One more from Nam.

there haven't been too many new photo the past couple of days...so here's one from the internet cafe. It must be PD day or something, because they're all full of kids gaming.

We did say that our next blog post would come from Loas...but it's not. We're currently in Dien Bien Phu. Were a mere 35km from the most northern Vietnam/Laos border crossing. This is one of those towns that is really refreshing to be in. It's not touristy at all. This border just opened in 2007 so it's not a main route by any means. It's really great to see one last slice of real Vietnam before we head into Laos.

The people here have limited experiece with travelers, so there's no effort on their part to rip us off...which is nice. When buying food the real price is quoted up from and there no need to counter offer at the usual 50% of the quoted price or less. The food here has also been great. Perhaps the best (nem) spring rolls we've had thus far.

Aside from eating and wandering around there's not much to do. We got here this morning at about 6:30am, narrowly missing the bus to the first town across the border. The bus leaves at 5;30am, so we'll be on that tomorrow; we have to be, since our visa expires then. The bus here was good and bad. It was good since it was a full size coach bus...a brand new one from Korea. Judging by it's condition it may have only been on the road for a week or so. So that was a welcome surprise from the mini-bus we thought we'd be on. The trip also took a lot less time than we thought. We got here in about 12hrs, and we were counting on 16. It's not too often that that happens. However, it was still a classic Vietnamese bus trip. We got to the bus station at 1:20pm, and it took us quite a while to sort out where to go in the mist of so many buses. Since most people in Vietnam go north-south or vise-virsa, all the buses for forigners are just that; buses for forigners, and they leave from the main backpacker areas in Hanoi. So there were no other westerners at this bus station, even though it's the biggest one in the country. Theres was no one to help us either. Even though there were thousands of people and hundreds of buses, we couldn't find anyone who could speak any english. It probobly took us 45min to find a bus bound for our destination. When we did find one, we learned that it didn't leave until 4pm. After we killed that time waiting around, 4pm turned into 6:30 and we were on the way.

ice in my bia at the bus station...mmm.

The rest of the journey was classic has I said. The ailse had 8 people laying on the floor since the seats were all full. The air conditioner was pumping even though it was less than 15c outside. Everyone on the bus was clearly cold, but no one bothered to ask the bus driver to turn it down. They were all two busy watching the Vietnamese music videos on the tv. When those finished the music phones came out. You know you're in a different culture when it's ok to play loud music on your phone and sing along at 2am when the person next to you and the rest of the bus is trying to sleep...except for the other 3 guys playing their own tunes as well. Of course, no one seemed to mind. So we didn't get much sleep beside the music phones and the techo ring tones that went off at all hours off the night. How come no one sent us a text at 3:15am?

When we got here we got a room in a guest house next to the bus station, and crashed until almost 1pm. We'll be ready to be up again by 5am.

Farewell Vietnam!