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Personal Blog of Steve Baumber
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 We are now safe and sound in Hanoi, and loving the city. A long walk through the old quarter today and an evening at the theatre - the famous Hanoi water puppets. It first strikes you as a bit hokey, but it weaves a pretty potent spell and soon you're grinning and clapping like a six year old!
 With free internet at the guesthouse I thought it would also be good to post a happy picture from our border crossing - the motorbike ride up was stellar! I wasn't sure what Rosemary was loving more at this moment, the scenery or the fact that they had a helmet for her. The driver's wearing a little green pith helmet. We are sticking in Hanoi for a couple of days, but planning to head further north to the "must see's" of Halong Bay and Sapa. We may even venture off the beaten track again... perhaps another motorbike odyssey?
posted by Steve @
8:06 AM
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3.28.2006  |
 Ah, The Experience. Be careful what you wish for. We cruised up to the very small town of Na Meo which straddles the border to Vietnam, with the only incident being an unfortunate slow rooster playing chicken with our songtoew. He lost, but I hope that the local family ate well that night! We had a relaxing time moving through Laos immigration and enjoyed the short walk to Vietnamese immigration past the line up of logging trucks (Laos wood=Vietnamese furniture?). After meeting and satisfying the good folks at the Vietnamese border (no bribes on either side), we had to hire motorcycles to carry us the 50 kilometers to the nearest bus which left from Quon Son. This was pretty painless as well - we knew what the rate should be from information we saw at a tourist info place in Sam Neua, and we were able to get the xe om (motorcyle) drivers to agree to the going rate.
We sped up and away from the border and after climbing along the curvey road over mist covered hills we spilled down into a beautiful valley of terraced rice fields, a brilliant emerald green. With aching asses (will the abuse ever stop?) we rolled into Quon Son with plenty of time to spare before the bus that was to leave at 1pm. We were dropped at a restaurant/bus office, and ate lunch, anticipating getting tickets for the bus to Hanoi, but being able to be dropped off at Ninh Binh along the way.
The "conductor" of the bus plopped down beside me, and tugged on my sleeve. He began writing an amount on a scrap of paper - $80 US for the three of us to travel to Ninh Binh. We were expecting more like $3 each. We said no and eventually got it down to $60, still an exhorbitant amount. We started wondering if there was a different bus, and perhaps that we had been "dropped" at a private carrier for a commission to the xe om drivers. We left the restaurant and looked for a bus stand, but had no luck. On a Sunday the town seemed closed up. Then, in a flurry of honking, the bus started departing town, and some how it had already filled up to capacity (or what we thought was capacity). As we walked down the main street hoping to find a different transport, they (the male "conductor" joined by a female "conductor") followed us in the bus bartering all the way, and eventually came down to price of $40. We could see no other feasible way to travel out of Quon Son, and also did not see any guesthouses to stay the night. We agreed to terms ($40 to Ninh Binh) and crowded our way onto the bus, the passengers by now having watched our procession and the haggling with some amusement. Rosemary and Mo squeezed into two seats, while I had a little plastic stool by the door of the bus, which seemed okay, but as the two "conductors" packed more and more people into and on top of the bus, the doorway became stacked with the stand only crowd who enjoyed using me as a brace up the steep hills.
 This began an 8 hour test of wills between us and the man and his female counterpart who saw the bus as their kingdom. They were awful. They tried to throw us off of the bus at Ba Thouc, 1 hour into the ride, by saying that it was Ninh Binh and demanding "money money money". We held firm, stayed on the bus and calmly told them that they would get their money in Ninh Binh, but we worried about our packs on the roof, which they never actually tried to toss off to get us to leave. They proceeded to openly make fun of us during the ride (again to the amusement of the passengers), and at one point the male sat in my lap, happy with his foreigner seat. They tried to trick us off the bus again at Cam Thuy, but we were following our progress on a map and politely refused, again saying we would pay when we got to Ninh Binh. We seemed to achieve some sort of peace, and the bus travelled all the way to Thong Hoa, on the major North-South highway, without further incident.
Once at Thong Hoa, though, the bus completely emptied out and in the dark, by an empty lot, the interior lights came on, the engine died, and we were surrounded by the driver and the dynamic duo. "Money money money" was demanded. We said no, not until Ninh Binh. Finally, using a scrap of paper we struck a deal of $30 for the completed ride to Thong Hoa, an amount we had discussed back in Quon Son during the bartering fiasco down the main street, and we would give the final $10 once we reached Ninh Binh. Once the money was exchanged, it broke some of the tension, but we were now quite worried about our safety, regardless of where we ended up that night!
They took us to a gas station north of Thong Hoa and pulled over and passed us our packs back to hold inside the bus - a positive step for us to have them in our hands again. At first we thought that they were stopping for a bite to eat, but they were huddled in the dark by the side of the road on a cell phone. We quickly deduced that they were trying to find an alternate ride for us to Ninh Binh, and that they probably never had any intention of going further than Thong Hoa. We wondered why, when we arrived in Quon Son, they had quickly changed the sign in the bus window from "Thong Hoa" to "Hanoi"; it was to get us on the bus. They had probably hoped to cut us loose earlier, but regardless, they were not taking us any further that night.
They eventually flagged another bus down, we stowed our bags and climbed on, and then refused to pay them the final $10. We would pay our new bus driver and conductor the cost to Ninh Binh. But the slimey twosome, as nasty as ever, badgered the conductor and driver of the new bus to give them the $10, and now we were faced with a whole new bus that demanded money from us. But the gods must have been done with their playing with us, because our luck turned (a little). The man seated next to Rosemary spoke fairly good English and began translating for us. The rest of the bus seemed clearly on our side, and even the conductor was apologetic. But in the end, we owed the bus the $10, which we paid. But we got bottles of water, some change in dong at the correct exchange rate, and some genuine smiles and hello's (sin jow) for our first time in Vietnam. We could have cried.
We arrived tired, filthy and emotionally exhausted in Ninh Binh, 14 hours after we started that morning. We found a good guesthouse with a sparkling room of white sheets and hot water, had hot chocolate, and (after a good scrubbing) collapsed into our beds.
 We awoke this morning to an overcast sky in a new country and a strange city. What to do? What else, but start all over again and shake yesterday off. We wandered to the local market and bought some fruit, found the local bus station (a real one) to check on tickets to Hanoi, and had some lovely "hello's" and smiles along the way. The three of us rented bicycles (we'll get ourselves there ourselves, thank you) and visited Tam Coc national park, a beautiful area 10km from town, and relaxed as a row boat took us through limestone caves and peaceful rice fields. We had a good meal tonight, and, well, everything seems a lot better.
In the end we are still in one piece, have all of our gear, and really did not pay a ridiculous amount for the transport (inflated yes, but not ridiculous). What hurt most was how we were treated, and that it could have really tainted our perception of Vietnam and of the people in general. But I think that we have kept our perspective, and today, as the woman who ran the restaurant we ate lunch at gave us a lesson in Vietnamese, we feel we have a truer taste of the "real" Vietnam. We'll put our India hats back on to deal with the bad seeds, and give our smiles to the rest!
posted by Steve @
4:59 AM
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3.27.2006 |
 The cycle/trek/kayak was everything we hoped for, taking us to villages and areas definitely off the beaten track. As usual, it was the kids in the villages that made up the bulk of our "cultural exchange". Usually the adults are working during the day, and in the evening language can be quite a barrier the older you get. Kids seem to be more prepared to mime or just plain ignore words altogether and let actions dictate the interaction!
In one village we spent almost two hours watching kids of all ages play every game they could think of, including a nifty human-roped-tug-o-war! That evening we swapped songs across a campfire, but decided to call it quits after a failed attempt by myself and Andy from Scotland to sing the Eagles’ “Take it Easy”. We were scratching the bottom of the barrel after a frantic rendition of “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” dissolved into laughter.
Having loved our trek, at some point common sense and logic took a back seat to the pursuit of “The Experience”, and because of that we have been spending the last few days traveling a semi-circular route north and east. We traveled from Luang Prabang to Nom Khiaw on a 9 hour slow boat up the river. This may sound pleasurable, but it was ass numbing, sitting on tiny kid’s chairs in a boat just higher than the water, which threatened to spin around and tip as we churned up through the rapids created by the low water. Thankfully, we only had to push the boat once. Our boat mates included a group of six Germans/French/Quebecois who, fulfilling the backpacker stereotype, drank whiskey, smoked dope, and played cards all the way up the river. For 9 hours. They also had two I--pods with speakers going, but you we couldn’t hear anything over the din of the boat engine (which was being bailed out every five minutes by a smiling Lao fellow). We could have taken a bus that covered the same distance in 3 hours, but we oh no, we wanted The Experience!
 Once in Nom Khiaw we hiked to a set of caves used by the Lao as their district government offices during the Vietnam war, as the Americans were steadily bombing the hell out of them even though Laos was a neutral country and not hurting anyone. But that’s a whole other story. Still, this loosened our asses up enough to decide that to qualify as a true Experience we needed more. Hence, we have just finished two days of riding in the backs of trucks to cover a section of highway that most guidebooks suggest avoiding. However, the scenery has been beautiful, and it’s amazing how well you can get to know folks, despite a language barrier, when there’s 27 of you packed into the back of a truck and you break out the peanuts to share around! Here’s Rosemary and our new traveling partner Mo (from Victoria) at a quieter moment on the way to Muang Vieng Thom yesterday.
We finally made it to Sam Neua this afternoon, but tomorrow our Laos visas expire and it is (regrettably) time to leave. This will be the capstone of our Experience – one more pickup truck ride to the Vietnamese border, and then a whole new country and hopefully finding some way (bike/truck/bus/car/donkey train?) to get us to Thanh Hoa without losing our shirts to bribes or overcharging. Crossing an international border in the middle of nowhere on a Sunday. Now that should be an Experience!
posted by Steve @
3:11 AM
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3.25.2006 |
 I managed to get the photo from a couple of posts ago up and running (scroll down and look for unbridled cuteness). Ah, slow internet again. We're in a weird state now, with the last few days to fill up in Laos, and planning both our time in Vietnam and coordinating with friends in Kamloops and London to meet in Eastern Europe. It's hard to focus on the here and now, but yesterday morning we hiked up Mount Phu Si to the temples there and had a nice chance to sit and reflect. We haven't done a lot of "wat" visits, as our last trip through Thailand and Malaysia was filled with them. However, Luang Prabang has several wats that are quite beuatiful, so we've been enticed back into checking them out. Yesterday it was nice to watch folks release little birds from bamboo cages and hope that a little of their good luck might rub off and carry us through our planning!
We are arranging a mountain bike/trek/kayak trip with a small local company, and hoping that more folks sign on to lower the cost. We should leave tomorrow or Sunday, and the trip appears to be a great way to visit villages and areas that are still off the beaten track. Of course, we're just helping to beat the next path, and with trekking companies popping up all the time, it's only a matter of seasons before our trip is one of the myriad others that get inundated with foreigners.
posted by Steve @
6:15 PM
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3.16.2006 |
Hmmm, my last post is a bit crytic as the accompanying picture did not post. I will post it tomrrow.
Meanwhile, the bus trip to Luang Prabang was easy and painless. Both Cambodia and Laos have been extremely comfortable to travel through, and not the nightmare of the past with terrible roads and bad, crowded buses that everyone warned us to expect (sorry Pete and Mark). The buses and roads are still around, but the major routes are now paved and looked after, and the improvement in the roads has increased the choice of travel options. To Luang Prabang, a local bus would cost around $7US, but a VIP bus (with reserved seating, airconditioning, bottled water, lunch and Lao karaoke) is $13US and a couple hours faster. Who can say no, serve me the foe (soup)! Taking the pretty bus I suppose we miss some of the local flavour, but crossing into Vietnam promises to be on skinny roads through small villages, so we'll have our bad bus buffet soon enough. For now, we're in tourist land again, a mix of the fly in fly out crowd and those mangy backpackers. More dreads than you can shake a Thai stick at...
posted by Steve @
3:54 AM
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3.15.2006 |
 Ten days in Vientiane has gone by very quickly, and it's on to a bus to Luang Prabang this morning. We'll miss the comforts of the Villa Manoly, visiting with Dad, Nick, and the assortment of staff and consultants working with the university, our morning runs along the Mekong, and the free internet access! Most of all, we'll miss the relationship we've been building over the past week with a "group of young locals"...
Enough lolling around, back on the backpacker trail!
posted by Steve @
4:03 PM
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3.14.2006 |
 Leaving Cambodia, our path has wound its way up through Laos in concert with the mighty Mekong river. If Singapore is "Asia Light" then Laos is "Asia Unplugged". It literally feels as though Laos has disconnected itself from the crazy train upon which Thailand and Cambodia hurtle along. The folks here are more reserved than in Cambodia, and since parking ourselves in Vientiane we have found this city to be more progressive than the other centres we've visited. Laos is not a rich country, nor a very populated one, but there seems to be less of a sense of desparate clinging to the tourist dollar. Dare I applaud communism?
We arrived in Laos in the back of a truck (a songtaew) which felt like your favorite Uncle taking you to the picnic by the river on a hot fall day. We immediately shipped over to Si Phan Don, a group of islands in the Mekong River that are populated by a few Laotians and several hundred foreigners all looking to "chill out". This meant oodles of bungalows (wooden huts by the river) and a lot of semi-okay restaurants advertising "happy" shakes. Despite our aversion to merely "chilling out" and our desire to be filling ourselves with as much cultural and geographic experience as possible, there really wasn't much to do but watch the boats go by. There was a point where I felt a bit guilty floating on an innertube in the middle of the Mekong, but I soon got over it and went back to discerning whether it was my fingers or my toes that first became wrinkly in the water (definitely fingers).
Having recharged the travel tanks, we crossed back over the river and continued up the highway to Pakse, again by songtaew, but now with 37 other happy folks, along with their luggage, dried fish, and children. In Pakse we rented a motorcycle and took off for a self-guided tour of the Bolaven Plateau. Now, I hate to dispell any images of us roaring down the back roads of Laos on a Harley or perhaps a wicked Yamaha dirt bike, but the reality was a little smaller. And red.
 It was much like renting one of those little red tourist scooters in Victoria, and deciding to drive it from Vancouver to Chase, and every now and then leaving the highway to take one or two logging roads just for the hell of it. Our little 100cc comuterscooter did rather well with the two of us and a day pack, but two kilometers ouside of a small village (Ban Paam) we managed to hit the only piece of shrapnel on the dusty road and got a flat. Luckily, a fellow in a hut down the road was the designated village tire fixer and had us back on the trail in twenty minutes.
 Our travels took us over (and through) rivers, past beautiful water falls where we cooled our feet, through peaceful villages with groups of children shouting "sabaidii!", and in a coffee plantation we sipped the finest cup of coffee that we've ever tasted. At an average speed of 50kph on a skinny seat with overburdened suspension, 400km was a new insult to our butts. But the cool air and open spaces of the Bolaven Plateau were worth the numb cheeks. 
 We headed south briefly to visit Wat Phu, a smaller, tidier version of the temple complexes in Angkor. As with Angkor Wat, the religious imagery in the carvings at Wat Phu continued to connect us back through our travels to the Budhism of Nepal and the Hinduism of India. One of the things that we have been able to appreciate from traveling for such an extended time is how the spread of populations, culture, and religion extends between countries, despite the imposition of borders and governments.
We then traveled north again to Pakse, and regretfully peeled ourselves off of our little red chariott. That evening we caught an overnight bus (imagine a double-decker Greyhound) to Vientiane. My Dad has been working here consulting for the university medical school, and was able to meet us early the next morning at the bus station with his favorite tuk-tuk driver, Tia. We've spent the last five days relaxing with him at the peaceful Villa Manoly, a small guesthouse near the Mekong down the road and around the corner from the busy backpacker scene. We've been able to have morning runs along the river, workouts at a local gym, and even joined an outdoor aerobics class last night (Rosemary said she hadn't seen that many unsafe exercise moves since the late eighties!) With our Vietnamese visas in the works, we still have another five days left for us to enjoy Vientiane before filling the backpacks and heading off on the trail again, north to Luang Prabang.
posted by Steve @
11:45 PM
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3.08.2006 |
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