Rather than commit to 30
hours on a bus from Hanoi straight through to Luang Prabang, Laos, we decided
to break up the journey. Dien Bien Phu sits near the border with Laos and
considering the history of the place we thought it would be an interesting
stopover. Procuring a ticket from Hanoi to Dien Bien Phu required a bit more
effort than other routes because DBP is not firmly on the tourist track. We
ventured through the dense and chaotic traffic to one of Hanoi’s many bus
stations (they all serve different destinations) and spoke with the designated
English-speaking employee who sold us our tickets for the 12-hour overnight
journey.
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My Dinh bus station, Hanoi. |
The next day, we
intended to take a local bus from our hotel to the station, but traffic was too
slow in addition to the pace of the bus, so we hopped in a cab. Arriving at the
station just in time to use the toilet and buy a snack, we got on the bus as
the only foreigners and received stares and giggles as we made our way to the
back (even though we clarified at the time of purchase which seats we wanted
and they were printed on the ticket – nowhere near the back section). The
assistant driver promised that Sam and I could have the whole 4-seat section to
ourselves and surprisingly, he stayed true to his word, though there were many
people sleeping in the aisles (I’m guessing that was more appealing than
being in the bumpy back and sitting wedged next to the foreigners).
We arrived in Dien Bien
Phu at 5am and found a guesthouse quite near the station to put our bags down
and fell asleep for a few hours. The town center is very small and the main
sights can be counted on one hand – market, war memorial, war museum. The sky
was hazy, but you could make out silhouettes of the rolling hills on all sides.
We spent a fair amount of time reading about the battle at Dien Bien Phu and
imagining what it must have been like to fight here.
|
View of DBP from the war memorial. |
We didn’t make it inside
the war museum where they have preserved a French bunker, but we did climb up
to the memorial of the Vietnamese victory for a stunning 360-view of the entire
area. There was a Vietnamese tour group that arrived and made offerings in
front of the statue, many people getting their exercise and a group of kids
break dancing as we descended. It was certainly a well-used monument site.
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Battle depictions. |
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Stairs leading to the war memorial. |
|
Memorial + visitors. |
|
Break dancers. |
Dien Bien Phu was a
sleepy town and a nice change of pace after Hanoi. We had our fill of pho and reading about the Vietnam War
and were ready to move on to the next country.
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