Hanoi overland
Highway No. 8 opens new vistas for tourists travelling between Vietnam and Thailand via Laos
Travelling overland from Thailand to Vietnam was an exacting task until recently. However, the opening of Highway No. 8 that runs from Tha Khek in Laos cutting through lush forest and scenic mist-clad mountains to central Vietnam now allows visitors to travel there by road from the northeastern province of Nakhon Phanom.
In the aftermath of the recently-concluded Thailand Travel Mart Plus and International Travel Show 2005, the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) led a group of travel agents from Asia, Europe and North America to Hanoi, the Vietnamese capital, via Laos using the same route which also connects to Vinh.
Besides Highway No. 8, however, there are Highways No. 9 and No. 10 that link northeastern Thailand with other tourist destinations in Vietnam such as Hue and Danang.
Pichai Raktasing, a TAT director who is in charge of marketing and promotion in Indochina, said Highway No. 8 holds out great promise because visitors either way can travel in quick time.
Vietnamese tourists are known to travel to Thailand in great numbers to visit the former home of their revolutionary hero and the founder of modern Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh, who at one time found refuge in Ban Na Chok village of Nakhon Phanom during the course of his struggle for freedom from French rule.
To facilitate tourist traffic, TAT plans to open an office in Ho Chi Minh City and also attract expatriates based in Vietnam.
Highway No.8 runs east-west and should especially appeal to tourists wishing to explore Vietnam by road, he said, but he also cautioned not to expect too much because it will take some time before mass tourism can take off in a big way along the route. Besides, Bangkok is also linked to most Vietnamese cities by air, a more convenient form of travel.
The good thing, he added, was that Thai travellers visiting Laos and Vietnam don't require visa. The route should particularly appeal to those who live by the banks of the Mekong River that flows through the three countries.
TAT envisages promoting Nakhon Phanom as a springboard for travel in Indochina. As for us group of journalists, we began the tour by visiting the landmark Phra That Phanom temple in That Phanom District and then proceeded to Ho Chi Minh's former home where he spent seven years before returning to Vietnam to liberate his country from France.
It's a lovely rustic wooden house surrounded by herb and vegetable gardens. Inside, in a corner on an altar stood the bust of the Vietnamese hero. Next to it was the kitchen.
"I saw him coming to live with my dad when I was eight years old," reminisced Nguyen Van Tieu, who was born and has spent most of the 70 years of his life there.
Ban Na Chok village is five kilometres from the provincial centre. Most of its residents are of mixed Thai-Vietnamese extract.
"Look there! Those are the coconut and starfruit trees which Ho Chi Minh planted. They are still there," pointed Kornkanok, whose grandfather preceded Ho Chi Minh by two years, to stake out a hideout for the revolutionary leader. Her grandfather lived there 30 years before returning to Vietnam.
The next day we left Thailand at Nakhon Phanom's immigration pier to board a ferry across the Mekong River and arrived on the Laotian side at Tha Khek where a coach was waiting for us. It was driven all the way from Hanoi to pick us up.
The drive from Tha Khek to Vinh would take eight to nine hours, our guide told us, with Laksao our first stop. From Tha Khek it is approximately 100 kilometres to Laksao, 75 kilometres of which is uphill. After two hours the coach came to a stop and our guide showed us an expanse of eroded limestone mountain that formed a bizarre landscape. The road was alternately paved and unpaved but in good condition considering it was rainy season. We saw little traffic in the opposite direction. Some time before noon we stopped for a toilet break at Xokxay Guesthouse, the only accommodation we spotted since we left Tha Khek. Tourists can spend the night there and explore the countryside on foot. Boat tours to caves and waterfalls are available.
Shortly after 12pm the coach crossed Ban Nam Theun Bridge. We saw a riverside village whose residents commuted in boats made from B52 bombshells. We stopped briefly at Laksao for lunch before continuing our ride along a rural road. A truck carrying dogs was spotted heading towards the border. Perhaps they were being smuggled from Thailand across the Lao border to Vietnam, I thought. An hour later we stopped at Keo Nua immigration checkpoint on Laos-Vietnam border. It sat at a high point on the mountain and it's cold and windy there.
It took us a good part of an hour to complete the immigration formalities. "From now on we will be descending. It is another 80 kilometres to Vinh," said our guide.
As the coach hurtled downhill and past rice fields and villages, we looked back at the mountains we had just crossed. They stood majestically in the distance. By now the road was noticeably busier. Motorbikes plied the route and the scenery had changed too as we spotted Vietnamese-style houses rising the roadside.
As the sun was setting we crossed an old steel bridge over Lam River. Men unwound by the banks and children frolicked in water.
We were in Nghe An Province in north-central Vietnam and its most important city is Vinh, located about 290 kilometres south of Hanoi. Vinh lies on Highway No. 1, to which we would be connecting to in two hours time. Highway No.1 is Vietnam's main transport artery and its link with No.8 makes the Vinh-Tha Khek-Nakhon Phanom connection an extremely lucrative prospect as there are plans to extend the link to Burma.
Our guide told us Nghe An has several beautiful beaches which open to China South Sea, with Cua Lo rated as one of Vietnam's best. Coincidentally, Kim Lien village where Ho Chi Minh was born is also part of the province.
Vinh was the final stop for the day. At the end of it we had done three countries in a single day, by no means a small achievement.
The next day, the road to Hanoi turned out to be a long one, our progress held back by heavy traffic on the route. After 50 kilometres we reached Ninh Binh, which as per the tour brochure, offered a rowing experience in settings similar to inland Halong Bay.
The river Huong Long flows through Ninh Binh and boasts of picturesque limestone mountains interspersed by rice fields on its banks. We arrived at a pier where boats stood waiting for tourists.
The two rowers took us along the river while we admired the reflection of mountains on the water surface and the sight of ducks frolicking nearby. We moved past caves and other attractions before making our last stop at a point where we were met by other boats, some selling drinks and snacks.
We thought that our rowers might need something to freshen them up so we bought them canned drinks. However, it turned out the rowers just returned the unopened cans to girls we just bought them from. It's a rip off, carried out blatantly under the glare of their eyes.
"As soon as I handed a can of beverage to one rower, she said 'thank you' and passed the can over to the girl on that boat," lamented one visitor. "I am speechless."
On the return leg to Huong Long pier, our rowers tried to sell us souvenir items such as T-shirts and table cloth.
"Every time I said no they brought forth a new item," another visitor noted. Some tourists dealt with the situation by buying a few items to appease them, but most didn't, and to top it off on reaching the pier the tourists were asked for tips. The whole experience was disgusting.
When the matter was raised with the tour guide, he said boat operators had to make extra money because they were required to pay the pier, which is state-owned, a certain monthly fee.
He explained that these operators only received a small percentage of the boat rental fee _ the state taking most of it _ and they were left with no choice but to earn extra income by selling drinks and souvenirs to tourists.
Whatever the reasons, the incident left an unpleasant taste. Vietnam is trying to attract tourists, but its activities as such that will drive them away. Maybe the authorities are not in the know, but the bottom line is the Ninh Binh boat racket must be tackled firmly and urgently before it can do more harm to its tourism industry.
We boarded the bus for one last time that day and by evening reached Hanoi. Getting off the bus, we were overwhelmed by a sense of anticipation about a city that not long ago was the hotbed of nationalism that saw off two great powers.
Barring the boat incident, overland to Hanoi was a rewarding experience, a trip inconceivable until Highway No.8 made it possible.
By Thanin Weeradett - The Bangkok Post - July 15, 2005.
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