The Vietnam, Lao, Thailand cycling trip started with a 25-minute flight at 9:30pm from Victoria to Vancouver, BC, Canada. After a 5-hour wait a 13-hour flight to Hong Kong, where I was to meet John my cycling companion. His flight got in 30 minutes after my 6:30am arrival. We had 8 hours before the next flight to Hanoi, Vietnam. This gave us time to take the 25-minute train ride to downtown Hong Kong and have a good look around. It was amazing for the large number of tall buildings and the masses of people rushing about. It almost makes Vancouver look like a small town. The 2-1/2 hour flight from Hong Kong saw us arrive in Hanoi at about 5:00pm. The flight to Hanoi was uneventful. Contrary to what I expected after the September 11th bombing, airport security seemed about the same as ever and the flights about 98 percent full.

The Hanoi airport turned out to be new and very efficient. Getting through customs and immigration took only a few minutes. Once through customs, someone approached us offering his brothers taxi service for $15 to downtown, a distance of about 35 kilometers. It was a real taxi, but did not appear to have approval to operate from the airport. It was a small new taxi, about the size of a Honda Civic. Somehow, bicycle boxes, luggage and four people were loaded into the car. We were delivered to a hotel in the old section Hanoi, probably were taxi driver and his brother receive a kickback. The hotel was in good location and checked out fine. $20 a night, complete with television and remote control air conditioning. From landing to hotel check in, less than an hour.

Hanoi is an interesting, dynamic city full of suprises all positive. People are extremely friendly, no begging and no vendors giving hard sells, with the exception of the odd post card salesman. There were few cars, but thousands of motor scooters. Initially it was a challenge to cross the street because of all the traffic and traffic uses any space that is available. Somehow it seems to work. The trick to crossing the street is to walk slowly, neither stopping nor speeding up. This allows the operators of motor scooters and bicycles to guess where you will be and somehow go around you, hesitate or speed up and they get confused causing problems. Once I got nervous and stopped, the result, I confused the scooter driver who was expecting to go through my space and got bumped. The old town area is full of small shops and restaurants. We spent several days in Hanoi, longer than expected, as it is such an interesting and pleasant place. We soon found favorite restaurants, one for breakfast on the main street allowing us to view the start of the day, then a quiet spot for coffee by a lake, and a place with a balcony on a side street for supper to watch evening activities. Prices are incredibly low, $1 for breakfast, a 650cc bottle of good beer under a $1 and dinner with a beer for $3. Most of the time in Hanoi was spent wandering the streets and relaxing in restaurants. It would be very easy to spend a couple of weeks in Hanoi relaxing and checking the sights.

We tried to visit Ho Chi Min's mausoleum, but it was closed. Uncle Ho had been sent to Moscow for his annual servce.

We did one overnight excursion to an island in Halong Bay. Halong Bay is an amazing area full of small islands, many of which have large caves. The $17 tour bought pickup at the hotel, a 3 hour bus ride to the coast, a great 4 hour boat ride through the islands to an island resort town with an ocean front hotel, plus all meals. 

Finally, after a week we got the bikes together and started cycling. It would have been very easy to stay in Hanoi and take some of the tours offered to surrounding areas. The cycling, with stops in Ning Binh, Tinh Gia and Vinh totalled 300k in 3 days. We did get stuck in Ninh Binh for a day, as a storm blew though with a day of torrential rains. Otherwise the weather was good, cloudy and warm. The only slightly uncomfortable bit was the high humidity. The ride down highway one to Vinh was through delta land. Highway one has a lot of truck and bus traffic, being the main highway down the coast linking Hanoi to Saigon. However, it does have a wide shoulder to accommodate bicycles and motor scooters. This is a very populated area, so we had the constant company of local cyclists going about their daily tasks. For a few days it was enjoyable going with the flow of people going about their daily life. 

People are extremely helpful and friendly, constantly smiling, saying hello and waving. Viet Nam also seems to be a very safe country in which to travel. There is no feeling of insecurity, walking main or back streets either day or night. An example of the helpful and friendly Vietnamese occurred in a restaurant in Tinh Gia, a one-guesthouse town. It was a 1k walk to a restaurant from the guesthouse. Communication, thus ordering a meal was a problem at the restaurant, as there was no English menu and no English spoken by the restaurant staff, which seemed to be the owner and her daughter. Ordering a beer was no problem. In this situation, it is off to the kitchen to locate eggs and the ever present pot of rice. Pointing at the rice and eggs, will normally get some form of a rice and egg dish. Several different dishes were delivered to the table. Our first thought was they are going to take advantage of us, by supplying us with all the different dishes. Wrong assumption, they just used some initiative to get us a good meal at a very reasonable cost. The meal also included lots of smiles and pleasant conversation, which we did not understand, but made for a very nice evening. When we left for the 1 k walk back to the guest house it had started to rain. We were going to get very wet. Behind us we hear a voice, turned around and there is one of the restaurant staff handing us an umbrella, trusting we will return it. We did return the umbrella the next morning. 

We spent a day in Vinh. A city that was apparently flattened by the French and the Americans then partly rebuilt by the Russians. It contains a large area of decrepit five story apartments, described in a guidebook as looking like East Berlin on a gray rainy day. Wandering through the apartment area, main and back streets brought many friendly hellos and smiles. The streets are full of life. There is also a large market. Again, very friendly people. At one point there was great laughter when one of the market women in good fun faked a chicken toss at John. Hard to believe the number of smiles when you see how little people have and how hard they have to work. People seem to work very hard and put in long hours often 7 days a week. Contributing to an interesting stay in Vinh was finding a luxury hotel complete with a breakfast buffet for $20.

Vinh, Vietnam to Vientiane, Laos

Six days were spent cycling the 500 kilometers from Vinh to Vientiane along highways 1, 8 and 13. Along the way we stayed at Cau Treo, Lak Sao, junction 8 and 13, Paksan, Ban Thabok and Vietiane. 

It was 20k down highway 1 from Vinh to the turnoff onto highway 8 which leads to Laos. Highway 1 had fairly heavy vehicle and bicycle traffic, with constant horn blowing to advise that a car, truck or bus was passing. Then 50 k through interesting farmland and villages to a town where we stopped for lunch. Here the traffic is light. There was evidence of recent rains and flooding. Houses in the country for the most part are built on stilts or raised patches of ground

Where we had lunch there was a nice guesthouse, but as it was relatively early we decide to push on to the border, where we were told there was a guesthouse. The last 25 k of the day were all up hill, although the road was not very steep. The border is located at a pass in the mountains. Going up we ran into mist, a bit damp then getting higher a nice rain. Very soon we were soaked, but not too much of a problem as it was warm. Reaching the settlement at the border was a bit discouraging, as there did not appear to be any accommodation. And after searching we found out there was not any. Now it was dark and we were starting to get a bit cold in our sopping wet clothes. As usually happens in these situations, things worked out and we had a memorable experience. We took refuge by an old post office building. It was hard to tell, if it still functioned as a post office. Somehow, someone appeared and invited us in and indicated that we could sleep in the building. It seems there were a few people living in the building and they cleared one person from his room and let us have it. It was nice to get into some dry clothes. We indicated that we would buy dinner in an hour for the 4 guys that seemed to live in the building. An hour later they came back and lead us through the rain and mud to a shack with a table and some plastic chairs that served as an eating place. Dinner was waiting on the table, not sure what it was. A few meat dishes, one looked suspiciously like cooked intestines. Eating it was like chewing an unpleasant piece of rubber. Seemed to be a favorite of the Vietnamese. I ate mainly rice. Probably helped that the place was so dark. Dinner for 6, including some rice liqueur $2. After dinner, back to the post office to watch the Vietnamese gamble, then to sleep on a tile floor. Glad I brought my sleeping bag. Next day the weather was fine, and we said goodbye to our new friends and crossed the border into Laos.

People in Laos; seem as friendly as the Vietnam people. The kids are all smiles, hellos and waves as we pass by. The adults are more reserved, but friendly and helpful. We disrupted the Laos education system throughout the countryside on numerous occasions. If we pass by a school and a kid spots the funny looking western cyclist, all the kids seem to stop what they are doing to yell and wave to us both from within the school and from the schoolyard. Most of the country schools are simply a roof, half wall and some benches and crammed with kids. Teachers we have been told make the equivalent of $20 Cdn a month. 

In the six days to Vientiane, we met only two other westerners, both cyclists. One Dutch and the other Swiss. 

Vientiane, Laos to Vientiane, Laos

We spent a total of five days in Vientiane, two days on a bus and two days in Luang Prabang. These days with the exception of the two days on the bus were very interesting, enjoyable and relaxing. The bus ride was interesting, but not necessarily relaxing. 

Vientiane is the capital of Laos. It is a pleasant city of about 150000 people, located on the Mekong River. Many streets are wide and tree lined. It feels a bit like a run down French town. We have spent a couple of days wandering around, just enjoying watching people and the sights. There are a number of large Buddhist temple complexes. Generally, they are a bit run down, probably due to neglect by the communist government. It seems however, that they are now allowing work to be done on the sites and they will be quite magnificent when fixed up. There are already some examples of restored buildings. There is also some very impressive government buildings, done in a sort of temple style with long sloping roofs. Other sights are two large markets, their answer to our shopping complexes. Theirs however, consist of hundreds of small shops, usually organized by product. Cloth stalls, electronic goods stalls, food stalls, etc. Shops tend to be small maybe 6 to 8 feet wide by 10 feet deep. An amazing amount of stuff can be crammed into these shops or stalls. The vendors tend to be quite friendly, with no hard sales tactics. 

The pace of activity in Vientiane is much slower than found in Vietnamese cities, fewer cars and motor scooters. It is also much quieter as Lao drivers seldom use their horns, where as Vietnamese driver’s drive with their horns. Due to what appears to be the French influence, Laos was controlled by the French at one time, the city has a number of great French restaurants and pastry shops. I enjoyed the good cheap food. For example a nice 3-course steak dinner with wine in a nice restaurant for about $4. It is quite a change from the week in village eating places.

A typical day in Vientiane starts about 7am, with a short walk to find a place for a good breakfast and coffee. After an hour or so, its time for a walk taking in the markets, people, temples and possibly a museum. About 11am, its time to relax in the Lao Plaza Hotel's lobby. This is a very nice $100 to $500 a night hotel with a luxurious air conditioned lobby complete with comfortable chesterfields and chairs and stocked with current English language papers. It is a good place to relax and get caught up on local and international news. It is a step up from our $10 guesthouse, which is actually quite adequate and only a two blocks away. I get the impression, that if we were Laotians we would be questioned as to what we were doing relaxing in the lobby. However, as we are not, the door is opened for us, and we are greeted with a good morning. Noon and it is time to scout out a restaurant for a Lao beer and lunch. An hour and a half later it is time for another walk and maybe a check of the Internet. The Internet connections are reasonably fast and cost about 1 cent a minute. Then its back to the guesthouse for a rest or some reading on the balcony. Around 5 its time to walk to the Mekong River for a beer and to watch kids playing along the river and to see the sun set over Thailand. The river is the border between Laos and Thailand. The sunset is very spectacular. Having a beer at riverside cafe and watching the sun go down is a popular passtime. After awhile it is time to explore for a restaurant for dinner. There are quite a few good, very reasonably priced restaurants After dinner another walk. Then it is time to head for the Lao Plaza Hotel beer garden. Soon another day has passed in a most pleasant and relaxing manner.

One thing that you notice here is how hard people work and the amount of time they spend working. Many of the small shops and restaurants open as early as 6 or 7 am and may not close until sometime between 8 and 11pm. The small shops also seem to be home for many of the people. You see them cooking outside and the kids playing on the street. And yet, they seem to be constantly smiling or saying hello when you walk by.

Two days were spent riding a bus from Vientiane to Luang Prabang and back. We spent two days in Laung Prabang. Luang Prabang. It is the old capital of Laos. It has many interesting active temples and has been designated a UN world heritage site. It also has quite a few French style buildings, left over from when the French were in control. The old area is only about 3 streets wide, eight blocks long and is bounded on three sides by the river. It was another great place to relax and hang out. We spent one day doing a trip on the Mekong River. It is quite a spectacular ride, stopping at a cave that contains 6000 Buddas and a couple of villages. In Canada you might be reluctant to get in the boat that we hired, but here it seems normal. The riverboats are about 5 feet wide and 40 feet long. I guess it must be some special design that works in the swift currents of the river. The bus ride was interesting, as it was a local bus, with mainly Lao people and a few tourists. The ride was mainly through mountains covered in jungle like vegetation. It is amazing what the buses can carry. They have a large roof rack, which can contain anything from chickens to motorcycles. They seem to get used as much for transporting cargo as they do for transporting people. The one bus had steel posts mounted inside to support the weight that gets piled on the roof. Looking at some of the buses it is amazing they get anywhere. After the trip to Luang Prabang it was back to a couple more hard days in Vientiane. 

Vientiane, Laos to Bangkok, Thailand

Finally, started cycling, again on November 11th.

The first day was suppose to be 20k to the Friendship Bridge, which links Laos and Thailand, then 60k to Udon Thani, Thailand. Laos is short of road signs. So we felt, if we just followed the river there would be no problem. There was a problem, as the road to the bridge crosses the top part of a large U bend in the river. So rather than going straight to the bridge, we cycled around in the large U., going 50k instead of 20k. However, it was an interesting extra 30k as much of it was through dirt roads running though friendly villages. Asked directions several times, I think we got answers, probably correct ones, but I will never know. It can be difficult speaking English and getting responses in Loation. In retrospect, I think we actually got correct directions, but they just did not seem right. We were disorientated, so we ignored them and guessed wrong. Eventually, after 35k were within 5k of the morning starting point. The 60k to Udon Thani was a rather uninspiring ride along the shoulder of a freeway, fortunately without much traffic.

Traffic in Thailand is drives English style on the left, rather than the right. It is extremely easy to start down the wrong side of the road or look the wrong way when crossing the street. I have made the mistake a few times, fortunately a yell from John or a honking horn has avoided any problems. 

The second day of cycling was along a secondary road, much more pleasent and interesting. The Thais like the Vietnamees and Laotions are extremely cheerful, friendly and helpful. Lots of smiles, hellos, friendly horn honking and thumbs up sign. The Thais seem to think we are really funny. Just trying to ask for a pop or something to eat seems to set most of them off laughing in a very friendly good natured way. As there seem to be virtually no westerners in this part of Thailand, I guess we are a bit of a funny novelity. However, it is amazing what some pointing and guestering can achieve. Getting something to eat often involves finding the pot of rice and some eggs and pointing. Then somehow, a plate of rice and fried eggs is provided. A bit of a boring diet after awhile, but we hit a bigger place every couple of days and get some variety. The odd day it is rice for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

When we tried to find a hotel in the town we expected to spend the night, there was a slight problem. There apparently was no hotel. However, as luck would have it, things worked out quite well. While we were unsuccessfully trying to communicate that we needed to find a hotel to a policeman and a couple of cab drivers, a voice from behind was heard to ask if we spoke English. It turned out to be Bert, a Swed who had a house in a village about 15k away. He offered to put us up for the night. We followed him on his motorcycle along a paved road for awhile, then he turned off on a dirt road, assuring us it was a short cut to his village. We had absolutely no idea where we were going, but eventually ended up at his house. It was a interesting evening, with his Thai girl friend and extended family. We did manage to get lost the next day for for about an hour, while cycling back to the main road which led to more interesting sights and encounters.

The fourth day started at 6am looking for a way out of town, when it started to rain. So we found a place for coffee and hung around for a few hours, waiting for it to stop. Then we checked into a hotel. It then stopped raining, but we decided to stay for the day. 

The next couple of days cycling saw us travelling through farming areas and over a range of forested hills. One night somehow found us staying in something similiar to a log lodge in BC. It was purched at the edge of a high embankment over looking spectular views of a distant valley and lake. A great place to have dinner and a beer. 

The next day was an easy 50k of cycling the last cycling day, November 17th. We then took a train 150k to the old capital of Thailand, Ayathuya. After a day in Ayathuya, it was on to Bangkok by train.