There was suppose to be an Earth shattering ka-boom?

There is suppose to be a remote village in South Eastern Laos that is both relatively untouched by tourism and also the epicentre of tiger country in Laos. The book said 3-4 hours to travel 84Km and should only be down on four wheels. Right. How bad can a road be? I haven't yet encountered one I couldn't get a scooter over. Our first obstacle turned out to be finding where the hell we were suppose to go. There are no street markings, road signs or directions of any sort in this part of the country so we were reduced to saying the name of the village slowly and loudly, several times over to locals until they eventually pointed.

The road started off as a dirt road but not too bad. Or first sign of trouble should have been the detour we had to make about 5Km along which sent us through a stream (as in, pushing the bike through knee high water) and subsequent village. The road works slowed us down quite a bit with a lot of sand and pot holes but it wasn't until we reached the stretch of road that wasn't being worked on that we realised we were in trouble.

Picture of the state of the road to the village and me loosing (and subsequently finding) a flip flop in the mud.

Anyways, 2 hours, 1 thong lost in the mud and 35Km later we were still well short of our destination with sunset rapidly approaching. We finally found someone who spoke a bit of English and could understand our garbled Laos who told us to turn around. Given the warning that villagers in these parts don't go out at night for fear of tigers we decided this was a good idea.

The next day we rode over the Bolaven Plateau which is a bit cooler due to it's elevation and saw some lovely waterfalls.

This one fell 110m and was mighty impressive.

Down in the bottom corner of this one you can see little old me swimming out to the falls.

In Memoriam

A piece of rope chased,
A finger scratched,
A bottle top retrieved,
A raucous request for dinner,
A lap requisitioned,
A unlikely amount of space in bed.

A good friend; loved and deary missed.

Loki: 24/10/2004 - 23/02/2007

Tour de Laos

Wat Pha That Luang - Vientiane

Ok, before I begin I'd like to clear a couple of things up:

A) I'm too big to fit on a normal road bike let alone a 125cc scooter.
B) You shouldn't try and ride over, say, 5 km per day on a scooter. 300Km is right out.
C) Pink helmets make even the straightest person look gay.

It started in Vientiane where we thought we would ride out to a massive 7km underground cave which had been tunneled out by a river under a limestone mountain. Several hours later we got off the freeway (single lane; perhaps Willaura to Ararat standard for those in the know) and turned onto a more regional road toward the cave. After driving through several very picturesque villages with EVERY child yelling out hello and smiling it was approaching dusk and we finally found somewhere to stay. The next day we thought we'd follow the very vague directions of a local English guesthouse proprietor along the recently constructed but unfinished road toward the cave. Having no idea where we were actually going we drive for an hour or so before reaching a bit in the road where workmen were working (read: sitting around) on a new bridge. The down side to this was the temporary road beside the new bridge was full of mud. "No problem" I thought as I eased my way into the deceptively deep and slippery quagmire. About 2/3 of the way through the inevitable happened and we went tits up in the mud. Oh how the workmen laughed. Anyway the net result was two very muddy and lost travelers and several amused locals.

Me and my noble (if somewhat muddy) steed.

Deciding that we didn't in fact know were we were going we turned around and rode 80 odd km to the nearest big town (read: 1 street dust bowl) in the hope of finding some more accurate directions. This turned out to be the wrong assumption to make and after a shitty lunch and several hours we found ourselves back at the same section of road as the morning which had (thankfully) dried up in the heat. About 1/2 hour later we found a reasonably nice guesthouse in the middle of nowhere basically set up to accommodate tourist to the Tham Lot Kong Lo cave.

Scenery on the way to Tham Lot Kong Lo

The one other thing we noticed on the road was the incredibly large number of obstacles presented to the lay-traveler. These included, but were not limited to, the following: goats, chickens, ducks, pigs, water buffalo, trucks, cows, rocks (big rocks, in the middle of the road), people passing on blind corners and excessive speed in vehicles that shouldn't really be on the road let alone doing 150-180ish kph. My favourite thought, and this actually happens more on the freeways than the back roads, are the huge number of children wandering and playing on or next to the highway. I'm sure I've seen toddles take there first step along the nations highways.

We couldn't manage to catch up with Anky and James as organised due to limited phone coverage so the next morning it was off to the cave. After only one wrong turn we found the village where locals launch motorised wooden boats that run tourists up and down the river through the cave. I cannot emphasize how beautiful this area is. The brief boat journey to the mouth of the cave is truly is one of the most amazing idyllic landscapes I've ever seen. Ducks and water buffalo relaxing in the crystal clear water along side local children fishing and playing all surrounded by imposing limestone cliff faces in almost every direction. When we actually entered the cave we needed to get out a few times and help drag the boat over rocks as it is the dry season. The interior though is imposing in its magnitude. Nearly 8 Km long under a very large limestone cliff with the width and ceiling anywhere from maybe 20m to out of torch range (apparently 100m in places). It was bloody huge. We stopped at a few bits and had a wonder around and there is some stunning formations that seem to go on and on.

Anyway, my only advice on the matter is if you find yourself in this part of the world make the effort. It is a bit of a bitch to get to but I think that is why it is still so pristine.

Anyways, we hung around the area for a couple of days and then jumped back on our scooter and rode to Paksan, a town about 150km away from Vientiane. It was at this town we realised we were running dangerously low on funds however we found a spanking new hotel with a suite for $15USD. I couldn't resist even though it left us with bugger all. A bit of miss-communication at dinner later that night saw us with only 500 kip to our name. Whilst this may sound reasonable it is actually worth about $0.05USD. Luckily we had a full tank of gas (3 litres) and only 150Km to a town with a bank. It was a bit touch and go toward the end but we got to one of the few ATMs in town and withdrew the maximum 1000000.00 kip ($100 USD) we needed to live like kings for the next bit.

Another bus trip later found us in the regional capital of Tha Khaek. This was just a little bit South of the area we had ridden to on the bike and was suppose to have some nice caves and scenery nearby. We hired a tuktuk and drove out to see some caves. The picture below reminded me of an Escher.
Anyways, we are currently down South in Pakse with the intention of getting back on the mechanical horse tomorrow for another arse pounding.

Filler

Hotel decor: Chang Rai style

Well, I'm actually back in Vientiane* for the second time however I need to catch up on some blogging so a quick history and then some more interesting stuff.

We caught a bus** from Luang Prabang to Vientiane a bit over a week ago. This is actually only a 384Km journey but due to the extremely windy roads for the first half of the journey it actually took a bit over 9 hours. (On a brief departure from the core text, there are several such roads in Laos that would be awesome fun on a road bike. The world rally organisation should hold an event here and pit the local bus drivers against the regular team drivers.) One thing I did notice was the high number of men on the side of the road with large caliber rifles. I counted 10 or so before we stopped for lunch where several very casually dressed young men were toting M5's!*** If this wasn't enough, when we got back on the bus after lunch one got on with us and proceeded to casually lounge around stroking his automatic weapon.

Anyways, we got to Vientiane OK and proceeded to stay in shit hotels for the next couple of nights. Met back up with Anky and James and organised to meet them at a big F.O. cave down South. We then hired a motorbike (the somewhat ominously named 125cc Suzuki "Smash") with the intention of driving the 350 odd Kms to the cave. My pink helmet was the highlight.

In other non-travel related news, a big shout out to Tim and Michelle for both there new house purchasing and impending nuptials (not to mention there fine choice in groomsmen!) and Mahney + Dora for there very impending nuptials. Congrats kids, you've both done very well for yourselves.

More soon including: falling in mud, 7km caves with river, road trips and farm animals.

Sunset on the Mekong, Luang Prabang.

Picture from the unremarkable Buddha cave mentioned in my last post.

* This is not true; I'm currently in Pakse but I was in Vientiane when this was composed.
** "You must have big hands!"
*** Thank you Counter Strike.

The Road South

After some 3 hours crammed onto a local bus with various people, bags of rice, boxes, etc we finally arrived in Udomxai where we hang out for a few hours at the bus station for our next 4-5 hour 'bus' trip to the Northern riverside town of Muang Khua. We got to this picturesque little town nestled between the confluence of two rivers in a limestone valley at dusk and had a quick scramble to find some accommodation. My travel book warned that some Chinese-run guest houses in the Northern towns, due to the proximity to the Chinese border, sometimes quoted exaggerated prices to non-Chinese visitors. With this in mind we checked the first guesthouse which, although shit, was all of $3USD per night. We then went back to look at a nicer looking Chinese run place where the proprietor (admittedly after being disturbed from her shower) decided her rooms where worth $150USD. We politely declined after lifting our jaws from the floor.

The next day saw another round of 'rape-the-tourist' where the four of us (Marcelle, myself and an English couple we met on the bus, James and Anky) along with some German tourists from the guesthouse tried to 'charter' a boat downstream. Now, the going rate is suppose to be $70USD for a boat. What this means in actuality is the boat operators state whatever price they want per-person in remarkably good English and when questioned about group discounts and the like suddenly understand very little English. In addition to this, a group of local Laos people congregate on the dock (bank, see fig 1.1) about the time the tourist boats go and simply jump in the boat as it leaves. Anyway, on the upside the German tourist all thought I was a bit of legend/wanker (it's had to tell with Germans) because to the authentic German military jacket I had been forced to purchase at the last town.* Additionally, the actual trip down the river was very beautiful as seen below.

(Fig 1.1) The First Village, whilst pretty, wasn't very friendly.

Mountains, river, trees; you get the picture.

Local fisher-people.

We reached Muang Ngoi, a village accessible only by boat, after a 3 hour trip along the river. There were quite a few tourists around but due to the inaccessibility of the place it was still quite lovely and the locals didn't seem too jaded. The second day we set of on a 'hike' to a cave and then onward to a local village. The village was about an 1 1/2 hours away but we noticed several kids walking home from school along the same trail; and I used to bitch about the 1 hour bus trip to school. The cave was fun to scramble around as it was quite deep and isolated. We have a sauna when we got back which was an experience I was not expecting to have in S.E. Asia. Good but.

T'was cold. We had no shoes.

The cave.

There is a very limited supply of sweet food in the North of Loas and I was starting to get ansy. I did notice however that biscuits and condensed milk were very common and decided to make a Loas version of a chocolate roll. I mixed several ingredients in a plastic bag in the guesthouse including kitkat, chocolate biscuits, condensed milk, coconut powder and made a roll that looked a lot like sausage meat. The next day on the boat and bus I couldn't understand why nobody wanted any.

The LOG.

One hour further down stream we exchanged the arse-numbing wooden planks of our boat for the arse-numbing 'padded' seats of our 'bus'** for a further 4 hour transit to Luang Prabang.
Luang Prabang is a UNESCO world heritage listed site for the wealth of colonial French and traditional Loas architecture and it really is very relaxed and beautiful. It also has cheese and pastries*** of which I over-indulged. Apart from the atmosphere and the shit-load of temples in the town there really isn't a great deal to do so we spent a quite a bit of time just hanging out. We did go to a waterfall and some caves which, while nice, are nothing to write home about.****

Picture of a Wat with a flower in the way.

Next stop: Vientiane.

* It was bloody cold and my 'I'm-not-going-to-plan-or-read-anything-about-our-destination' attitude left me with only t-shirts in approx 5 degree nights. Nothing else in the market fit as I'm a touch larger than the average Laos national.

** A bus in Laos can be anything from a double decker luxury(ish) bus to a ute with a semi-enclosed canopy. We got the latter.

*** See? The French culture IS good for something. #

**** And hence I haven't.

# I manged to insult 2 separate countries in one post, a new record for me!

Laos

I'm currently in the Northern Laos town of Luang Nam Tha. I arrived here yesterday after a 7 hour bus ride from the border town of Huay Xai. The bus in question had 21 seats and yet up to 31 passengers were present at some points. The journey itself was somewhat of a disappointment as was/is the township of Luang Nam Tha itself. What was interesting however is the Laos government approach to road building. Pretty much the entire road was under various stages of construction with most of the journey on a dirt road that will one day (2005 according to my guide book) be sealed. This in itself, while a bit unusual, is not so remarkable. What did surprise me was the scale of the operation. It is very mountainous in Northern Laos; the road engineers however decided to ignore all conventions for building bridges or going around hills and simply dug straight through mountain passes and piled up dirt where a bridge would normally go. At points the cuttings must have been 30-40 meters deep for long distances. The scale was staggering and yet the road itself is still a shitty little single lane dirt track with inadequate guttering.

I'm not sure what this tells me about the local populace, the communist government or indeed what such a dull post says about me but I'm sure it's significant.

Anyway, to defy the conventions of traditional chronology, my last days in Thailand were spent in the Northern town of Chang Rai. This is a very nice town and I sure there would have been much more productive and interesting ways to spend my time there than on the toilet. Said toilet time delayed us from taking the 3 hour bus ride to the boarder for an extra day which in turn cost us 1000 Baht in fines. It was poo.

Next stop: Oudomxai.