My toughest day

God what a day!  Yesterday was one of the most exhausting days I think I have ever experienced.  I had been sick in Nong Khiaw and was in bed for a day but finally rummaged through a chemists to find myself some anti-biotics which did the trick (yes I got to choose my own).  There was an incident with a cat eating a snake on the threshold of my room and a cockroach the size of my mobile phone during the night but those aside, a happy stay there.  After leaving Nong Khiaw I went through Oudomxai and then spent a night in Muang La in a rather filthy guesthouse but it was less than five quid so can't complain.  But yesterday...
 
The day started off well enough, apart from finding a saucer shaped spider running around my stuff which accounted for the strange feeling during the night that someone was twiddling with my hair.  More weird dreams and didn’t sleep well.  But since there were no restaurants to speak of and nothing open when I got up at 6.30, I had a banana, a chocolate biscuit and some water and was on the road by 7.15.  A lovely ride through a valley beside a river, albeit seeing several impoverished villages along the way.  A mild morning which turned increasingly grey.  At around 9.30 it started to rain but I had time to put on my thin rain poncho.  Trousers got soaked though.  I was in Muang Khoua by 9.30 and stopped for a coffee.  Although I asked for milk, no sugar it was the instant Nescafe stuff which has milk and tons of sugar already in it, but the chap brought me extra condensed milk just in case I wanted it milkier and sweeter.  No matter. 

Muang Khoua, crossing the Nam Ou

At Muang Khoua one has to cross the Nam Ou river (upstream from Nong Khiaw where I was a couple of days ago).  The way this is achieved is by boarding a raft that is then shunted by a boat clamped to its side by its front but which is able to change the position of its aft.  When I got to the other side, knowing I had about 55km to the Vietnamese border, it was immediately apparent that this was going to take some time.  The road was pretty well non-existent even for an unpaved road.  Within half a kilometre I came across a huge pool with a stream running through it which I had to traverse.  Other bikes were managing it but not so laden as mine.  It was nerve-racking but there was no alternative.  I got through without the bike going over, my worse fear, but my right foot went under and filled with water.  Then it was onto an endless dusty dirt road, a few trucks and motorbikes coming from the other direction but very little going in mine.  There was a brief section of mirror smooth paved road which disappointingly ended within two or three kilometres.  Then back to the dirt and potholes, another ford to cross but this one was easier, and in another village I rode my bike over a skimpy suspension bridge about a meter wide and over loose clattering boards. 

The road seemed to go higher and higher with less and less habitation and only the occasional vehicle.  I was beginning to wonder whether I had missed a turn-off or something when I got another puncture.  The amount of swearing I have done while on this bike buggers belief.  There was nothing around and the last village I had seen was at least eight kilometres back.  There was little for it but to push my bike further up the hill.  I came upon a shack on its own and asked in there.  They looked very doubtful and shook their heads saying Vietnam, but they lent me a pump that barely worked and I managed to blow the tire up enough to ride on it.  So off I went and over the brow of the next hill, there was the Lao side of the border.  A waiting woman told me that it opened at 1.00 so I had only  ten minutes to wait but as I was walking back to the bike to get my water I heard a big pop and then a quick hiss from the back tyre which was flat as a pancake again.  No pumping it up this time I realised.  The Lao staff were pleasant enough though had so suggestion as to where the puncture might be fixed.  I would have to walk to the Vietnamese side, 3.5km away over more steep hairpin turns.  A milestone said that Dien Bien Phu, where I was hoping to get tonight, was now 37km away. 

By about 2.00 I was sweating buckets in the Vietnam immigration and customs building.   They insisted I unload everything (though didn’t check my stuff).  Again they had no suggestions for my puncture but merely pointed down the road, suggesting there might be a village a further 3km on.  There was little choice so I started pushing again, using the engine to take me up hills and the brake to slow me down going down.  I went on and on, asking whoever I could find but again there was contradictory advice.  No village appeared.  By 4.00 I was exhausted and beginning to get seriously worried.  The milestone I had just passed said Dien Bien Phu was now only 27km so I had pushed the bike 10km at this point.  My right foot was getting blisters so I put the sock back on which was almost dry. The back of my right leg however was bleeding due to repeated knocks from the left foot pedal as I pushed the bike.  The few people I was able to flag down seemed to be telling me to go on, always another 2 or 3 kilometres.  So I pressed on and found myself in a quarry on either side of the road.  I felt I couldn’t go any further and was beginning to panic, so I approached what seemed to be a semi-permanent building with a couple of motorbikes outside.  A few men were drinking raucously outside.  I thought I’d better get their advice  The oldest among them I think sensed my desperation because he gave me a cup of hot jasmine tea and sat me down.  They all then got to talking and one of them was despatched to get some tyre levers.  Meanwhile I removed all my stuff off the bike again, got my spare inner tube and they removed the back wheel.  The chap returned with the levers and they got to work on it, but it all seemed to take an age.  Eventually, at about 5.30 as the light was fading and after a couple of extraordinarily loud dynamite blasts from the quarry, I was off again.  They would barely take the money I gave them but I insisted that they all deserved a few beers on me.  As I started up the hill from the quarry there was another milestone that said Dien Bien Phu 23km, so I had pushed the bike 14km!

My saviours

  And then it got hard.  The road thereon down the mountain was even worse than the road I’d been on before, with cavernous potholes that were hard to see or anticipate in the increasing dark.  Every Westerner I have met who’s been on a motorbike here says get to a guesthouse before it gets dark whatever you do.  It got increasingly difficult to see especially when I got down into the villages at the bottom of the mountain where children, bicyclists and other motocyclists were weaving all over the road without lights.  Eventually the road seemed more like tarmac though inevitably with potholes still.  I’d forgotten just how many more motorbikes there are in Vietnam compared with Laos.  The road straightened out across a plain of paddy fields on either side.  The trucks were kicking up huge clouds of dust, there was smoke from fires on the sides of the road, and headlights simply made it all the harder to see.  The road became ever more dense with traffic as I approached the city and then…it suddenly started to rain, huge droplets followed by torrential rain.  It was impossible to get to the side of the road and within a few seconds I was drenched anyway.  I thought I’d better plough on and find a hotel as soon as I could. 

By the time I was in the city proper I could barely see.  My visor blurred everything so I just kept my glasses on and tried to wipe them as best I could.  The streets were several inches deep in water, my shoes were full of water, and by this point I was frozen and my teeth were chattering.  I would have stayed anywhere but found a big imposing guesthouse and stood at its threshold almost unable to speak my teeth were chattering so.  So now I am in my room with all my stuff strewn around to dry – maps, wallet, money, guidebooks, clothes, shoes, ponchos...  Happily my backpack under the two ponchos I wrap it in stayed dry so, after a hot shower I was able to put on some dry clothes.  The bed is as hard as a board but I don’t mind.  All I’d eaten today were two small bananas, four chocolate biscuits, a sweet coffee and half a litre of water, so I put on my shorts, sandals, and one of the filthy ponchos that keep the backpack dry and walked to a neighbouring restaurant who gave me chicken bones and rice again.  But I would have eaten half cooked pork entrails at this point.  Just got back to the guesthouse and wanted to record today before it all gets repressed as a bit of a nightmare.  It’s still pouring with rain and, as I write this, as if to round off the day, there is a power cut.  From what I can see, it seems to have affected the entire city.  Happily my laptop can run on its battery.  Today has taught me that from now on I need to avoid such remote places and stay on well-trodden paths, preferably without potholes.  It’s been an adventure though.
This morning it continues to rain but if possible I'll move from this guesthouse (the bedclothes smell bad).  Maybe I can do better...