the non-vip!The 'in-flight' movie on the bus was a Jackie Chan film. I love his films, mostly for the funny fight sequences . Thai/Vietnamese programmes have an unusual dubbing service for their films and TV. The have one person will dub all the dialogue. Not one person per character or one male/one female, they have one female saying all the lines of all the charcters. In the background you can hear the original language (chinese in this case) and very faintly some of the music/atmospheric sounds. I plugged in my Ipod and just read the English subtitles which where mixed with the chinese subtitles. In a restaurant in Vinh (waiting for the train) we saw a soap opera which had all the sound removed and the same female talking for all of the parts. Very difficult to watch.
Our train journey wasn't a huge amount better. We had fun in the station waiting because we where a novelty. Several young people sat beside us and practiced their English skills with us, we even learnt how to properly say some vietnamese phrases much to the hilarity of the locals. The train was at 10:17pm and while waiting we got online in a local hotel foyer and checked out some bits and pieces. Trains come with many different carriages. Our seats where on the airconditoned soft seat section. No room on the hard or soft sleeper section and we didn't want to chance the hard seats. Climbing onboard the carriage was already filled with bodies, half asleep chairs fully reclined and we had to squeeze ourselves into our seats. It wasn't too bad once you fell asleep and we were that tired, it didn't take long.
Hue is a big and busy town, even at 6:30am. We intend to explore, sort ourselves out and sort out some plans for future stops. We should also take some more photo's, our camera's have been used very little of late.
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