Category Landtravel
Today I’ve had a relaxed day walking around central Luang Prabang, checking out the various temples and museums.
I started with Luang Prabang national museum which contains the royal palace as well as the Prabang temple. The palace is suitably luxurious and besides showing off the various rooms has a number of royal gifts on display. You aren’t allowed to take photos inside but it’s interesting. The Prabang temple is newly built but very elaborately decorated, it’s really impressive. It houses the Prabang Buddha a statue that was given to the king of Lan Xang kingdom (historic kingdom in Laos) … Read the rest
My next goal was Luang Prabang, northwest of Phonsavan. It’s a fair distance between the two and I had heard that the roads were bad so I was expecting a long and arduous journey. Turns out that the road was one of the best I’ve been on in Laos so far and I was able to go relatively fast. It still took me the whole day to get there, but I could stop as often as I wanted and didn’t need to stress.
Just a few shots along the way
After checking in I went for a short walk before … Read the rest
Phonsavan is in the middle of an area know as the Plain of Jars. There are thousands of giant stone jars spread out at a number of sites in the countryside around the city. The area was a base for the Pathet Lao and was heavily bombed by the Americans during the war. As records go, Laos holds one of the saddest ones, of being the most heavily bombed country in the world by capita. Around 30 percent of those bombs failed to explode and a lot of the jar sites are dangerous to visit. There are however three sites … Read the rest
I’ve been doing a lot of riding the last few days and I didn’t really want to spend yet another day on the bike but I had to reach my next goal, Phonsavan. The road was better than the one from the border but still not up to Vietnamese standards; it shows that Laos is a much less developed country.
Well, I’m kind of getting tired of riding and, strangely enough, bored with the scenery, even if it is very beautiful. I guess I just want a bit more variation. Because of this, and the incessant drizzle, I didn’t take … Read the rest
I didn’t want to overstay my visa so the first step for getting the bike into Laos was extending it. I know people from some countries, among them Sweden, can enter Vietnam on a visa exemption for fifteen days. I called to make sure that this would be possible for me and they confirmed that this applies at all border crossings and I can get it as long as it was more than 30 days since my last visa exempt entry. So, the day after getting rejected at the border I got on the bus headed for the nearest town … Read the rest
The good thing with not making any plans is that you have the freedom to do what you want. The bad thing about not planning is that you can get into trouble which is exactly what has happened now. My idea was to ride down to Dien Bien Phu and cross the border to Laos from there. The night before leaving Sapa I googled for a bit and found out that it might not be possible to bring the motorbike across at Dien Bien Phu but that information was at least a year old and I figured things might have … Read the rest
We had hoped to do a bit of trekking today but when we woke up it was really foggy. Thinking it might clear up later in the day we headed up to Sapa town and the market which was supposed to be good. The owner of our homestay told us the market used to be in a different place but it’s recently been moved to a big concrete building. Apparently the rent is too high because the place was rather empty. The vendors were basically selling the same kind of things, some had dried fruits and herbs, some had outdoors … Read the rest
There is a highway connecting Hanoi with Lao Cai, the city closest to Sapa, which could get us there in about five hours. I knew we couldn’t get on the highway with the motorbike but looking at Google maps I saw a normal road that looked to be more or less next to it. I figured with a few stops along the way we could get there in maybe six or seven hours; a long ride but not impossible.
It was quite chaotic getting out of Hanoi but eventually we made it without too much trouble. Out on the main … Read the rest
We’ve spent several days in Hanoi taking in the sights at a relaxed pace and generally just kind of hanging out in the city, walking around in the old quarter. Thanks to Yini’s research we’ve also had some really good meals in nice restaurants.
Except for the markets in the old quarter, most of the things to see in Hanoi are museums.
Hoa Lo prison museum is pretty powerful as the old cells are still there and you can sense the brutal life of the prisoners.
The old door looks very solid and imposing 
Being shackled to the bed couldn’t
The goal of the day was to reach Hanoi, but it’s only 90 kilometers from Ninh Binh so we could take things easy. What we missed when we went to Tam Coc was Hang Mua, a temple high up on one of the karsts overlooking the river. Spending the morning there was a given choice. Though the karsts are not particularly tall, they are steep and the climb up was pretty hard work with the sun beating down on you. Once at the top though, that hard work pays off because the view of the landscape below is pretty spectacular. … Read the rest