Sam Neua was supposed to be our gateway to Vietnam but fate (and the Vietnamese New Year, aka Tet) had other plans. Knowing that Tet has the tendency to shut down Vietnam, we arrived in Sam Neua with four days to spare before the holiday actually started. We had four days instead of five because, lest we forget, of our extended stay in Luang Prabang. While discussing terms for renting a motorbike, we overheard some other tourists trying to get a ride into Vietnam. Apparently, they had heard that the last bus across the border to the city of Than Nua had left that morning and there wouldn’t be another one until well after Tet had finished, about a week away! We asked around and confirmed that that was indeed the last bus and that we would have to figure something else out.

Sam Neua was not a great place to be stuck. Nothing against it or the people that live there, but if you’re not Lao (or you don’t speak Lao) then there isn’t much for you. There was only one restaurant in town that was vaguely tourist-friendly and we went there twice a day while we were there (along with the ten or so other tourists in town). Having our options so limited ended up being very lucky since we made some good friends over dinner and beers (hi Louise and Matt!). In the moment, however, it was extremely frustrating. Add to this the fact that our hotel was FREEZING, the promised wifi wasn’t working, and the only staff on hand was a 11-year old girl, and we had a rough time of it. The one saving grace, besides the friends we made, were the caves of Vieng Xai.

For those of you who may not know much about the history of Indochinese conflict, allow me to provide a quick refresher. The history of this region is incredibly complicated and what follows is simplified to the point of potential inaccuracy.

Laos and Vietnam were both once under the control of the French (one of the biggest remnant of that legacy is the proliferation of baguettes in both countries). While the Vietnamese struggle against colonialism (France) and imperialism (America) is fairly well documented, the history of conflict in Laos is rarely discussed. The modern borders of Laos were created when France gave up expanding its territories into what was known then as Siam. Wikipedia points out the interesting fact that if France had never entered the picture, Laos probably wouldn’t exist today. If France hadn’t pushed into Siam, Laos would just be the far eastern part of Thailand. On the other hand, if France had pushed a little further, Laos might have been a larger and more powerful country (20 million instead of 6).

While they enjoyed the occasional holiday in Luang Prabang (much as they do today), the French were really mostly focused on their other Indochinese territories (Vietnam in particular) and didn’t spend a lot of time or energy in developing Laos. This was both good and bad. They expanded protections for the minorities but didn’t do much to develop the economy. However, the relative stability of the territory did end up attracting some people back to the cities and the economy grew slowly.

WWII and Vietnam’s resistance to French colonialism put an end to the era of stability. Japan’s military death throes involved an occupation of Laos in March of 1945, with the Lao and the French pushed up into the hills. They eventually worked together to expel the Japanese in August of the same year. The French regained control for a short while until Prince Phetsarat declared the French protectorate abolished. The French, who were in direct conflict at the moment with the Viet Minh in Vietnam, said ‘sure, whatever’ and granted them independence within the French Union. After the Vietnamese victory at Dien Biem Phu in 1954, which was the end of the conflict between the Viet Minh and France, Laos was granted full independence at the Geneva Conference later that year (though their interests were largely secondary to everyone else’s).

The Lao revolutionary group that would become known as the Pathet Lao (“Lao Homeland”) was created in 1950. In pretty much every way that counts, they were part of a larger effort (led by China and North Vietnam) to spread communism across Asia. Laos almost completely relied on North Vietnam entirely for all the resources of war to the point of having North Vietnamese occasionally leading the troops. More or less completely under the thumb of the Vietnamese (a situation that only began to change in the last fifteen years or so), the Pathet Lao fought against the U.S.-backed Royal Lao government for the next two decades. They were based in the northeastern part of the country for a couple reasons. First, it was close to their allies and allowed for the easy transport of resources. Second, the rugged landscape (especially the caves) gave them natural cover from the U.S. bombing campaign.  In 1975, shortly after the North Vietnamese seized power in the Fall of Saigon, the Pathet Lao seized control of their own country and it has been under the control of the Communists ever since. It has been a little less repressive than its neighbors to the east and the north but still has its history of re-education, labor camps, and what sounds like attempted genocide: it has been accused of murdering tens of thousands of Hmong (100K out of a population of 400K) who fought alongside the U.S. as commandos during the war.

So what’s the point of recounting this history? Well, Vieng Xai is where the revolutionary armies were based. It’s an incredibly beautiful landscape doted with massive limestone karsts. These karsts contain sizable caves, and it was in these caves that the Pathet Lao leaders hid. They had barracks, dorms, a hospital, weddings, and a cavern large enough to screen films. If that doesn’t sound so bad to you, remember that they were living in these caves for 9 years while American bombers carried out the most destructive bombing campaign in history. They couldn’t go outside for fear of being spotted and villagers in the surrounding area suffered as collateral damage (very strong echoes of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan). The landscape is beautiful, the history is tragic.

The other story in Sam Neua is that of how we finally got out of there. Once we got over the shock of being stuck in the hinter-est of hinterlands, we boiled our options down to three. We could either cross the border at the point we were originally considering (a crossing consistently referred to online and in guidebooks as ‘a pretty bad idea’), head back to Luang Prabang and fly to Hanoi, or head north towards Muang Khua and cross there (a crossing considered slightly less of a bad idea). In my head, the impending choice started to feel like a defining element in the narrative of our trip.

First was the option to hire a taxi to take us as close to the border as possible (which left us with 6km to cover on foot) and then find someone to take us onward from the border into Vietnam. If we decided to take this chance and cross the border near Vieng Xai, we risked outrageously inflated transportation costs charged by opportunistic and unscrupulous taxi/bus/motorbike drivers upon arrival in Vietnam, and a very real chance of being abandoned in the middle of nowhere by the same. Even the best case scenario meant a six-hour, back-breaking ride on the back of a motorbike that would end up costing us (according to accounts from those brave souls that went before) almost the same as a plane ticket from Luang Prabang. Clearly, this was the ‘hardcore, take-no-prisoners, experience-the-adventure-to-the-fullest’ choice.

Our second choice, to return to Luang Prabang and sip on lattes while waiting for our flight to Hanoi, was very attractive. One might even say seductive. It would have cost us a pretty penny but it was definitely the easiest option. No tricky overland border crossing was involved and it came with the chance to spend more time in one of the nicest cities we’ve been in so far. Clearly, the least adventurous option, but with the benefit of making life easier.

The third choice, and the one we eventually went with, involved making our way towards the north. We would go through Nong Kiaow and Muang Khua, crossing the border to end up in Diem Bien Phu. This choice felt like it sat somewhere in the middle of the other two. It wasn’t as adventurous as crossing on foot from Vieng Xai and it was definitely more adventurous than flying from Luang Prabang. It turned out to be one of the best decisions that we’ve made on the entire trip. We got to spend more time in the beautiful countryside of Laos, cementing its well-earned positions in our hearts, and made some great friends that we ended traveling with for the next couple weeks. I think I’ve written enough for now, though. More on that later!