Hi all, (tbcompleted)
If anyone who reads this is doing this journey this is our advice. We took four days to get from Luang Prabang to Hanoi but take at least a week. Take local pickups from Luang Prabang to Nong Khiaw, then to Vieng Kam, then Vieng Tong, then Xam Neu. Cross the border and hire a MPV to Mai Chau, then take public transport to Hoa Binh then Hanoi. If you had the time to spend a night in each place it'd be an amazing trip through some little travelled parts.
If arriving in bangkok from the UK is like a cultural slap to the face arriving in Hannoi is like being mugged. It is an incredibly louds and hectic place. The streets in the old quarter are quite narrow. The pavements are taken up by all the stalls and people generally using the streets as their lounges, this means you have to walk in the roads which have a continual stream of horn beeping mopeds going past in either direction. They use their horns all the time, seemingly to indicate "I'm coming past you no sudden movements please" but also to indicate everything from 'hello' to 'I fancy you, wanna come for dinner?'. We loved the city though
We took a 3 day trip out to Halong Bay which is a world heritage site and is naturally beautiful with towering lime stone karsts jutting out of the sea - much like the scenary in Northern Laos but in the water. However being in a tour group for the 3 days - the only real way to get out there - was a bit much to swallow. "Go left, go right, eat now, swim now, no jumping off 
the boat at midnight" (Simon broke this rule decisively and earned us some stern looks in the morning). We stayed for one night on this big wooden junk and then the 2nd night on Cat Ba Island - Torquay of SEAsia, and that's probably unkind towards Torquay.
Upon getting back to Hanoi rather than going back to guesthouse which was owned by the brother of the mother of the cousin of the dog of the sister-in-law's uncle of the person who drove us to hanoi, and at 9pm we didn't really argue, we treated ourselves to a hotel (something we'd promised ourselves since May - Viet Anh Hotel $25, great breakfast buffet, gorgeous room) where Si watched plenty of football.
We had another couple of days and headed to see where the
embassy where Charlotte's Mum worked would have been and enjoyed the cheap Beer Hoi on the street stalls (2,000 dong per beer - 32,000 dong to the pound).
All in all well worth the trip over to Hanoi and we're now looking forward to a week on the beach in the Perhentian islands before we fly down to Sydney on the 12th.
The good news is we got to Vietnam allright - although it did end up being a bit of a mission.
First stop out from Luang Prabang was Nong Khiaw, about 4 hours away by pickup. Nong Khiaw is a small town set in spectacular surroundings on the river. Most people use it as a transport hub to move onto lesser well travelled parts of North Laos. We managed to check oursleves into some terrible guesthouse which also seemed to serve as a dorm for a load of the local workers and the last foreigner to sign in the guestbook was over a month beforehand.
We wanted however only to stay there for the night, intending to catch a morning pickup to the next town and then hopefully change to get another pickup to the border town of Xam Neu. It was here we got a real introduction to how the Lao bus sytem works out in the sticks. The pickup was supposed to leave at 1030 but by 1200 the driver had decided that Charl & I, along with one other irish girl and one old local guy weren't enough custom to motivate him to take his truck out into the poring rain so decided he'd cancel. Luckily enough though another bus came past about another hour later going in the right direction so we jumped on that. The pickup's seem to be privately owned and run on a "if we can be bothered" basis.
The next stop was a small town called Vieng Kam. By the time we got there it was too late to get any transport to the next village so we had to find a place to stay and wait for the overnight bus - something we had being trying to avoid to start with. Our guesthouse duly assured us we could get some kip and they'd wake us up when the bus came past at around 0100 so with that sorted we went off for a stroll through the village. With us being the only three foreign people in the village we got the celebritary treatment good and proper. I do love some of the moments travelling provides you with sometimes, the little boy in his bright orange monks robes who got on the pickup grinning widely at us before proclaiming "I am monk" (I had to bite back the typical english response of "no sh*t sherlock") or the two little kids in the village who came running up to us and proceeded to shake our hands for about fifteen minutes (bit of a novelty for them - they do the buddha bow thing as a greeting here).
The next stop was a small town called Vieng Kam. By the time we got there it was too late to get any transport to the next village so we had to find a place to stay and wait for the overnight bus - something we had being trying to avoid to start with. Our guesthouse duly assured us we could get some kip and they'd wake us up when the bus came past at around 0100 so with that sorted we went off for a stroll through the village. With us being the only three foreign people in the village we got the celebritary treatment good and proper. I do love some of the moments travelling provides you with sometimes, the little boy in his bright orange monks robes who got on the pickup grinning widely at us before proclaiming "I am monk" (I had to bite back the typical english response of "no sh*t sherlock") or the two little kids in the village who came running up to us and proceeded to shake our hands for about fifteen minutes (bit of a novelty for them - they do the buddha bow thing as a greeting here).
Anyway the reason for us not wanting to ctahc the night bus is we knew it would be cramped, crowded, long & possibly more dangerous as well as the fact we would miss all the scenery. Suffice to say it lived up to all our expectations. It was apparent from the minute we got on sleep simply wasn't an option. In additition to the fact I think the bus was designed specifically with the discomfort of your average 6 foot westerner in mind there was also the absolutely awful Laos ballods we were subjected to at regular intervals. Played at max volume I can only assume the purpose was to keep the driver awake as it's hard to imagine anyone taking any actual pleasure from listening to it.
We arrived in Xam Neu tired and aching. A quant little border town with the most obvious communist feel to it we had come across so far. Other than trying to guess what were the wriggling things wrapped up in banana leaves that the locals were devouring with such pleasure there wasn't a lot else to do here. The next day we pressed onto the Vietnamese border.
Incredibly the border crossing went relatively smoothly and required only pennies in the way of bribes. The hassle started a bit on the other side. There is a bus direct form Xam Neu to Hanoi, this we found out runs direct but once a week, inevitably though it went the day before we got there. There is also apparantly another direct bus that runs from the border town. Na Meo to Hanoi every two or three days depending on when the driver feels like it. Again we had just missed it. This left us with the choice between a bus train combo journey getting to Hanoi 
around 0100 am or a private hire MPV which would get us there by nightfall. By this time we'd hooked up with a group of about eight including, Dutch, German and French..... after a lengthly and multi lingual negotiation a group of us decided to splash the big bucks to get a nice comfy MPV straight to Hanoi.
around 0100 am or a private hire MPV which would get us there by nightfall. By this time we'd hooked up with a group of about eight including, Dutch, German and French..... after a lengthly and multi lingual negotiation a group of us decided to splash the big bucks to get a nice comfy MPV straight to Hanoi.If anyone who reads this is doing this journey this is our advice. We took four days to get from Luang Prabang to Hanoi but take at least a week. Take local pickups from Luang Prabang to Nong Khiaw, then to Vieng Kam, then Vieng Tong, then Xam Neu. Cross the border and hire a MPV to Mai Chau, then take public transport to Hoa Binh then Hanoi. If you had the time to spend a night in each place it'd be an amazing trip through some little travelled parts.
If arriving in bangkok from the UK is like a cultural slap to the face arriving in Hannoi is like being mugged. It is an incredibly louds and hectic place. The streets in the old quarter are quite narrow. The pavements are taken up by all the stalls and people generally using the streets as their lounges, this means you have to walk in the roads which have a continual stream of horn beeping mopeds going past in either direction. They use their horns all the time, seemingly to indicate "I'm coming past you no sudden movements please" but also to indicate everything from 'hello' to 'I fancy you, wanna come for dinner?'. We loved the city though
We took a 3 day trip out to Halong Bay which is a world heritage site and is naturally beautiful with towering lime stone karsts jutting out of the sea - much like the scenary in Northern Laos but in the water. However being in a tour group for the 3 days - the only real way to get out there - was a bit much to swallow. "Go left, go right, eat now, swim now, no jumping off 
the boat at midnight" (Simon broke this rule decisively and earned us some stern looks in the morning). We stayed for one night on this big wooden junk and then the 2nd night on Cat Ba Island - Torquay of SEAsia, and that's probably unkind towards Torquay. 
Upon getting back to Hanoi rather than going back to guesthouse which was owned by the brother of the mother of the cousin of the dog of the sister-in-law's uncle of the person who drove us to hanoi, and at 9pm we didn't really argue, we treated ourselves to a hotel (something we'd promised ourselves since May - Viet Anh Hotel $25, great breakfast buffet, gorgeous room) where Si watched plenty of football.We had another couple of days and headed to see where the
embassy where Charlotte's Mum worked would have been and enjoyed the cheap Beer Hoi on the street stalls (2,000 dong per beer - 32,000 dong to the pound).All in all well worth the trip over to Hanoi and we're now looking forward to a week on the beach in the Perhentian islands before we fly down to Sydney on the 12th.
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