23rd December – Luang Prabang

I left my Vientiane hotel at 7.30 yesterday but it took a long time getting out of the dusty busy suburbs during rush hour.  Eventually the traffic reduced but the road was terrible.  Every couple of hundred yards there was a 50 to 100 yard patch of pot-holed rubble to drive through.  One could only brake and go through this slowly, so no possibility of getting up to speed.  Also exhausting having to hold the handle bars firmly through all the rough patches and still avoid pot-holes, dogs, pigs, cows, goats, as well as other traffic overtaking in both directions, oblivious the presence of motorcycles.  Laotian drivers are appalling.  The road went on like this all morning.  At 9.45 I felt another puncture (5^th) in the back tyre so had to push the bike all the way back to the previous village; about a kilometre.  In the process the padded jacket I’d been wearing and which I had taken off, fell off the bike. I only realised this when I got to the mechanic but by the time I got back it had gone.  Fortunately it was warm but I was heading for the mountains.  A new inner tube was put on and I was away by around 10.30 (4,000kip – about £3.30?).  The lorries were taking no prisoners as they thundered through the rough patches creating huge clouds of dust for me to drive through.  My arms and shoulders were aching again and I was absolutely covered in filth.  I stopped for some not-so-nice pho at around 12.30, shortly before getting to Vang Vieng amidst the pretty karst mountains.  I didn’t think much of Vang Vieng as I drove through; the road was extremely dusty at that point and I just wanted to keep on going.  Happily after a bit the road improved markedly and I was able to pick up speed.  But then at about 3pm, within about 10k of Kasi where I was hoping to spend the night, I had yet another puncture (6^th) in the back tyre.  This time I had to push it back to the last village through the hot afternoon sun and this was more like 2 kilometres.  I was hot, sweaty and dirty.  The mechanic mended the puncture using a different method – using a clamp and something he lit which created lots of smoke.  I imagine it was melting the patch onto the inner tube.  I got to Kasi at around 4 absolutely filthy and searched for a guesthouse  Fortunately there was one on the other end of the village, the Somchit Guesthouse, run by a no-nonsense woman who wanted my 10,000kip (£8) up front.  Perfectly all right basic room with en suite bathroom.  I was even able to take a very cool shower which was a relief.  Supper was beneath the guesthouse in the roadside café and there to my astonishment was an array of Europeans, all cyclists though not travelling together – Swiss, German, Austrian and even a chap from Luxembourg.  I sat with a couple of 40-something year old English women from York who were making their way down from Luang Prabang to somewhere in Thailand.  Not terrible exciting conversationalists but I was glad of the company after a rather gruelling day.  Somehow we had all spontaneously found this place. 

Somchit Guesthouse Cafe (from the guesthouse)

Today was a surprisingly tough day too, albeit a much more beautiful journey than yesterday.  From Kasi to Luang Prabang it is 100 miles (160k) of mountain passes, hairpin turns and a thousand gear changes.  From the moment I left Kasi at around 8.15, thinking I would have a more leisurely ride after my 213k yesterday, the scenery was stunning – lots of strikingly steep mountains (karsts) looming out of the mist and set amidst beautiful agricultural land dotted with pretty villages.  Poor villages though.  It was sobering to see so many children walking on the road, some no more than about eight, lugging plastic oil tanks full of water up to their villages.

It was a cool misty start and I put on extra layers, knowing I’d be going higher and having lost my padded jacket yesterday.  And higher I did go, making my way round one mountainside after another; no bridges or tunnels.  After about two hours I reached a beautiful lookout café surrounded by the most spectacular views, real spine-tingling stuff.  I met a lovely Australian couple there from Adelaide, also cyclists (amazingly they’d spent 11 weeks travelling from Phnom Penh and were finishing in a few days in LP.  Their names were Erin and Peter; they were so friendly and open and they kindly offered to take my picture.  I had breakfast there – an entire pineapple and a coffee.  

After that the road went higher still until I was in icy cloud.  This went on for several kilometres until I reached the zenith of the first set of mountains at Phu Khoun which is where the turn off to Phonsavan is.  At this point (around 11.30) I thought I was almost home and dry and would be heading down the mountain to LP.  But not a bit of it.  The road stayed in cloud for a long time and I got progressively colder.  It eventually did go down for a bit before rising again to the second range of mountains which had to be climbed.  Somehow it all took ages – god knows how the cyclists manage all these hills, they go on forever.  Around 2.00 I pulled over to rest and bought some banana chips.  Then it was more bends and more hills, and more potholes and lorries to be avoided.  I was getting very tired and once again my arms and shoulders were aching, not to mention feeling saddle sore.  Eventually the road descended to the point where I could feel warmer air but there was still 50k to go.  I was exhausted and was thinking twice about going back all this way to take the road to Phonsavan. 

Then with only 15k to go I had another puncture, my 7^th and the 6^th in the back tyre.  This time I had just passed through a small village so I knew which way to push the bike.  Before long a rather grumpy and reluctant man (from one of the mountain tribes) emerged from his shack in response to the calls from his children.  He got to work on it and I managed to communicate that I was getting a lot of flats from the back tyre.  So he got a torn inner tube from another job, sliced it down the middle, and created a few pieces of lining to go inside the tyre so as to protect the inner tube.  Nice of him to do this though it remains to be seen whether it works.  Once again he used the smoke and melt system of repairing the puncture but was only going to charge me 10,000 kip which is less than a quid so I gave him 20k (I would have given him more but didn’t want to embarrass him). 

 

I got into LP around 4pm and was immediately struck by how many Europeans there are here.  Architecturally it’s certainly very charming with streets of old colonial houses running parallel to the Mekong, but it does seem to be teeming with tour operators (elephant rides, waterfalls etc), souvenir shops, guesthouses and restaurants.  Not quite what I had imagined somehow.  I’ve noticed that I tend to find it harder finding anyone to talk to when there are lots of Westerners about.  Where we are in a clear minority like last night it’s much easier to break the ice.  I’m staying at the Hotel au Fils du Mekong which lives up to its name by being an old French built villa across the road from the river.  After a very welcome shower I walked about town and on the way back had a nice massage followed by dinner at Café Toui nearby which offered a set menu of a variety of Lao food.  I was surprised to be their only customer because there was a lovely look to the restaurant, and a charmingly modest owner/manager.  The food was absolutely delicious so I told the manager I would tell all the tourists about his restaurant tomorrow.