Update from Hanoi, Vietnam

We’ve left Laos and arrived in Vietnam. Unfortunately we couldn’t spend as long as we liked in Laos, because a security situation has developed. Some bandits have been attacking buses on the main route we were planning to use, and we couldn’t rely on the government to provide accurate information about the risk. So in the end we decided it was safer to leave.

It’s a real shame, because Laos is lovely, our favorite bit of the trip so far. Vientienne, the capital city, is comfortably the most chilled-out city we’ve ever visited. We also visited Vang Vieng for kajaking along the Nam Song river next to Limestone formations, millions of butterflies, stopping off occasionally to investigate caves by candlelight. A photographer’s paradise.

Bus journies are always entertaining! We decided to save money and get the bus from Vientienne to Hanoi, billed as a 24 hour journey. Along the way we enjoyed the following: a child urinating on Phil’s foot; a buddhist monk giving everyone on the bus individual blessings for healthy bodies and minds (needed when the brakes were screeching as the bus caned it round mountain corners for 17 hours non-stop); no sleep at all; going to a toilet in a pigsty (literally, pigs were watching us as we did our business, quite unnerving!); speedometer broke; air-conditioner broke; mystery meat for lunch; some of the most spectacular scenery we’ve ever seen; paddy fields being tended by women in connical hats encouraging water buffalo to pull ploughs; 2.5 hours at customs while our belongings were spread across the floor for all the other passengers to see!! To top it all off the journey took 30 hours instead of 24 (on vinyl seats), and we arrived in Hanoi after all the hotels had closed. But that’s another story….

In other news; Phil has shaved off his beard. Some things are just not meant to be. Neither of us have had any stomach troubles yet - we’re both still fit, healthy, and loving it.

Now we’re in Hanoi we plan to spend about ten days exploring the capital and the North of Vietnam, before heading down through the DMZ to the South. We’ll be in Vietnam for about a month.

(2023 Update: Photos from Laos can be found here, and from Vietnam can be found here)