Our last non traveling days in Lao were spent in the little town of Nong Khiaw. It was a great place to relax for a few days and we enjoyed some great local food and wonder around the town.
We knew that the Lao and Thai new year was on the 13th but didn't realize that celebrations started early when we rented bikes that fateful morning... water fights are the preferred mode of celebration and in no time we had been soaked from head to toe! Little children were waiting at ever turn with water guns and buckets and took pride in unleashing everything they had at any passages by, especially at tourists. We even supplied the enemy, cute little children, with some weapons and then got out of there before they could put them to use on us.
After putting in some serious time getting to the Vietnam boarder we crossed through with no troubles and didn't have to pay any bribe (everyone we asked about the over land boarders kept mentioning bribes). We spent 3 long days on buses, boats, tuk tuks, and our asses waiting for said transportation devices.
Along our journey we saw a lot of cute puppies, Porno wall tiles I'm a guest room bathroom (decided against that guest house for obvious reasons), and a river side truck/scooter washing party. We were eating lunch on a balcony ogled looking the boarder when we see a guy drive his truck straight into the river. Next thing you know he's stripped down to his undies and is using a bowl to splash water all over his vehicle. A while later our attention was perked up by the sounds of a scooter engine wearing at full blast from the same direction. Now his buddy had his scooter in the action and was spraying water everywhere where while the truck guy was floating downs stream while trying the get his spare tire clean. It was a sight to be seen and kept us entertained while we had lunch. Got to give to give the man credit for using the resources he had on hand though.
Our first stop in Vietnam has been the city of Hanoi and as Dan warned "the traffic is fucking insane" wasn't an under statement! Scooters, cars, and trucks fly by from all directions keeping pedestrians on there toes. The sidewalks are unusable because they are clogged with parked scooters. As there are no complete gaps in traffic the recommended method of crossing the road is to walk slowly across so that traffic can avoid hitting you. Which surprisingly they don't even while refusing to slow down.
There is no shortage of things to do in Hanoi and we have kept busy taking in the sights. Spent an evening walking around the lake taking in all the monuments. We also found a poster shop selling old communist propaganda posters from the war.
We took in a water puppet show at the theatre, which was developed centuries ago by northern Vietnamese rice farmers who would use flooded rice fields as their stages. Then we stumbled across the best ice cream shop. They have tons of sweet combos and flavones and even a sushi ice-cream platter.
We ran into ran into some friends we met from our cooking class and enjoyed some beers at these awesome street stands. The vendors have little stands on the side walks and tiny plastic chairs litter the surrounding sidewalk and street were you can site with a hundred others and drink 13 cent draft beers. Not hooo bad of a way to spend an evening trading travel stories.
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