After some true hardcore travelling in Northern Laos and Northern Vietnam, we arrived just in time for the New Year in Sapa, a busy mountain town in Northern Vietnam close to the Chinese border! It's been a very exhausting but beautiful way to come to this place! We left Vang Vieng finally on the 27th and got on the busy local chicken bus. The corridor full of stuff from the people and hardly a space to sit but we did the 20 hours overnight trip and arrived in the early morning hours in Sam Neua. From there we caught just the next pick up (open air, juhuuu) to the border town Nameo, where we finally left Laos and entered Vietnam. There the adventure only just begun!! After an hour of running back and forth between some offices and signing 100 papers followed by luggage examination (if we carried weapons...), we went on foot to find out how we could go further from there! well, not that easy as it turned out. We crossed at a border with no money exchange and no public buses that would go on from there into Vietnam. So the only way was to hire a private car that brought us 3 for 30$ to a hill tribe town Mai Chao (an over 5 hours ride on windy roads, well worth its price!!), where we stayed overnight in a bamboo house and got served some nice food prepared by the local family. At least so we could celebrate Elodies birthday a bit :-)
Next morning we had to be brought on motorcycles to the 5km away cross roads where a bus would pick us up to go to SonLa. That was another 5 hours trip. We arrived in a dusty town where they wanted to make us believe there is no more bus to continue towards Sapa and that we'd have to stay overnight in one of the guys hotel! Yeah right. We didn't believe it and walked to the street to catch a hike. And see there, a bus to Dien Bien Phu passed and picked us up! After some wild discussions with the bus driver, we could pay the fare in US Dollars (we still had no local currency!) and continue! After some more wild discussions and Elodie drawing a women sitting on the toilet, the bus driver was convinced of the emergency and stopped the bus for a toilet break :-) Well, you need to be creative in this country!

Vietnam is an incredible change to Laos. Everything seems to be much faster and busier. People here are much less relaxed and time seems to matter again! Actually very much, considering our bus rallye this morning!! I felt like in a race car Nintendo game, only that I was in the screen and not in front!!
But we safely arrived and are ready for our well earned massage, sauna and a New Year Eve's celebration tonight, if we can find that here!!

Happy New Year to all of you and a good start off in 2005!!