36. It’s hard work to get to Sin City

The first thing I had to do the morning I was going to leave Luang Prabang, was to replace my rear tube. The bumpy ride to Pak Beng had apparently taken its toll and while the bike was resting at the guesthouse the tube slowly lost pressure. I got up early and started working on it, cursing myself for not taking care of this while I was sick. I knew there would be at least two climbs today and I did not want to stop to pump my tire over and over again.

The climbs turned out to be the kind of climb that starts but never ends. Laos isn’t exactly a flat country, but riding a steep uphill for hours and hours and you start to curse whoever planned the road. I can see the valley far down below, surely it must be possible to put the road down there? I had the road mostly to myself, however, just occasionally passed by trucks and tourist busses.

Dozens of forest fires fills the air with smoke and now and then ash is raining from the sky making it feel like some volcano erupted or that I am cycling through Silent Hill. Passing trucks spewing black smoke from their exhaust pipes doesn’t help to purify the air and my scarf is used more and more often. The surroundings are incredibly scenic but the smoke makes it so hazy I can only imagine how it looks on a clear day.

I passed a guy sitting by the road busy cleaning his Kalashnikov. Assault rifles need love too, I guess. He didn’t acknowledge me and I didn’t feel like chit chatting with this guy so I quietly cycled on, hoping it wasn’t tourists he was hunting.
 
I have to reassess my ability to cover a certain distance in a day. Two months ago the ride up to Cameron Highlands was the hardest thing I had ever done, but now in Laos I climb two such mountains on a daily basis. I had planned to cycle the 130 kilometres to Phoukhoun, but just before six o’clock I hadn’t got any further than to the village of Kiewkacham (or Kiou Kacham, Kiu Kacham or Kiukacham. The norm in Asia seems to be to use as many alternate spellings as possible on maps and road signs) and I decided to stay there.

Another cyclist was staying at the same guesthouse. While Neil rides his bicycle from one place to the next, his wife and daughter takes the bus. I have met more cyclists on this road than I have met in total on this trip, I met a few on folding bikes, a couple on a tandem and a Brazilian guy cycling around the world for charity.

I was at the top of the mountain and I was pretty sure it would be an easy ride to Phoukhoun before the downhill would start, but I was wrong again. The road went up and down and up again and after a couple of hours I was extremely demoralized. Physically I was fine, but I was incredibly tired of doing nothing but climbing and I took a lot of breaks. Neil caught up with me just before Phoukhoun and we rode together into the village to have some lunch.

Then a spoke snapped for the third time! So much for rebuilding the wheel in Chiang Rai! The wheel was still somewhat true though and I chose to ignore that my bike was falling apart until I could find a bicycle store, probably in Vientiane some 250 km further south.

I reached Kasi at four o’clock, two hours later than I had expected. I had 55 km left to Vang Vieng and no interest in stopping even though 55 km is too far for an evening ride. After two cans of Coke I decided to go on hoping the rest of the way would be somewhat flat. One of the cyclists I had just met told me there was one hard climb of about five kilometres of length and I prepared myself for that.

Perhaps it is due to the number of cyclists on this road that the village kids are brave enough to walk out into the street and give you a high five as you pass. Some kids hit really hard but my padded bicycle gloves reduce the impact.

The expected climb turned out to be very easy, that cyclist was in for a real treat with the mountain ahead of him, and I got to Vang Vieng at 6:30, just before dark. Another perfect timing!

Vang Vieng is a strange place. In the middle of nowhere in one of the poorest countries in the world, a country where everything seems to close at 10 PM, there is a town where the shots are free, you can order a pizza laced with drugs, and almost every bar shows episodes of Friends for the hung over backpackers. The main attraction is “tubing”, or slowly floating down the Xong River in a big inner tube. The river is shallow and gentle, but tubing is still statistically a dangerous activity due to the drunken state of the participants.


Distance:
80 km from Luang Prabang to Kiewkacham.
152 km from Kiewkacham to Vang Vieng.
Total: 3549 km.

 South of Luang Prabang, before the climbs.

 Highway 13. Yes, this is a highway.

 One of many, many rest stops.

 Burned forest.

Winding road that never seems to end.

The limestone landscape is incredibly scenic.

Debauchery.

Tubing.

Petter and Lev prefer it without the tubes.

GPS altitude data from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng.



The end of the first downhill.

35. The Mekong and Luang Prabang

It got completely dark as Petter and I rode the last few kilometres into Pak Beng, but we didn’t mind too much. The tarmac felt like pink fluffy cotton in comparison to the last two days rides on gravel and the traffic in Laos is nonexistent.

At the guesthouse we asked about the boat to Luang Prabang but got the dissatisfying answer that the Slow Boat was not going from here either. We went for dinner and talked about how to get to Luang Prabang, maybe we could offer a long-tail driver a month salary ($100 or something like that) to take us. While walking around a couple of guys called out for us from a balcony. They had passed us earlier in their air conditioned minivans and it turns out they are on a package tour, including a Slow Boat ride! We shared some home brew Lao spirits and asked their tour leader if we could tag along. Show up tomorrow morning, he said, and I’ll see what I can do.

We continued to the only bar still open, it was past ten o’clock, just to find they were out of beer! Luckily they had Gin & Tonic although they were also out of ice. A group of British girls was the probable cause of this shortage. We asked them how they got to Pak Beng and they had taken the boat! The day after Petter and I left Houei Xai the boats started to run again!

Sure enough, early in the morning we went to the harbour and there was no problem getting on a Slow Boat. A nice and relaxing ten hour cruise to Luang Prabang, enough time to sleep and to finish the book I was reading.

Food and guesthouses are way more expensive than what we are used to and we kept looking around for something to eat that wouldn’t ruin us when we found a place at the end of the night market serving a buffet for 10.000 Kip. I filled the plate and ate as much as I could.

I should not have done that.

I won’t go into details here, believe me in that you don’t want to know, but the third day I was so starved and dehydrated that I forced myself to go to the hospital. With a bag full of medicine I already felt a little better and walked back towards my guesthouse, when I see two familiar faces. It’s Lelene and Detlef, who I met more than a month ago in Koh Tao!

The medicine did wonders and the next day I rested and hung out with my friends. Not Petter, he did the right thing and left this place two days ago. I stayed for six nights, longer than I had stayed in any other city, and I didn’t even care for the place. Sure, it is a beautiful town and a World Heritage, but it is rather boring when absolutely everything closes at 10 PM. Food poisoning doesn’t add to the fun either.


Distance:
10 hour cruise from Pak Beng to Luang Prabang.

Pak Beng.

Waiting Slow Boats!

Pretty nice!

Another kind of boat.

Babysitting is expensive.

Pretty scenic at times.

The "dock" in Luang Prabang.

 Main street in Luang Prabang.

 The night market. Full of tourist souvenirs and food poison.

Dinner with a view over the Mekong.

Locals bathing in Khan River.

I have to picture at least one wat from a World Heritage city.

34. Up and down in Laos

I am now a millionaire, but everything in Laos is expensive (except for beer) and the money is quickly spent. For the first time on this trip I am arguing about the price every time I buy something, and successfully at that. At least I think I am successful, but I can’t shake the feeling that I still pay way too much.

After cycling 3000 kilometres on the left side of the road it now appeared as the traffic was on the right side. It was not entirely clear, the scooters speed back and forth on either side, but watching a couple of cars we noticed the steering wheel was on the left side of the car.

Since there were no boats going to Luang Prabang we basically had two options; to cycle the road north up to Oudom Xai and then down south again, a detour of 600 kilometres or so, or to take a bus. Bus was, of course, out of the question when we heard rumours about a road along the Mekong River. A road not found on maps, wasn’t in my GPS and could not even be seen in Google Maps. Minivans were driving this road to bring tourists to Pak Beng from where the Slow Boat was still running down to Luang Prabang. It’s about 150 km to Pak Beng and we decided to give it a shot. Asking around for information about the condition of the road gave conflicting and confusing answers but we hoped for the best.

After just a couple of miles the road turned into a very bumpy dirt road scarred from years of seasonal change, rain and traffic. We should have known better, the few so called highways in Laos are narrow winding roads we would call rural in Europe, and thinking a minor road not marked on any map would be paved was ignorant at best. The road got worse and worse and my bike was moaning loudly from the treatment I gave her. I just hoped my gear, my computer and camera would survive this shaky ride.

We stopped in the village of Pak Tha for dinner at something that was probably a restaurant. A lady prepared beef and noodles over an open fire just next to our table.

Half way between Houei Xai and Pak Beng is the very small and dusty town of Pha Oudom. We asked around for a place to sleep and were surprised to find a guesthouse in this part of the world. I couldn’t find anything resembling a shower so I used the tap and a bucket, hoping that the bucket didn’t have a completely different purpose.

At the local restaurant we ordered rice with chicken but got pork and had a few Beerlao. With ice, of course. A teenager joined us trying to practice his English and according to him we were the first tourists to ever visit his town. Beerlao, by the way, is by far the best Asian beer I’ve had, nearly as good as Mariestad.

You would think a village isolated from civilization by a 75 km dirt road would have a well stocked store, but no. I had some soy milk and banana bread for breakfast but it was far from satisfying.

We had just left Pha Oudom when the climbs started. On our map this area looked pretty flat, but reality did not agree at all. All other roads that pass a mountain range are well planned to follow valleys or natural contours of the hills, but this road went from village to village, and the villages were almost always built on top of every mountain. Nearly every climb was so steep that we had to walk on our toes pushing the bike in front of us. Stopping was impossible, even when holding the brakes the bike started to slide back down! Travelling at three kilometres per hour it takes two minutes to get even a hundred metres! If you tried to cycle these steep hills the wheel would just spin. I don’t know how cars do it, but I can’t imagine it being a pleasant drive.

The road went up a mountain and then down, up another one and down again. We started to hate the downhills, because going down meant that we soon had to do another climb. You couldn’t really enjoy it and pick up speed either, because of gravel and the bad condition of the road you had to push the brake all the time loosing speed and momentum making the next climb even harder.

At the top of each mountain there was a village consisting of a dozen straw huts. A few of the villages seemed completely deserted but in the rest all the children and many of the adults ran out yelling “Sábaai-dii! Sábaai-dii!” waving to us like it was the event of the year having two felangs passing through on bicycles. We waved back, yelled and smiled while trying to keep an eye on the bumpy road and all the chickens and pigs running around everywhere in every village.

Already after 20 kilometres we were out of water and stopped in one of the villages and begged for nâam, which we got, supervised by every kid in the neighbourhood. A quick smell to make sure the water wasn’t too bad and we refilled all the bottles we had, about 6 litres. We were in immediate need of fluid and we didn’t worry too much about future illnesses.

We made frequent stops to drink and to eat the little food we had, namely cornflakes. A man walked by and we shared some with him. He seemed to enjoy it and I don’t think he ever tasted cornflakes before. We gave him some more for the road and he walked back the way he came.

At 5 o’clock, we had now been riding for 7 hours covering a mere 40 kilometres, we were out of water again, and we barely had had anything to eat for the entire day. We were exhausted, it was getting late, we had 30 more kilometres to go and we hoped that every climb would be the last one, when we approached a single hut with a couple of soda bottles on display. A store! We feasted on warm soda and cookies while, as usual, every kid nearby gathered around us staring shamelessly.

Finally the downhills began. I was glad I had replaced the brake pads in Chiang Mai because they were deteriorating quickly. The descent was extremely steep and riding 40 km/h on gravel demands quite a bit of concentration. Petter was not as lucky, he wore out his pads and lost a lot of braking power.

We reached the main road just minutes before it got dark. Slightly worse timing and it would have been impossible to ride down the mountains. We had just cycled 140 kilometres on a mountainous gravel road through one of the most remote and poor areas in Laos, and thus the world. It was the worst ride I have ever done, but at the same time, it was the best ride in my life.


75 dirty km from Houei Xai to Pha Oudom.
70 dirty and extremely hilly km from Pha Oudom to Pak Beng.
Total: 3317 km.

One million Lao Kip. About a thousand SEK or so.

At first it was flat and dusty.

Petter admiring the view over the Mekong River.

Restaurant outside Pak Tha.

Cooking noodles.

The road left the Mekong and went inland.

Riding through one of the first villages. A rich one that can affort satellite TV.

The entire village greets us when we pass.

Poorer and poorer villages the further we get.

Refilling our water bottles.

Children racing. I won!

Yes, it is steep!

Up, up, up, up...

I crossed these hills by bicycle. All of them.

Posing at the top. Atleast we thought it was the top. We were wrong.

The first stretch from Houei Xai along the Mekong.

33. Leaving Thailand

My cold felt a little better and I decided it was time to leave Chiang Mai. I have stayed in this place for five days, two days longer than planned. At least that is what I think, the number of days are kind of a blur. Rob and Dan didn’t want to leave Chiang Mai quite yet however, so I left on my own. They promised they wouldn’t stay too long and we will meet up again somewhere along the road.

Smog limits the visibility quite a bit up here. At times I have to ride with my scarf over the mouth, the sun is bleak and you can’t see much of the nature around you. Sometimes that is a good thing, you don’t see the hills you have to climb until you reach them.

The ride was hilly, but not particularly hard compared to any other ride the last couple of weeks. But the cold had taken its toll and even though I was riding really slow my heart was racing and I was sweating like crazy. I was feeling better after some noodles and a good night sleep in the small town of Wiang Pa Pao and the ride to Chiang Rai was a pleasant one, although I still was cycling way slower than usual.

It is starting to get pretty chilly. Last time I had an air conditioned room it was actually colder outside than in the room, which makes the a/c a waste of money and energy. But the hot season is rapidly closing in, it will soon be very hot. Again.

With a mere 37 kilometres to go I heard the now familiar sound of a spoke snapping. I had just celebrated the 3000 kilometre anniversary and got a little annoyed about having to deal with this for a second time. I decided my wheel could handle the rest of the way to Chiang Rai, prayed for this city to have a decent bicycle shop, disconnected my rear brake and continued the ride. Arriving I immediately found Fat Free Bicycles (but not until I had consumed two pepperoni pizza) and they did not only replace the spoke, but rebuild my entire wheel for the modest sum of 150 Baht. No more broken spokes they promised, and I am going to hold them responsible if I get stranded in the middle of Laos.

Petter, the Swedish cyclist I met almost two months earlier in Tanah Rata, was currently in Chiang Rai and we met up. We rode together on rural roads to the city of Chiang Khong at the border to Laos where we got our exit stamps and boarded a longboat to cross the Mekong River.

We got ashore and walked to the relaxed Laos customs office with 5 minutes to spare.


Distance:
99 km from Chiang Mai to Wiang Pa Pao.
87 km from Wiang Pa Pao to Chiang Rai.
110 km from Chiang Rai to Chiang Khong.
Boat from Chiang Khong to Houei Xai, Laos.
Total: 3172 km.

Smog on the road out of Chiang Mai.

Laundry day.

3000 kilometre milestone.

Fat Free Bicycle Shop.

The clocktower in Chiang Rai.

Petter on a rural road to Chiang Khong.

Riding into Chiang Khong.

Loading our bikes.

Last look towards Thailand.

Visa photo for Laos. Damn, I am handsome!

32. Cold in Chiang Mai

I’ve been sick! Not with some exotic illness like Malaria or Japanese Encephalitis, but with the common cold! Being in the mountains the temperature has finally come down to acceptable levels, but I doubt that is the reason I got a cold.

Arriving in Chiang Mai my bike needed some care again and I left it in the hands of Chaitawat bicycle shop to replace the chain, brake pads and cables. When I got it back later the same day I fell in love all over again, my bike was cleaner than when it was brand new and more beautiful than ever! Rob and Dan quickly turned their bikes in to get some sweet love as well.

Disaster strikes when we found out that the boat from the Laos border to Luang Prabang is currently not running due to historically low levels of water in the Mekong River. Laos is blaming dam projects in China, but China claims it’s the drought, the global warming, or any reason other than a huge wall that stops water from flowing. The Mekong River is basically the main artery through Laos and getting to from Chiang Khong to Luang Prabang by any other means are difficult. We looked at different options but couldn’t settle on a good solution.

Chiang Mai is a center for adventure tours and I decided to go on a combined tour of mountain biking, elephant riding and white water rafting. I rarely go on guided tours, I’m usually disappointed by the wholesome family fun kind of adventures it almost always turns out to be, but the rafting actually surpassed my expectations. It started with the mountain biking and I was the only person who had chosen that option. While the other people in the group either waited or drove around with quad bikes, my guide and I rode up and down a dirt path alongside a mountain. I was way faster than him and had to wait for him at the top of every hill, but it was an ok ride. The elephant riding wasn’t very exciting until the guide and the animal started to argue. Standing face to face yelling at each other about which way to go might be a daily routine for them, but for me sitting in the cage on top of this giant mammal it was somewhat disturbing.

Since the water levels are unusually low everywhere, China might have a point about that global warming argument, I was prepared for a rather unexciting rafting tour, but it turned out to be great. Less water means more rocks, obstacles and currents and we had to work pretty hard to steer the raft through the cascades.

We ran into Peter from Seattle who’s cycling from southern China down to Singapore and beyond.

Suddenly I started to sneeze! I hoped it just was something I ate, but the next day the nose was running like crazy. A running nose is less pleasant than usual when you have a thick beard sucking all kinds of fluids right into it. For two days I did nothing but lingered around the guesthouse feeling sick.

Thailand is, however, a perfectly good place to rest and to read a book.


Distance:
17 km cycling in Chiang Mai.
Total: 2876 km.

 

Wat Phan Tao is different since it is almost entirely made out of teak.

 

 

The wall surrounding the old parts of the city.

City street. At dusk.

Mountain biking.

View from the back of an elephant.

The elephant and I.

My waterproof camera actually turned out to be waterproof.

Sunday market.

Peter is buying a coconut bowl from a cute salesgirl.