Road trip to vietnam

[beerlaodrinker]

im of on a road trip driving from Vientiane to nha trang on friday , Heres the plan, finish work tomorrow , Grab the visa and insurance for the car on thursday , visit the bank in vientiane to buy some dong, Then friday throw mrs beerlao drinker and the kids in the car and go, Done a similar trip a few years ago but only as far as hoi an , reckon if we get an early start on we will cross the border at Lao Bao and should make it to Hue or maybe danang , probably do a night or 2 in one of those places to break it up and give the kids a stretch, next its about 8 hours to nha trang , got a month of work so no rush, i will try and post some pics if i can get me head around how to post them .

Oh
changed my avatar this morning because ENT was being a knob end in another thread, Terry57s right he needs a good flagellation

[toslti]

Enjoy Nha Trang.... I really liked it there when i was there in April. Definitely going to get back there again this year.

[nostromo]

There are some very beautiful places in and around Nha Trang. Have a good trip.

And "mrs beerlao drinker" 555 give my best to her and your family be happy!

[beerlaodrinker]

Thank you
all i need to do now is get of this minesite, the cessna goes from site to savannakhet at 8.30 but its pissing down now so i think they will probably cancel it , 6 hours in a minibus down a shit road ( the very same road that we have to travel to get to Lao Bao border) hows my luck

[beerlaodrinker]

As predicted it pissed down and we couldnt fly out, 6 hours by minibus from site to savannakhet and a couple of hours wait at the airport for the vientiane flight , Couldnt have a beer while we were waiting because the company has a no drinking whilst on company sponsored transport, very anal, got home about 6 that night and proceeded to make up for lost drinking time, next day it was of to the viet embassy for the visa, (wife is Lao so didnt need one) 5 minutes wait and $55 for a month, next stop the viet bank to grab some dong and car insurance , paid 16000 kip for insurance and that gives you 30 million dong cover , that was the best cover they sold (its about 2 dollars ) so i guess life really is cheap. had a doctors appointment in udonthani the next day so we decided to go that afternoon and stay there the night

[beerlaodrinker]

Doctors appointment done (need to get some skin cancers cut out but that can wait)
left udon at 10.30 and apart from some young girl running out from behind a songtheow and scaring the shit out of me reached the deansavanh/ Lao Bao border at 7.00pm what a shithole, struggled to get a half decent feed and a cold beer but did find a guest house that wasnt to bad , up early next day and tackled immigration no problems with them on either side but they did give the cars documents a good going over no doubt hoping to find a discrepency to make some money of the decadent car driving farang, The Lao Bao side of the border is actually quite big and has some decent hotels and you definately dont feel like youre in Laos anymore, next up about 70kms to dong hoi or dong ha then your on the coastal road, reached hoi an about 4.30 that afternoon and decided to spend a few days to recuperate by the beach lots of good tucker and choices of accomadation here and the vietnamese piss isnt bad either but had to try a few before i found the one that worked for me

[beerlaodrinker]

Next it was of to nha trang left hoi an about 7.00 and got to nha trang about 5.00, its not all that far distance wise but the sheer amount of traffic on the road is mind boggling No room for error here especially with that 2 buck viet insurance and neither of us speaking a word of vietnamese ( took it slowly) Nha trang appeared to have the usual horde of backpacker scumbags, but the place is nice enough itself , plenty of good seafood to be had , and i suspect there might of been a naughty boy scene as well but couldnt really put that to the test with the missus with me The missus and kids enjoyed the cable car to vinpearl island ,

[beerlaodrinker]

Right, had enough of vietnam, now time to head home to Lao but didnt fancy backtracking the same way so we went through the central highlands didnt stop anywhere until we reached the Lao border at BO. Y but passed through some quite large vietnamese places Plieku and kontum looked interesting but just wanted to get on with it , At the Lao border here you need to stay at a town about 20kms from the border on the viet side as there is nothing on the Lao side and you really dont want to drive this way at night as its bloody mountainous, next was Attapeu then pakse where we stopped for lunch on the river, made the decision to cross into Thailand at chong mek that day and aim for udon ratchatani, mostly because i was sick of all the shite roads and drivers , found a good little resort with pool called ubonburi for 1000 baht where i was able to reintroduce myself with Leo beer,
Next day of early again and reached vientiane about 4.00 had a beerlao in my hand about 10 past 4.00.

All up put about 2800 kms on the car
drove over some shite roads
spent a shitload of money
had half a dozen arguments with the wife

Would i do it again ? NO, WHAT THE #UCK WAS I THINKING. next time we will just get on a plane and fly somewhere, sorry no pics will try to post some later

[ch1ldofthemoon]

interesting post.
When you use an ATM in Vietnam,does it pay out in dong or US dollars,like in Laos and are there lots of ATM`s around?

[beerlaodrinker]

Yep, they pay out in Dong, plenty of them around to, you shouldnt have an dramas

[ch1ldofthemoon]

how much do atm`s charge for withdrawalls? in LOS,they charge 150 baht for using a foreign card?