Showing posts with label dien bien phu. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dien bien phu. Show all posts

Phong Sa Ly

Sitting at the bus station at Dien Bien Phu at 7am after my day of exploration, I had a little decision to make. Only two more busses would leave on this day, and both in the next thirty minutes, one to Phong Sa Ly and the other Luang Prabang. Without too much thought about it, and very little information to go on I decided I would get the ticket to Phong Sa Ly.

After the border crossing at Tay Tang, there were about fifteen hours of windy mountain roads through northern Laos, including stopping for an hour behind a crash on the road and unloading cement bricks for an hour at a random town along the way. By the time I was dropped off at the bus station it was dark, foggy and there wasn't another person in sight, I walked with my backpack along the road for about thirty minutes before finding a restaurant that was open for business. I was able to order noodles by pointing, but my cell phone was not working in Laos and nobody understood a word of English, I decided to try my luck with Chinese, and before I knew it the people next to me were helping to describe exactly where I could find a hotel and offering their help to get me there.

Tay Tang border crossing
View out the bus window in Laos

Dien Bien Phu

Dien Bien Phu is located about thirty kilometers from the Tay Tang boarder passing and is basically the last stop going west before crossing into Laos, on my way over to Laos I decided to spend one day here in order to break up the twenty hours of bus rides involved.

My exploration here started on the south side of town where the jungle is dotted with several French Military relics from the first Indochina War. There aren't really any signs describing where to go around here so you can kind of just wander around the jungle until you bump into something important. One of the pieces of artillery which I found was surrounded by piles of mud and getting up to it to take a picture was a bit of a challenge, I'm not sure if it was even meant to be on display however it added a bit of adventure to the morning.


French tank