Hong Kong via Thailand, Laos & Vietnam and
Southern China … Almost all Overland!
Train and Bus legs in Red, Flights in Blue
A journey by Louise Taylor (author of article) and Merrin Pearse
Wednesday
28 March 2012 – Hong Kong to Bangkok
Merrin
set off as usual for on the 8:05 ferry with the one difference from a normal
work day being he had packed a small backpack ready to embark on our next Asian
adventure holiday (with a few business meetings thrown in) at the end of the
day. I set off later in the day on the 3M
Bus from Mui Wo to Tung Chung then on the S1 bus to the airport for our Air
Asia flight to Bangkok leaving at 8:50pm. Once again our flight was
delayed. Air Asia may have good
discounted fares (US$265) but in our experience delayed departures also seem to
be a feature of this airline. We arrived
in Bangkok at 1:30am local time and managed to locate the meet and greet people
for our hotel transfer, which was very quick as the hotel we were staying at the
“Thong Ta Resort” http://www.thongtaresortbangkok.com is very near the airport. Although the name says “resort” the reality of
the situation is that it’s a good basic hotel that one could get to easily on
the late arriving budget airline flights.
Cost per night US$30 (booked via www.agoda.com).
Thursday
29 March 2012 – Bangkok to Vientiane
After
enjoying the hotel breakfast of eggs, bread and fruit plus a flouro coloured
orange “juice” the van from Sirivatana Interprint Company arrived to drive us
to the first business meeting of the trip.
I have been working with Odyssey Publications on a series of maps of the
Mekong River. The first map produced was
of Laos on one side, the second with Myanmar and the third an overarching strip
map of the Mekong River. All maps in the
series have a map of the whole Mekong Basin on the reverse side. I was keen to meet the rep that I have been
working with from Sirivatana. After a
quick meeting with Khun Cherdsak we set off for a tour of the factory. The place is vast with hundreds of people
employed on the various printing machines, cutting, folding, collating
magazines, books (including pop up books) and of course our large format maps.
Following the factory tour Cherdsak and his wife, who also works in the factory
management group took us for a delicious traditional Thai lunch at a riverside
restaurant.
We were
then driven from the factory, which is about an hour southeast of Bangkok to the
next business meeting with the CEO of Asian Trails, a tour company operating
widely in South East Asia. True to form
we were held up in traffic trying to get off the expressway into downtown
Bangkok, but Luzi and his colleague Claudio were obviously not too worried that
we were a little late as they were happy to purchase 3000 copies of a
customised map.
Following
that meeting we set off on the Sky Train to the river and did a boat trip up to
the Royal Palace. Wandered around for a
bit and then negotiated a tuk-tuk ride for 100฿ (US$3.20) to the train station. (The first driver we asked wanted 300฿)! We had booked 2nd class tickets 1530฿
(US$49 for 2) on the Internet for the overnight train from Bangkok to Nong Khai
which is just south of the border of Laos near Vientiane. 1st class tickets did not seem to
be available on the Internet however thankfully we were able to upgrade at the
station for an additional ฿1118 US$35. The Thai trains were not quite up to the
standard of some of the overnight Chinese trains that we have travelled on so
we were pleased to have been able to upgrade to the first class compartment. This was a private compartment for two with a
seat that folded to form the bottom bunk, the top bunk also folding down to
create two comfortable but not flash beds and bedding. The conductor came around after the train got
going and made the beds up. It was all
very civilised! If you are travelling
with family there is a door to the adjoining compartment that can be opened to
form a 4 berth cabin.
Friday
30 March 2012 – Vientiane
As the
train was a late leaving Bangkok we were didn’t arrive in Nong Khai until 9:30
the next morning. We bought tickets for
a little local train (40฿ US$1.25) that takes you from across the Mekong
and into Laos. Before boarding the train
you go through Thai customs at the train station then on alighting at Thanaleng
station on the Laos side of the border you go through the Lao customs at the
station. We had already arranged Lao Visa’s
in Hong Kong so only had to fill in the entry form but it was also possible to
pay for Visa’s on entry. All very laid back and easy. There were taxi and tuk-tuk touts at the
station offering their services to drive you into Vientiane (about 20
minutes). We took the taxi van option
and shared the 400฿ (US$12.65)
with a fellow traveller. All up the cost
overland from Bangkok to Vientiane was US$96 for both of us versus over US$500
if we had flown!
We had again pre booked our hotel
via Agoda so on our arrival in downtown Vientiane we checked in to Vayakorn
Guesthouse http://www.vayakorn.com/ (US$33.60) per night, which is a
good basic hotel situated in the centre of the city. We checked with the reception staff to find
the locations of the 3 business meetings planned for this afternoon. The first of which was at the Mekong River
Commission. Their headquarters are in a
stunning new Lao style building (which the Lao government provided for their use)
overlooking the Mekong River. We ate a
lunch of local Lao food at an elevated restaurant with views over the rather
dry Mekong River then went next door to meet with the Mekong River Commission
CEO to talk maps.
We ended up walking for about 30
minutes (in the heat) to the next meeting at LANITH - the Lao National
Institute of Tourism Hospitality then went upstairs to LNTA - Lao National
Tourism Administration, to catch up with the person whom I had been in direct
contact with when producing the Laos map.
After concluding the business end of our trip we set off sightseeing in
Vientiane. It is a reasonably low- rise
city with quite a few colonial buildings.
We visited Putaxai Monument, which sits in the middle of a large
roundabout. Unfortunately it was too
late in the day to go up to the top for the view. Poked around an interesting
Stuppa on the way back to our hotel also forming a roundabout in the middle of
a not so busy road.
The main attraction in Vientiane
for us has to be the influence the French have had on the food. As we were walking around we stumbled upon
amazing wine shops selling wines from all over the world at very reasonable
prices but the real highlight of our short stay in Vientiane had to be dining
in French cafes and bistros. That
evening we met a friend at a Bistro, La Terrasse just down the street from our
hotel and enjoyed the wonderful French cuisine and wine for just US$25 for both.
Sat 31
March 2012 Vientiane – Luang Prabang
Continuing on from the fine dining
of last night we started our day with a wonderful breakfast of fresh butter
croissants and jam sitting at outside tables of a really cool French café
called La Barasson, again just down the road from our hotel. The croissants were so good that we were
forced to buy takeaway almond croissants and pain au chocolate to enjoy later
in the day!
After a leisurely breakfast it was
back to the hotel for a final pack then a taxi (US$7) to the airport. Our original plan was to skip Vientiane and
fly into Luang Prabang from Bangkok but when the business meetings became part
of the trip I negotiated an airfare between Vientiane and Luang Prabang to be
included as part of the payment. We
caught the 45-minute flight (US$174.40 for 2) from Vientiane to Luang Prabang arriving
at our pre booked (via Agoda 2 nights US112) guesthouse, My Dream Resort, www.mydreamresort.com, which had been recommended to us by a friend who had
recently stayed there around lunchtime.
A lovely new guesthouse just across the Nam Khan River so not in the
middle of town but close enough, 5 minutes by bike back across the cycle and
motorcycle bridge or about 10 minutes via the bamboo walking bridge that is
erected during the dry season only. The
bamboo bridge only operates in the dry season, as the river is too high in the
wet season. Consequently it is rebuilt
each year so there is a small charge to cross covering its upkeep.
We settled in and then chose a
couple of bikes (available for free at the resort) to set off on our first
exploratory mission around town. Luang
Prabang is a lovely small town with a blend of traditional Lao architecture and
French colonial style. We found a Lao
riverside restaurant and had a lovely lunch overlooking the mud brown Mekong
River. There are caves and waterfalls
that you can visit near by Luang Prabang and of course river trips can be
booked from one of the many travel agencies around town, but we chose to just
relax and soak up the atmosphere.
We had a beer by the pool
sheltering from a tropical downpour, which fortunately moved away before we set
off on our bikes to have diner at Tamarind Restaurant. As we hadn’t booked at this popular fine
dining restaurant we sat across the road with a view down to the Nam Khan
River. The set meal of traditional Lao
food was fantastic. On our way back to
the guesthouse we cycled past the colourful night market which was in full
swing on a closed off road offering traditional Lao handcrafts and edible
treats.
Sun 1
April 2012 – Luang Prabang
We had checked out Tam Nak Lao
yesterday, a traditional Lao restaurant that is owned by friends of our friend
Chris Seabrook, to see if we could book in for their famous cooking
classes. Unfortunately, being Sunday the
cooking school was not running so we decided to book in for dinner instead.
We crossed the Mekong River today
… absolutely had to be done. Were going to
catch one of the river taxis but a local convinced us to let him take us in his
long boat. So in we jump to this narrow very
low boat with a small diesel engine manned by dad and chief bailer his 3 year
old son (probably a bit older than that but he was very small). Of course this is one of the things that we
had been warned not to do on the Mekong but all went well. We arrived on the other side unscathed and
paid our 20,000 Kip (US$2.5) for the privilege.
A bit over priced but hey!!!
Set off walking along the “road”
which was little more than a track, between the rows of village houses
eventually coming to Chompheth Temple.
There was a ceremony with locals praying with monks inside the temple so
we stood at the door and discreetly watched.
We had entered the village from the back entrance. On approaching the square beside the temple
itself we were hailed by a group of local kids selling entry tickets, which
they said included a cave tour. We dully
paid the 10,000 Kip (US$1.25) each and set off with our guides several small
boys and girls armed with torches for inside the cave. It was really interesting … several caverns
with sleeping quarters for some monks.
After climbing up to Buddha shrines inside the cave and poking about
with the kids we followed them back to the cavern entrance … kids running ahead
and pretending to lock us in thinking that was a great joke!!! We set off back
down the road we had come and crossed back over the river this time on a local
car ferry. Lunched at another riverside
restaurant then set off on the bikes for Phosy Market, a local market selling
everything … meat, veggies, clothing, electronics etc. Poked around this for a bit then cycled to
Ock Pop Tok www.ockpoptok.com a weaving centre and café. Did the free tour of the weaving centre and
enjoyed a fruit juice at the café then headed back to the guesthouse. In the afternoon went for a cycle down the
guesthouse road in the opposite direction from town and found local woodworking
shops, weavers and paper makers. On the
way back we stumbled on a dirt track that ended at the junction of the Mekong
and Nam Khan Rivers. There we were
surprised to find a “bar” … a bamboo shack selling Beer Lao, outside of which
were log seats and tables so we sat there and enjoyed a beer while watching the
sun set over the Mekong.
Set off for dinner at Tam Nak
Lao. Chris had unbeknown to us informed
the owners that we would be dining there.
Sinthana and his lovely wife ended up joining us for dinner and as well
as adding some Lao delicacies to our chosen meal they insisted we not pay for
the meal. Totally unexpected! We decided in lieu of paying we would donate
US$50 to the charity that Chris and restaurant owners support. www.lao-kids.org
Mon 2
April 2012 – Luang Prabang to Phonsavanh
The
Guesthouse had organised a taxi to the bus station. On arrival we were dismayed to see that
rather than the “VIP Tourist” bus we had been expecting our bus was very much in
the local transportation category. We
managed to secure the front seats booked by our hotel, but occupied by a local
when we first got on the bus. The fare
cost us 95,000 Kip each (US$12) but would have been 15,000 Kip cheaper if we
had purchased our own tickets from the bus station. While waiting for departure we chatted to
Aussie’s Robert (retired dad) and Kane (30 something son) who were also heading
to The Plain of Jars. Finally the bus
set off … once the conductor had closed the door by wedging a knotted bit of
rope to hold it semi closed. The bus
chugged at about naught kilometres per hour up the first hill … this didn’t
bode well for the rest of the trip!!!
The
first stop was on the side of the road for everyone to clamber off to find a
tree to squat under. Yep, no such thing
as a toilet on board! Most of the trip was mountainous with the bus cruising up
and down and along high ridgelines then dropping way down into river
valleys. There would have been
spectacular views however because it is the dry season and there is a lot of
slash and burn agriculture, the air is very hazy. Actually for our whole time in Laos the air
was extremely smoky from this constant burning of the bush on the
mountainsides. We stopped for lunch at a village down in a river valley where we
ate soup, veggies and rice in a local restaurant about 5 hours into the trip.
Arrived
in Phonsavanh after about 8 hours on the road.
Robert and Kane were also planning a trip out to The Plain of Jars
tomorrow so we shared a taxi into the town and all checked in to the rather large
Soviet style Xiengkhouang Hotel. (It was
actually Vietnamese built and owned). Phonsavanh is a rather uninspiring town,
really only a stepping off point for tours to The Plain of Jars sights that are
open to tourists. We wandered around the
local fresh market then found a café to hang out in until dinner.
Tue 3
April 2012 – Phonsavanh
Today
the four of us set off in our minivan complete with driver and guide for a tour
to the three main plains sites that are open to the public. There are actually about 25 sights where
these huge stone jars are found randomly scattered but only about 6 sights are
open to the public owing to the huge number of UXO (Unexploded Ordinance) still
buried in the surrounding farms, relics from the Vietnam War (locally referred
to as the American War). Sadly in Laos
about three people per day are still killed or maimed by UXO’s. Ordinance
clearing is carried out by organisations such as http://www.maginternational.org/. NZAid
provided funds for the clearance of the three Jar sites that we visited.
First
stop was Site 1 which as we had got to relatively early had only a couple of
other tourists poking around the up to 2m high jars made of stone quarried
about 25km away. Nobody quite knows the
why the jars are scattered over this area or exactly the reason they were
made. One theory is that they were used
as burial jars but nobody knows for sure.
Drove a further 20km on a dirt road to Site 3, which is on a small hill
in the middle of a farm. The jars are on
the top of the hill so there are nice views of the surrounding farmland from
this site. Our lunch stop (choice of noodles
or rice) was at a local restaurant just down the road then it was off to Site 2
another hill location with great views out over the valley. Last stop of the tour was to the ruins of a
700 year old Buddha and to a Stuppa on a hill.
Wed 4
April 2012 – Phonsavanh to Viengxay
Arrived
at the Phonsavanh bus station and to our dismay the bus situation had
deteriorated significantly with todays transport being a “real” local bus –
260,000 Kip (US$32 for 2). This was a 20
seater complete with slatted vinyl seats and seat backs (fortunately some padding
on them) both front and back door back open throughout the journey and of
course the other natural air conditioning feature, open windows. We set off a little after 8am in a relatively
empty bus with three other Westerners but soon it filled to overflowing with
people sitting on produce sacks in the aisle and squashed into every available
seat. At about 8:20 we pulled into the
local square back in Phonsavanh (basically next to the hotel) where the top of
the bus was loaded up with veggies etc … no goats but later there were live
chickens in little oval chicken sized baskets, added to the cargo on the roof. Merrin helped one of the ladies loading her
goods on the roof of the bus and for his efforts was given some green mangoes …
very yummy! Finally left town at 9am and trundled off up, up, up and down those
mountains again. Merrin spent most of
the trip literally hanging out the front or back door … and loving every minute
of it! After 9 hours we arrived in Sam
Neua just in time for the heavens to open.
The five of us Westerners negotiated a Tuk Tuk 50,000 Kip each (US$12) to
take us the 30km extra distance to Viengxay where we checked in to a local
guesthouse just across the road from The Vienxay Caves office, the aim being to
head there the next morning for a tour of the Vienxay Caves (cost 60,000 Kip
plus bike hire of 15,000 kip each (US$9).
Thu 5
April 2012 – Viengxay
The
Viengxay area is a limestone karst landscape with lots of pretty humpy hills rising
up from the plains. The reason this area
is famous is because the natural caves (also enhanced with concrete structures)
which, were used by the Pathet Lao political group and locals (about 23,000
people) during the American War. They
were helping the Vietcong with supplies in and out of Vietnam (the border being
only about 50km away) hence the heavy bombardment of Loas by the American
during the war.
We set
off for breakfast at the local market. A
cute old lady took a liking to me and proceeded to grab me by the hips and
pinch my bumJ
Breakfast consisted of some very good sugar doughnuts and the last of the green
mangoes. Our cave tour was from
9am–12pm. The sites are quite widespread
so we jumped on our old hired bicycles and cycled off in pursuit of our guide
for the morning, a young Lao girl. She
didn’t speak much English, just pointed us in the right direction and told us
which number we were at so we could listen to the history of each part of the
caves that we were in on the audio equipment we were given. The caves housed a
school, a hospital, bakeries, shops and even a large theatre/entertainment area
so all in all they were very interesting to visit. In the afternoon we said goodbye to our
travelling companions and went for a walk around the area eventually hanging
out at a lakeside café drinking beer Lao and watching the sunset behind the
limestone hills.
Fri 6
April 2012 – Vienxay to Hanoi
The
guesthouse owner had arranged for the bus across into Vietnam to come to the
Guesthouse to pick us up. This was
supposed to arrive anytime after 8:30am.
At 7:30 we headed up the road to stock up on more sugar doughnuts for
breaky. Took them back to the guesthouse
to eat and drink with complimentary tea and ate while we waited for the bus. At
about 9:15am we were getting a bit jittery, as the bus had not arrived …
needn’t have bothered being nervous as it trundled along on Lao time at about
9:30. Our intention was to travel to
Thanh Hoa on the coast and about 200km south of Hanoi but when the bus arrived
it had Hanoi as a destination so we paid the driver to go all the way to Hanoi
and cost 600,000 Kip for both of us (US$80).
The buses we have travelled on for this trip were getting progressively
more local. This one was an 18 seater,
was quite roomy to start with a couple of seats each but as the journey progressed
it became a 25 seater.
We set
off and travelled the 50km to the border of Vietnam at Nam Soi, and crossed
with no issues even though we were a day later than our prepaid Visa
allowed. Visas for Vietnam have to be
prearranged, especially for entry at remote border crossings. (although you can get an Internet permit to
purchase Visa’s on arrival when flying into major Vietnamese cities). Just over on the Vietnamese side of the
border we lunched at a café with locals and the other bus passengers most of
whom seemed to be Vietnamese returning home from whatever business they had in
Laos. We wended our way around more limestone
hills following a large river, which at one point had huge wooden waterwheels no
doubt used for farming purposes. The
countryside on the Vietnamese side of the border was stunning – much greener
than in Laos. We soon came off a high plateau
travelling down beside terraced rice paddies and bamboo groves finally getting
down to lower more plain like farmland.
Our next
stop was a tea stop for the driver and a toilet stop for us … in a concrete
bunker like structure with no roof and just a trough at one end in which to
hover over … sharing the experience with other bus passengers!!! After 10 hours of travelling we arrived in
Thanh Hoa and got off the bus for what we thought was a rest … but no we were
shunted on to the back seats of a second bus, which was heading to Hanoi. This vehicle seemed a much better deal with
real aircon and plush fabric covered seats.
It wasn’t long before our feelings of security in this plush interior
gave way to ones of terror as our mad bus driver proceeded to overtake,
undertake and generally take on all of the oncoming traffic as if he ruled the
highway. It didn’t matter that the
highway was chocka block with traffic in both directions. Our driver was hell bent on being in front of
all vehicles travelling to Hanoi. Being in the back seat meant we were
frequently airborne and only narrowly missed having our heads pummelled against
the roof!!! We stopped for dinner at a roadside café and even with this half
hour stop we managed the approx. 200km journey in about 2.5 hours. We were literally dumped on the side of the
highway about 5km outside Hanoi city centre and were immediately set upon by
motorcycle and taxi touts. Once we had
worked out where we were we took the taxi option in what turned out to be one
of the rip off cabs. We insisted he use
the meter, which he did however the meter proceeded to click over at an alarming
rate so that the fare ended up being an exorbitant 500,000 Dong (US$24). We had got to where we wanted to be, in the
old town near Hoan Kiem Lake so off we wandered checking out a few hotels and
finally settling on the Green Mango, which we booked for two nights 2,541,000
Dong (US$120). www.greenmango.vn
Sat 7
April 2012 – Hanoi
After a
good nights sleep (finally having got to bed at about 11:30pm) we had a late
start with a cooked breakfast (included in the room price) sitting at a table
at the front of the hotel where we could look out at the goings on in the
street outside. It was raining and a bit
cool when we set off to explore the city.
We headed off around the Lake and ended up at the upstairs Café L’etage
with a view out over the southern end of the lake. The owners were lovely and helpfully gave us
some good information about buses from Hanoi to the border with China. From there we wandered the streets checking
out the shops. Picked up a double hooded
rain cape for my sister and brother in-law to wear when they go out on their
Harley in the rain, complete with clear plastic for the headlightJ Had lunch at a roadside café then went back to
the hotel to organise our bus to China tomorrow. Set off and found Fanny’s Ice
Cream parlour (which had just opened when we last visited Hanoi 18 years ago)
and indulged in one of their monstrous ice creams! After more walking (necessary after the ice
cream) and sightseeing we found an upstairs balcony bar and drank a nostalgic
333 beer then headed back to the hotel for dinner. Yep, Hanoi was all about food and beverages!
Sun 8
April 2012 – Hanoi – Pingxiang
Had
breakfast at the hotel then headed out on foot for further exploration. Found the bustling indoor market selling everything
from clothing to fresh fruit, vegetables and meat. Got back to the hotel in time to check out
and wait for our bus, which arrived right on time to pick us up at 12:30pm,
240,000 Dong (US$12) for both. This bus
journey was far more relaxed and roomy, just a 15 seater with about 10
passengers … luxuryJ. The countryside was beautiful, first flat
land with rice paddies then for the last 60 or so km we were back into the
limestone pop up hill landscape. Fruit
trees and corn were planted on the steep sides and in order for the villagers
to get produce from the top there was a steel cable pulley system down to homes
at the bottom of the hills. We arrived
at the Dong Dang border crossing at about 4pm.
One of our fellow passengers was going directly on the sleeper bus to
Guangzhou so we decided to do the same.
From the border we shared a taxi to Pingxiang the Chinese town nearest
the border and with her help purchased tickets for the bus ¥440 (US$70) for
both. Went off and found a restaurant
for dinner then back to the bus for 7:30 departure. The sleeper buses have upper and lower bunks
in three rows. They are of course built
for Chinese people so were narrow and not long enough for either Merrin or I
but do come equipped with pillows and blankets.
Can’t say that either of us overly enjoyed the experience but it had to
be done … once!
Mon 9
April 2012 Guangzhou – Lantau Island
We
arrived at a bus station somewhere in Guangzhou! The third person we spoke to understood
enough English to give directions on how we could get to the metro, which was about
a 15 minute walk away. Once we found the
metro we easily found our way to Guangzhou East railway station and by just
after 8am we were on a train to Shenzhen arriving at 9:30am … far too early for
shopping! The Mani-Pedi shop opened at
10:00am so we both indulged. Picked up
Anna’s clothes from the tailor and went for lunch at “Melissa’s” Dim Sum
restaurant. Can’t remember the actual
name of the restaurant but Melissa is a waitress/usher at the restaurant and
every time we have been to this restaurant she is there with her friendly smile
and good English skills to help with our choices from the Dim Sum menu.
After
lunch we went to the massage place on the 8th floor of the
immigration building. This spa is ok …
décor a little tired but massages ok.
Both had a foot and a shoulder/head massage. That was enough for the day. Headed back to Lo Wu shopping centre to pick
up some headphones ordered from a friend in NZ and while there bought a handbag
and a belt … as you do. Crossed back
into Hong Kong and caught the MTR then ferry to Lantau arriving home from a
great holiday adventure at about 5pm.
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