The Golden Tortoise got us successfully way out of Hanoi, but unfortunately it forgot to pave the 200 kms of road leading into our destination of Dien Bien Phu. We were semi-warned in the universal language of sign language as we checked out of our guesthouse in Son La that the road was "very bad and very bumpy". Like anything that we had experienced in Asia so far, we had to check it out for ourselves.... the road was terrible the second we got out of the city limits and continued that way for the next two days all the way into Dien Bien Phu.
The road was under some kind of "construction", although in reality all they had done was completely ripped up and destroyed any semblance of a paved road. The conditions varied anywhere from inches of wet, sticky mud, to stripped pavement with marble sized pebbles on top (the worst to ride on!) to about .01% of the surface that was actually resealed and was like riding on a cloud to heaven. Needless to say, the riding was difficult, but thankfully Mo impeccably timed the acquisition of some trendy dust masks with the conclusion of the paved road. We rode most of the way with our dust masks on, as the dust from passing trucks and vehicles was too thick to breathe without the masks on. To top it all off, we had two of the hardest climbs of our trip, and upward progress was slowed even more as we fought to keep traction and keep ourselves upright. The combination of steep road and SPDs toppled Mo over once and drew some blood on her chain ring, but she recovered quickly and kept on trucking like a pro. While we were collecting ourselves on the side of the road, a kind Vietnamese motorcyclist stopped to check on us and offered us the international gesture of peace - a cigarette. I respectfully declined but really did appreciate the offer; we would probably be doing a lot better in Vietnam if we were smokers. :)
We met an American couple cycling the other way on a beautiful Comotion mountain bike tandem and stopped to swap information and tips. They had come in from Laos over the border that we were headed to, which was very good news as they were the first real-life people we had met that had come across the border. Supposedly it was open for foreign travelers, but the opening was so recent that none of the guidebooks mentioned it and no one really knew for sure. They assured us that they had no problem crossing, although still didn't know if we would be able to procure visas on arrival. We mentally psyched them out when we told them that the next 150km were just as bad as the 50km they had just crossed, and were glad that we were at least nearing the end of the rough section.
We took a rest day in Dien Bien Phu, one of the larger cities in Western Vietnam and the site of a famous decisive French military routing by the Vietnamese. The local museum had a very interesting display of wartime relics and memorabilia, and we spent part of the day chatting with a group of four US marines that had come back to Vietnam to relive and rehash their experiences in the 60s. Hearing them talk about how they had found their old combat positions in the middle of destroyed battlegrounds made us just begin to contemplate how intense the situation really was some 30+ years ago.
We left DPB and headed towards the border of Laos, really not knowing what to expect... we were way off anything that was in a guidebook at this point, and were a little nervous about what to expect at the border crossing into Laos. The climb up to the border was a 18km monster and, while the road was finally sealed, we were getting into some super remote jungle. As we climbed for a couple of hours we barely saw any cars, and began to worry that the border wasn't actually open. Finally we arrived at the Vietnamese exit post and tried to figure out if we could get a visa-on-arrival in Laos. No one that new anything spoke any English, so we processed our visas, checked out of Vietnam, and headed into no man's land.
The 1km ride between the border posts was a bit nerve racking as we began to contemplate what we would do if we were stuck in international limbo in the middle of no where. The best that Mo came up with was to bushwack our way through the jungle a few hundred meters away from the border post, sneak in, hopefully not get shot, and deal with it when we had to leave the country. Confident that we at least had a plan B we were pleasantly surprised that the Laos border post had recently been awarded the "most laid-back landlocked border crossing in the universe" award - yes, they had visas on arrival, and while it took us about one hour to get through (see: Laostime) they let us in for just a few dollars extra in baksheesh (hey, it was Sunday). A wave of relief immediately swept over us - not only did we firmly have both wheels in a country, we were back in Laos... no traffic, no hurry, no problems.
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