The road to Border Post 0

So there I was, tickets booked to Vietnam. Again. Sigh.

I was lacking the usual enthusiasm I had for the country. This would be my 20th or so visit since 1997, and apart from some family stuff with my son in Saigon, I had nothing planned. Nowhere in particular I wanted to see. As the song says, no particular place to go.

I let my friend, lets call her 'Diệp', because that's what's on her passport, know I was heading back. I suggested Điện Biên Phủ to walk in General Giáp’s footsteps. Why don't we go to "A Pa Chải?", she said. I looked into it. Truly the back of beyond and then some. Nearby is “Cột mốc Không Số” (Border Post 0, the border post from which all others are counted), the most Westerly point in Vietnam and the joint China/Laos/Vietnam border. “Perfect”, I said, and began to look into it. Quite a bit of stuff in Vietnamese about visiting. Good. Not so much in English. Even better. Nothing to show that foreigners ever went there. Very good indeed. I put out a call for information of TripAdvisor: Absolutely nobody picked it up. Thorn tree: "Mama Mia, this is the end of the world ! I think you are going to have to forget it; my info from a Viet friend who called some locals is that it is a military zone and you cannot approach the border in that region without a military escort." Encouraging signs, well, not really encouraging, but I was encouraged. Searching online, I acquire the telephone numbers for the border post. Diệp rings up to enquire about permits. Inconclusively positive. Or possibly positively inconclusive. Helpful in that way that Vietnamese people sometimes like to be helpful but without actually taking the risk of actually being helpful.

Fast backward: I had already been to Lũng Cú, the North Pole as far as Vietnam is concerned a few times. Always worth a visit if you are in the region.

I even got a group of Vietnamese to join me in a Happy Birthday video for my wife when I was there on her birthday and she was back home in Scotland. She is a very understanding lady, without whom etc, etc.

And cycled down to the South Pole (afaVic) at Đất Mũi.

Obviously, before going to Border Post 0, I should collect the Eastern Pole (well more of a squat pyramid, really) at Mũi Đôi. Near the rather nice, but rather noisy Đại Lãnh Beach.  An easy stroll.

So, finally, Emirates to Hanoi, a stop off in Tam Kỳ to visit the Đài Tưởng Niệm Mẹ Việt Nam (Heroic Mother Monument).  

Đài Tưởng Niệm Mẹ Việt Nam

Everything I expected it to be. 

I spent the rest of the day on the excellent beach and wandering round the Tam Thanh Mural Village which is actually quite cool.  

Off the beaten track in Vietnam, I am still amazed at the prices practised. At the excellent Quán Chay Thanh Tịnh in Tam Kỳ a delicious veggy meal set me back 15,000 đồng. 

Train on to Saigon to meet up with my son flying in from Hong Kong.  Luggage everywhere, including where my legs should be. 

We head back north to the relatively quiet airport at Tuy Hòa. Say what you like about the French and Americans, they left Vietnam with a a head start as far as airfields are concerned. Tuy Hòa is a quiet little town with a massive museum (Bảo tàng Phú Yên) which we only discovered too late to visit. Delicious veggy food also available in Tuy Hòa and easily found thanks to Happy Cow.

Down to Đại Lãnh Beach for a, ticky box walk to Mũi Đôi.  Son, as teenage boys are wont, declines the offer to join me on my trek. Xe ôm found to drop me off at the start of the trail and come back later to pick me up. Off I go for an easy 7.7km walk to the marker. 

An easy stroll

Or so I thought. Lost the trail at some point possibly by following what looked like a detour round a washed out section. Ended up close to the beach with no discernible trail to get me to the marker or back to the trail. Stunning location for a house...... 

...if you have a boat.  

Ploughing on, came to impenetrable forest. 3km from the marker according to the map. Well, I could try to plough on or backtrack and find the trail. Either way, I’d be low on water before I got back to the road. Discretion being the better part etc, I headed back. Tumbled out onto the road, still with some water left, but bothered and hot. A young Vietnamese couple were stopped right there for a photo opportunity. Perhaps they took me for a freshly shipwrecked Ancient Mariner. Instant friends. Staying in touch. 20km walked according to Google. Goal not achieved. Oh well, I’ll just have to come back next year. Time to get back to Saigon with my son do some stuff and see him off back to Hong Kong.  An easy stroll.  Sigh.  Hope I have better luck in the West.

Fast Forward: Hanoi. I decide to go ahead to Điện Biên Phủ to open negotiations about a border permit with Diệp following on the next day. DBP is a pretty small place. I had met an Australian on the plane who was flying in to meet a fellow countryman friend who was working with a medical team in the area. We come out of the airport together where the friend is waiting. It’s lunch time. The friend says, “Immigration is just across the road, but you won’t find anyone awake for another hour. And I wouldn’t get any hopes up for getting a permit.

Easy to walk from the airport to my hotel – the Pha Din, run by the Army. All the other guests seem to have uniforms to wear. I didn’t bring one. $20 gets quite a lot in DBP. I could have had much cheaper, but this was right next to the bus station and handy for when Diệp would arrive in the early morning. Receptionist helpfully shows me pictures of the washed out road on the way to A Pa Chải.  


Endless hot tea from pots nestling in silk lined snake charmer style wicker, um, snake containers renews my strength.

Showered and fresh, I head on back to immigration where, sure enough, everyone is awake and open for business. I practice my little speech in my head and head in. “Tôi muốn đến A Pa Chải. Tôi muốn ghé thăm cột mốc số 0. Bao nhiêu là một giấy phép?”. (I would like go to A Pa Chải. I want to visit Border Post 0. How much does a permit cost?) I wander in to the first office. A lady with regulation hair invites me to sit down. They all have regulation hair – a large poster in the stairwell shows the acceptable hairstyles. My 50k hair, beard, nose, ears, eyebrow cut is perhaps a little short.  I launch into my speech. The lady replies in flawless English, “You want to go to A Pa Chải? One moment please. ” She makes a phone call. “Come with me, please. ” She leads me upstairs. I check her hair against the poster. She doesn’t need to. 

Upstairs front left, I am again invited to sit. My new friend sits next to me. The Junior Officer (1 Stripe, 2 Stars) sits opposite me. The more senior officer (2 Stripes, 2 Stars) remains at his desk. My new friend translates. 1S2S asks for my passport. He shows it to 2S2S. They are perplexed by the length of stay and absence of a visa. My new friend translates. “Do you have a visa exemption?”. I explain I have an E-Visa. This appears to be beyond their ken. I explain that I have a paper at the hotel. Many questions ensue. “Why do you want to visit A Pa Chải?” “What is your job?” I claim to be retired. It’s easier and might be true. “What was your previous job?” Thankfully, I was never a journalist. 1S2S taps away on his computer, presumably looking up whether I could possibly be eligible for a permit. They tell me I need a local sponsor. This, I already knew. I explain that I have friend coming from Hanoi to join me. “What does she do?” I explain that she is a freelance translator. Thankfully, she is not a journalist either. They seem prepared to accept that she might be a suitable sponsor and we fix a time to come back together the following day. 14:30. The morning is apparently taken up with VIPs coming in to mark 30 years of Laos/Vietnam cooperation. Presumably why the hotel was full of uniforms. “How much does a permit cost?” 2S2S has a think. “Mười đô” ($10). Seems good to me. I have done all I can for today. 

Have a look around town and eat at the excellent Yen Ninh vegetarian restaurant. You can never have enough tofu.

Up at 05:30 to meet Diệp off the bus. I love solo holidays. I can get up whenever I want. Turns out to be 05:30 most days. Which is fine. Showered, breakfasted, we set off to visit General Giáp’s (reconstructed) Điện Biên Phủ headquarters.  Reconstructed means concrete and steel in place of, presumably, bamboo and wood. Still well worth a visit. Walked in the footsteps of giants. Then the sky opened. The family who run a small stall have a sideline in renting umbrellas when it rains. They send their 8 year old along with us to bring the umbrellas back, and possibly to make sure we don’t abscond with them. I’m not sure what the Vietnamese is for entrepreneur and she might not either but it is hard to find fault with their efforts.
People on the internet tell me it’s raining and the roads are impassable. Viettel.  The best network in Vietnam.  It just works.  Even at the back of beyond.  

Back into town for A1 Hill etc. Lunch at Yen Ninh. Diệp is impressed. We have tofu again.  

Back to immigration. Upstairs, front left. Diệp sits at my left like a lawyer to translate. 2S2S sits facing me to preserve the symmetry of the situation. 1S2S takes notes. We are given glasses of water. Diệp is impressed, but I had been hoping for tea and take water as a bad omen. We begin again, but I can sense that something has subtly changed overnight. Still the same smiling faces. But they don't want to accept Diệp as my sponsor.  That's why we didn't get tea, I think. A moment of light farce happens when, instead of waiting for Diệp to translate the question about where I am staying, I answer in Vietnamese, “Phòng hai trăm mười. Khách sạn Pha Đin. ” Diệp automatically translates, but into English, “Room 210, Pha Din Hotel”. 1S2S looks like a rabbit in headlights whose ears have let him down. Diệp doesn’t realise what has happened. I resolve to stick to English. 2S2S allows himself a smile. However, we soon seem to be going round in circles. 2S2S wraps himself in the impenetrable argument. “This is not an official tourist attraction, you can’t go there without a permit. You can’t get a permit because this is not somewhere you can go. ” Not like Lũng Cú, apparently. That is, apparently, an official tourist attraction. Not like General Giáp’s grave, which isn’t an official tourist attraction, but is “a place people go”. We try to find a chink in the armour. 2S2S, then adds an extra protection. “Anyway, the road is blocked. ” We ring up the bus company to check if the morning bus got through. “Sure”, they say. 2S2S is not impressed. The only way I could visit would be to “book a tour of Vietnam from the UK which includes a visit to A Pa Chải in the itinerary. ” That’ll be soooo easy to find, I thought. We go round in circles a few more times. Finally, and I think we were all slightly dizzy by this time, 2S2S announces with finality, that the only way I could possibly visit is with a properly registered Công ty Du Lịch (tourist company) who would be responsible for my safety and security. And, presumably, my behaviour. And safe return to DBP. He sat back, satisfied. We pounce on the scrap.  “So, if we come back tomorrow with a representative of a properly registered Công ty Du Lịch, I can apply for a permit?” “Yes.” “How long will it take to be granted?” The body language managed to convey the Vietnamese equivalent of mañana with no need of Diệp’s translation. We thank them for their time and arrange to come back tomorrow.


Scouring the internet, we find numbers for various people claiming to be tourist companies in DBP. They all say they will get back to us. Finally, Dũng from dulichdienbienphu.vn gets back to us. He claims to be the only show in town and that the others we had called had all called him to see if they could get a commission from handing him business they couldn’t do themselves. I could tell that wasn't a scenario that Dũng would be entertaining since we had also phoned him.  We agree to meet later. We do. Yes, he can arrange a car. Yes, he can arrange to satisfy the requirements of immigration. We talk money. We agree a price. He assures me that we can get a permit in 2 hours. We all arrange to meet next day back at immigration. 


Diệp and I discuss what we're likely to get for the money. Will there be seat belts? we wonder. Yen Minh for tea. 

Picked up from the hotel next morning in a pretty high end Mitsubishi Pajero. It has seatbelts. Aircon. All round parking cameras. Sick bags for Diệp.  Perfect. 

Back to immigration in the morning. 1S1S is all alone. We are now three. Much writing in Vietnamese.  Dũng pulls his official company stamp out of his briefcase and stamps our application in regulation red.  1S1S has a red stamp too.  Things are looking good. We hand in the paperwork and head back to the hotel to chill out while we wait. Chocolate and a cheesy movie. Perfect way to spend a holiday in Vietnam.  View of the hills from whence the unimagined Vietnamese artillery once rained down.

Finally our tourguy calls. He has the permit.

We don’t even get to the end of the movie, but I can guess how it ends. Happily.  Whatever that means.  Bags into car and we are finally off. Three full days since I arrived in DBP. 

This is not good country for an infantryman. Beyond every hill is a valley. At the bottom of every valley is a muddy river. Over every muddy river is a bridge. Beyond every bridge is another hill. Round every bend is another bend. Green as only Vietnam seems to be. Water buffalo, children running naked. Rice where the terrain allows. Stunning. Perfect. Well, it’s no Hà Giang, but it's nice. All 247km of it.   

We stop for lunch at the (as Norman Lewis - the greatest travel writer you haven't heard of - would put it) romantically named Km45. They have tofu.  All is well.  Our tour guy explains that we have to stay with the border guards in A Pa Chải. There are home-stays with better facilities, but, as a foreigner, I can only stay with the border guards. We finally roll up to the gate of the 317 Border Guard. A fellow is in the guard post by the gate. He has a gun. Doesn’t use it. We all debark and search for our hosts. People scrambling to look respectable. We are shown a couple of rooms. I can see a few ways how the home-stays could offer better facilities: doors that close, a working shower, Air Conditioning, a fan, maybe even hot water. But, I have paid to stay in worse places.  Đắk Glei remains a fond memory and the standard below which no other accommodation has ever come close to falling. Diệp checks out the facilities in her room and decides she doesn’t want to be in there and takes one of the four beds in my room. The dinner bell rings loudly.  

The dinner bell

We head up to search out food. A vast amount of vegetarian food has been prepared for us. Mainly from their own garden. Looks good. No Tofu though. Maybe it doesn’t grow this high up. I take one glass of rice wine and am happy not to be getting into any serious drinking. They are impressed by my “Chúc sức khoẻ”. The facilities are basic, but the location is good. The only sound is from insects and frogs. Fireflies in the trees. Stars above. Fortunately, there are mosquito nets and we sleep well. Heavy rain during the night.

Up at the crack of dawn. Nobody on the gate, so I risk a stroll outside, but not too far. Having got this far, it's not the moment to upset people. Safely back, I hunt for some coffee while Diệp sleeps. Doesn’t appear to be official Border Guard issue, but I end up in one of the smaller barracks rooms where someone, presumably sufficiently senior to get a small room, has the private means to make coffee. Coffee just about finished dripping when I get there. Offered to me and received graciously. I sat and had my coffee while a set of young men questioned me on all the familiar subjects. My Vietnamese is up to this. I have an opportunity to say, “Tôi không nói tiếng Lào” (I don’t speak Lao) something I’ve never needed before or since. A lot of these young men are doing their national service. They are very young. Our escort is 18 and already married.  They are very wary of my camera.

Breakfast with Diệp then our transport arrives, tourguy looking fit and relaxed, possibly from the better facilities available elsewhere. A young border guard is assigned to escort us to the border. And back, presumably. The immigration people had been quite clear that I should not actually try to cross in to China. The way to the hill with the border post soon goes off road. We stop at the top of a muddy slide. 

Tour guy does not want to risk taking his nice car down since he’s not sure he could get back up. No problem. They come up with the idea that we should hire ONE motorbike and Border Guard, Diệp and I could all ride it over the mud and rocks to the start of the trail. “TWO bikes”, I say. Diệp can ride one and I will ride behind the guard. No way am I riding on mud and rocks. Been there.  Done that.  We drive into the village and acquire two bikes. Diệp is no fan of mud and rocks either and gets tour guy to drive hers and we all set off up the hill. Like the curate’s egg, the road is good in parts. 

Good in parts

Eventually, we can go no further.

Leaving tour guy with the bikes, we continue on up the hill. Eventually we scramble up a muddy bank and make our way on through the forest. Step by step, on we go, just like Frodo, Sam and Sméagol.  Diệp and I discuss who is who, but come to no firm conclusion. We take a short cut from the single person clamber over and under trees and rocks Vietnamese track over to the Chinese track. 

Vietnamese path

A wide staircase leads upwards. We are surely not in Kansas any more. 

Chinese Path

Still in Kansas?  Perhaps not.

The Chinese obviously expect greater numbers. 

Finally, we arrive at the top. Looks just like the photos. 

Diệp in China, Escort in Laos.  I am in Vietnam

We walk around the border marker, moving countries every 120° or so. Take some pictures. And that’s all I want to say about that. 

Then, just like Going on a Bear Hunt, it’s scramble back through the forest to find Tour Guy sheltering from the rain under a tarpaulin. 


There’s also a 4x4 from a group of three Vietnamese + their escort. They got in and up. Will they get down and out? Back down the hill on the motorbikes finally arriving back at the muddy slope where we’d left the car. Passengers dismount while the riders struggle back up the hill. Not sure the car would have managed.

Lunch in A Pa Chải where entrepreneurialism thrives.  I try to tip our escort for his most excellent service. He wouldn’t touch the money. Just doing his job. He accepted a Scottish Flag key-ring that I had been keeping for just such an occasion. May he think of me as I now think of him.  Then the long drive back to Điện Biên Phủ. A few landslides along the way. We won’t be back in DBP until well after dark, and if we meet a new landslide, we might end up stuck on the road somewhere. Like that time I was benighted and spent the night with a road construction crew in a bamboo and tarpaulin shelter north of Ba Bể.

But what a view

Benighted in Ha Giang

But, with rain.  And no view.   And maybe no shelter.  Or worse, I guess.

Executive decision to spend the night in Mường Nhé. Booking.com can only recommend places a few km across the border in Laos, but we find a guesthouse. It’s clean. It’s fine. Hot water.  Water buffalo roam the streets of the town while we sleep. 

Coffee, breakfast and it’s hit the road again. Plenty of mud along the way. A few hold ups as diggers clear the way. “Why don’t we just fly back to Hanoi?”, I say. “Just what I was thinking”, says Diệp, ever the perfect travelling companion.

We need to get to Phong Nha for our trip to Hang Én and a night on a bus followed by a night on the train might not be the best preparation.

Would I recommend it? Probably not for a first visit to Vietnam, but with a spare week, why not? Don’t complain to me if you are disappointed. I wasn’t, but I’m happy listening to rice grow.

Next year? Well, we’re planning to visit the border stone at the Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam border near Kontum.  And Tú Làn cave. And I still need to get to Mũi Đôi.