Today represented a bit of a moment of truth. Freddie's back was feeling as bad as ever since the pain began. However we felt that we had to go on. We both felt that we had a great chance to hang out when we were in Muang Ngoi but decided to leave, but we'd blown it. Both of us wanted to be out of Muang Khua as soon as possible. The only way was to go on.
So we continued as planned before the issue of the sore back appear, by taking the 7am bus to Vietnam. We'd heard earlier on that this road was horrible and it lived up to expectations. To get to where the bus left fromwe had to take a ferry to cross the river. We paid 50,000 kip for each of us and another 50,000 to transport the bike strapped on the top of the minivan and set off up the mountainous road on bumpiest bus ride I'd been on for a long time. The bus was kitted out for short Lao and Vietnamese, and not at all comfortable for us. Freddie was in agony whenever the bus bounced which was often. As we got closer to the border she declared that she wanted to cycle down the other side, that no matter how bad the road would be (and it was supposed to be good) it would be better on the back of the tandem than in the torture chamber aka the bus.
It turned out to be a good decision. Once off the bus things looked up. The road from the Vietnam side of the border was good and not much pedaling was required so when it was badshe could stand on her pedals and cushon her back from the shocks. We both felt enormously to be experiencing the journey again from the saddle, looking out at the mountains through dusty bus windows just wasn't the same.
Entry into Vietnam was immediately friendly, with a nice reception by the border guards. Once we left the border post we realised that we didn't have nearly enough water and no food, having not even had time to eat breakfast. To add to this We declined the option to change our remaining Lao kip into Vietnamese dong so had no money. We tried to change money in a couple of places along the way but no-one seemed to be into doing this so by the time we reached Dien Bien Phu we were quite dehydrated and hungry. We had some initial difficulties finding a place as the one that we were aiming for, as listed in the Lonely Planet was hard to find and seemed to be closed. We got a lot of contradictory advise and only gave up the search for it as the lack of food and drink had almost triggered a crisis. After a short break in which I drank most of a 1.5L bottle of Coke and order was restored we went to the centre of town and the market, where we found a friendly clean and cheap (7 USD at a very favourable exchange rate) place (the Nha Nghi Trung Anh Guesthouse) rather easily.
We were both extremely relieved that we'd arrived. Freddie was so courageous having endured horrible back muscle pain but continued on nevertheless.
After spreading ourselves out over the large room and having a wonderful hot shower we set off into the market for something to eat.
I had a really nice impression of Dien Bien Phu and its people. It felt much more foreign than any of the places that we'd visited in Laos or Thailand. English was scarcely
spoken and while Vietnamese used Roman script the language was completely foreign and very few loan words sprung out. In addition Dien Bien Phu wasn't much of a tourist town, even though it has great historical significance to Vietnam and to a lesser extent the West. It was here that the French lost a decisive battle in their struggle to retain hold of Indochina in 1954 and started a chain of events that lead to the Vietnam War.
44.3km - 14.7km/hr - 3 hr 0 mins
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