Sapa to Dien Bien Phu
28th of September
We had bought our minivan ticket the night before leaving from Sapa early morning to Dien Bien Phu (for $12). And so come 7am we were bumping along the twisting roads up in the hills, in a ridiculously old van along with several other tourists, which would just be the beginning of an adventurous trip to Laos.
Now as much as we had read other people’s stories of this bus journey and just how horrible it had been, we have to say for us it was quite the opposite. It was long and tiring, yet so beautiful and breath-taking that we very happy we chose to do it.
We drove along small roads, which led us through the jungle, along flat platforms with huge boulders randomly standing out, through countryside villages where children ran alongside us waving. It was amazing. We stopped only for pee breaks along the side of the road with an amazing view over the hills covered in jungle landscape and once for a quick bite to eat. A good eight hours or so later our minivan pulled up into the bus station of Dien Bien Phu. We debated on taking a bus straight away to Laos, as one was to leave only a few minutes later, but gave in to the idea of having a bit of a rest and a good night’s sleep. We bought a ticket for the following morning for roughly 110.000vnd and after a quick bite to eat we retreated to a ridiculously uncomfortable bedded room across the street.