Southern Laos
Two Farangs on Dusty Roads
In Southern Laos we have
our first proper big crash, an interesting hair dressers visit and cycle some crazy roads that provide lots of talking points.
We head south towards Cambodia and take several detours on the way to keep things interesting. Hope you have fun while reading!
Our First Big Crash
We set off from Vientiane with croissants from the French bakery next to our apartment and head east towards Paksan. Despite having intended on leaving at 7am, it’s now gone 9am and over 37 degrees. The route is flat and the surroundings are relatively uninteresting. There are small houses or shops lining the road and behind them is just dusty grassland or dried up rice paddies.
We smash out 70 km with relative ease on the asphalt road until it turns into a building site. Large mechanical vehicles line the center of the road and newly thrown out gravel tracks lie either side for the traffic to follow. Cars and lorries swerve between the tarmaced middle and gravelly side roads.
We approach 2 parked cars, lined up behind a large mound of sand. As nothing is coming, I overtake on the left. Jana, behind me, does the same. “Aaaaahhh,” I hear Jana scream from behind. Alarmed, I squeeze the brakes as hard as I can and jump off the bike, turning around.
To my relief, Jana appears unhurt and is on her feet. Panicking however, she is flailing her arms in the air. Her bike is out of sight as I run over. I pull her to the side as a large lorry with head height wheels grinds to a halt less than a meter from us. “My bike, my bike,” she exclaims. “It’s under the car!!”
Several drivers and bystanders gather at the scene and stand around us. Jana’s bike is lodged under the front left wheel of one of the cars I thought was parked, in a narrow gap between the lorry and a sand mound. Trying to remain calm, I approach the car and ask the driver to reverse. Neither the driver nor the bystanders seem to understand what I’m asking. Nothing is happening.
I quickly come to realise that the driver can’t actually do anything. What I thought was just an accident involving Jana, turns out to be a 3 car pile up. A truck behind us crashed into the back of one of the parked cars and started a domino effect, leading to the third vehicle jumping forward and hitting Jana. Luckily Jana managed to jump off in time to not get injured. Eventually the space opens up and the cars move backwards, releasing Jana’s bike.
At the side of the road, as the car drivers organise themselves and apportion blame, we assess the damage to Jana’s bike. The back wheel is buckled and the cassette and derailleur are at strange angles. It’s almost a complete right off and definitely unrideable.
We hitchhike with a truck to the next hotel 5 km away and use the evening to assess our options.
Deciding our best bet is to go back to Vientiane, we set off early and catch a bus. After already spending two full days at a bike shop in Vientiane, the mechanics will no doubt be happy to see us again. They will have to change a lot of parts they only fitted to the bike less than 48 hours ago!
Exploding Kittens
We drop Jana’s bike off at the workshop and head straight for a nearby board game cafe. We eat cake, drink coffee and play a round of exploding kittens, the card game. It is the perfect way to relax our minds after the stress of the crash.
Jana’s accident is a harsh reminder of the reality of what we are doing. We are lucky. We could have been in a very different situation.
The ADHD Hairdresser
We are stuck in Vientiane for a week, while a new wheel for Jana’s bike is being shipped in from Thailand. Our days are filled with odd tasks and blog writing. My final job before we go and collect Jana’s bike is getting a haircut.
The barbershop is a 5 minute walk from our hotel. The shed sized building is set back from a busy road leading to the centre of Vientiane. One side is completely open, so although in the shade, the shop is exposed to the near 40 degree heat of the day. A poster hangs on one of the concrete walls stating that a haircut costs 20,000 Kip (85p / 90 cents). A decent price! Just what I was looking for! I take a seat and try to make myself understood so that the barber doesn’t just shave all of my hair off.
Before I finish explaining what I want, almost as if he has ADHD, the barber starts erratically combing and then cutting the top of my hair. He doesn’t seem to be doing things in an order, he just backcombs then cuts random parts. After a minute or so he grabs an electric razor and shaves a single line up the back of my neck. Then it’s back to his scissor action on random parts of my head. The chopping and changing between scissors and razors continues for around 15 minutes before he removes the towel around my neck.
He finishes the whole affair by pulling on my shoulders and then backslapping me on the neck a couple of times. An interesting massage technique that startles me more than relaxes me.
The Crash Site
With Jana’s bike as good as new, we leave Vientiane on the same route as before. We make it past the crash site, which is now almost unrecognisable. What was a building site a week ago is now brand new tarmac. A kilometer later the road turns to gravel and its complete chaos again.
Allergic to Work
We are on our way to the Kong Lor cave. Having amassed over 100 km on the bikes, we find a space next to a river on a stony patch of ground to pitch our tent. A truck with a family (Mum, Dad and three children aged between 5 and 10) park up next to the river. Coming in the opposite direction, a man pulling a trailer on a glorified lawn mower crosses the river and stops next to the truck. We quickly realise it’s a business deal. They are trading cassava.
This woody shrub is extensively cultivated in Laos for its starchy root tuber, a major source of carbohydrates. The root is harvested, sliced and then dried in the sun before being ground down to make flour. In Laos, it’s sold either as a whole root or dried and sliced. The grinding is done in Thailand or Vietnam, where they have the necessary capital to afford the mills.
Interested in how a trade like this happens, I go over and observe. Before long I am helping to haul bags of sliced cassava off the trailer and onto a pair of scales. The bags weigh 20kg each. We then throw them up onto the back of the truck to be stacked. I manage about 5 bags before calling it a day.
To put some perspective on things: Dried and sliced cassava is sold by farmers for 4000 kip (15p/0.17€) per kilo.
Well, I must be allergic to manual labour. I wake up in the middle of the night to the worst stomach cramps, sickness and diarrhea.
Kong Lor Cave
Instead of taking the boring main road straight down south to Cambodia, we decide to take in two road loops: The Thakek and Bolaven loops. The extra kilometers should reward us with some of Laos greatest sights.
The first of these sights is the Kong Lor Cave, a 7 km long karst limestone cave with a river flowing through it. The tunnel that has been formed can only be travelled with a boat.
As we follow the watersedge into the cave, we leave the blazing sunshine and walk into the darkness. A natural cove has formed 50 meters into the cave where the guides have lined up their boats. When I say boat, think more along the lines of a canoe but with a motor on the back!
The guide and I lift my bike onto the boat and place it on its side. It takes some adjustments to ensure that the boat is stable, and in the end it’s only tilting slightly with just my handlebars dangling over the edge. Wondering if we will end up capsizing into the rushing water in a pitch black cave, we set off. Other boats are transporting motorbikes though, so that puts us more at ease.
We wind through the cave on the river in complete darkness, hearing only the rushing of the water and whirring of the motor. We stop at several points for us to get out and admire the stalactite formations.
This next point is different though. Around 12 or so boats have stopped and all the tourists are gathered on a large rock next to a 10 meter long section of rapids and waterfalls. The water gushes through gaps in the rocks and cascades down from the river 3 or 4 meters above.
The guides set up a rope pulley system, with 7 or 8 of them at the top of the rapids and the others attaching the boats at the bottom. The tourists, including us, stand in awe at what is happening! One by one the boats are pulled up over the rapids and into the calm water above. Still a bit shocked, it takes us a moment to realise that our boats, with our bikes on board, are next!
We both look on nervously as the one transporting my bike is attached to the rope system. If the boat tips over, my bags and bike will be flung into the rushing river and flow away into the darkness! Grasping each other’s hands, we watch as the canoe approaches the steepest section.
There is a lot of noise coming from the guides above. they must be feeling the extra weight of the bike and all the bags. The handlebar of my bike gets caught on one of the rocks, dragging the boat over on one side. Luckily, due to the force of the guide’s pull, the boat corrects itself and passes over the crest of the rapids and into safety. Phew.
After just over an hour in total, we see light in front of us. We exit the cave into dense jungle. The guide parks the boat between two wallowing buffalo and we unload the bikes. There is 70 km of remote dirt road waiting for us after lunch.
Adventures in Remote Laos
After about 40 kilometres on sandy roads past manioc plantations and remote villages, the path leads through a river. Roughly 10 meters wide and too deep to wade across, we stop at the riverbank with a slope leading down to the watersedge.
The only way to get to the other side is a raft made of bamboo stems lashed together with rope. At the moment, several people with scooters are assembled on it, making their way across the river towards us. To be honest it looks more like the results of a boy scout activity than a trustworthy ferry crossing.
Once the others have disembarked, we push our bikes on. One of the locals volunteers to pull the raft’s ropes for us, dragging us over the water to the other side. I don’t think we have ever experienced such an unofficial mode of transport. Ingenious.
After a wild camp next to the river just along from the raft, we decide to take a shortcut for the final 20 km to the main road. At this point it must be stressed that none of these “roads” are depicted on any of our map applications. We use the satellite view from google maps to follow clearings through the forest. 2 km in and the route becomes impossible to ride. The hills are too steep to pedal up and the gravel path becomes giant rocks. We have no choice but to get off and hike a bike.
Exhausted, we reach the main road and a shop. After downing 1.5 liters of Sprite we roll into the next town. We find a cafe selling western food and over a pizza promise to never try to be clever and adventurous again. We will definitely stick to tarmac roads for a while now!
Boring Main Roads
Two days on tarmac and we are bored. The most interesting thing that happens on our 4 day and 400 km trip to the start of the Pakse loop is that it rains for the first time in 7 weeks. The rain is only short lived though and it’s back to over 35 degrees within an hour of it stopping.
As we ride along the flat and boring tarmac road having a chat, a small baby goat steps out onto the road a few meters in front of us. Unfortunately the kid had bad timing, as in that moment a Toyota Hilux well over the speed limit overtakes us. The thud as the truck hit the goat shocks us both. It is so loud and shudders through our bodies! The baby goat flies several meters through the air and lands not far in front of us, while the truck continues racing on into the distance as if nothing has happened.
It is scary how fast the cars drive here on roads in awful condition. On what would essentially be a country lane in the UK, the cars, trucks and lorries speed past doing well over 100 kmh as children, animals and scooters cross. It is another reality check for us. We have been lucky this whole way and need to keep our attention levels up. That goat could have been us! Maybe we should go back to remote dirt roads afterall.
The Permanent Nightclub
We camp a lot at the minute, trying to find peaceful places far from roads or towns. It is easier said than done. Often we ride several kilometers from the main road and have no buildings in sight when we set up camp. Somehow however there always seems to be unbelievably loud techno music blasting out in the night.
During the day, even in the tiniest of villages, there is always one cafe, bar or house with deafeningly loud music. OK, fine, it’s daytime. But why the 24/7 ground shaking bass?!
We are not sure if it’s a regional or seasonal thing, but the permanent nightclub only started south of Vientiane and accompanies us all the way to the border with Cambodia.
The Bolaven Loop
Deciding to go back onto dirt roads we take another “shortcut” to start the Bolaven loop. We ride from Napong towards our next stop, Mr. Viengs Coffee Plantation, southwest of Laongam.
The trail is covered in a thick layer of brown dust up to 10 cm deep. Concealing obstacles and bumps in our way, we often have to get off the bikes and push. The bikes and us become covered in dust and our gears clog up. We must look ridiculous as we pull up at Mr. Viengs. At least I now know what I would look like if I could get a tan!
The tour of the coffee plantation is amazing. We both drink coffee so it’s great to learn about the roasting process, the 3 skin layers and how different strengths and roast darkness is achieved. The variety of other trees within the coffee plantation comes as a surprise. To shelter the coffee trees and create the ultimate growing environment; pineapple, mango, banana, cashew nut and cocoa trees are grown in between.
A Private Cruise
We cycle downhill from the Bolaven Plateau towards Pakse and cross the Mekong. Walking around Wat Phou, a Khmer Hindu temple, provides a welcome break from cycling. Our visit is only short lived though, it’s 10am but already over 30 degrees and walking uphill to the sanctuary and other temple buildings becomes unbearable.
We follow the river south for a few days before we need to cross the almost 2 km wide Mekong again. A spot on the map is marked as a ferry crossing. Upon arrival however the site doesn’t look much like a commercial crossing. There are just a few phone numbers written on plaques attached to a tree. Next to it, a steep slope leads down to the river where a couple of small boats are docked.
Some local ladies work out what is going on and help us by making calls to the listed captains. A couple of minutes later and a man appears, miming for us to follow him towards one of the boats below. Jana is worried that this whole affair will end up being costly and I can see her stress levels rising. If this doesn’t work out well, I am in for a long afternoon.
When the captain tips in 100,000 kip (4.30€/3.66pounds) into his phone calculator, we are both more than happy with the price. The journey to the village on the other side takes around 20 minutes. Within 10 seconds of our boat arriving, we hear children’s voices shouting “farang, farang”! (Meaning Westerner or Foreigner).
It appears to be another running theme in Laos: whenever we approach a village on the bikes we get shouted at from the sides of the road by children. We often don’t even see where they are, but somehow they spot us and drop what they are doing to come and shout. That, along with the loud music at night, is a guarantee in southern Laos.
4000 Islands
We make it to Don Khon, an island in the riverine archipelago in the Mekong River, known as the 4000 islands. We have heard a lot about this region and on first impressions it definitely doesn’t disappoint! Here, we check in to a guesthouse with aircon! It’s amazing as it’s the first time we are cooled to a normal temperature in over a week. Daytime temperatures are regularly 38-39 degrees!
Our bungalow is built on stilts directly above the Mekong. We have cycled over 2300 km since Hanoi and so a 3 day break including multiple mango and maracuja smoothies at 15,000 kip (57p/0.64€) each is exactly what we need.
On our last day in Laos Jana picks up a stomach bug. Laos is the country in which we have been ill most often. Our tummy issues and Jana’s fever back in Luang Prabang adds up to more incidents than our whole trip till now!
Border Chaos
Arriving at the Laos border, everything seems normal. The complex looks a little like a petrol station. There is one larger building then several lines for cars to pull into for checks. A couple of Border Patrol Officers mill about outside. There is just one vehicle at the crossing; a small white minivan with approximately 10 foreign passengers, already standing in line at the passport control window.
The local driver gets waved through and parks up the other side of the border. We take our time getting ready, have a gulp of water and get our passports out of the bag. Most of the minivan passengers are already starting to move through, picking up their rucksacks and walking off. A teenage lad turns around from the passport control window and says to the two remaining in the line: “Sorry, I gave in, I just couldn’t do it. Good luck.”
The two in front of us wave us through. I approach the window and pass our passports through the hole at the bottom to the border patrol officer.
“OK, two dollar”, the officer says.
We thought this might happen.
“No”, I reply.
A discussion breaks out as he explains to me the fee is for the stamp. It is apparently official and everybody is required to pay. I know this game, and it’s not one that we are willing to play.
He then moves the angle of attack: “Where is your arrival paper?”
I respond, “No arrival paper, we were not given anything.”
“OK then 5 dollar per person for paper and 2 dollar for stamp. No paper is big, big problem. No money no exit,” he insists.
This is going to be fun, I think. “No. Please just stamp the passport so we can leave.”
“OK, how much money you have?”he blurts.
“No, please just stamp the passports”, I reply composedly.
Our passports get pushed out of the hole at the bottom of the window. The officer crosses his arms and turns his head, like how a child behaves when they don’t want to eat the food being fed to them.
“OK, thank you. We will wait on the bench over there. We have lots of time.” I say as I step back.
The two foreigners who remain from the minivan explain to us that they have just had the same conversation as us a few minutes earlier. They don’t want to pay the bribes either. The difference to us however is that they feel under pressure. They are worried their van will leave without them. All the other passengers have paid varying bribes and moved through to the Cambodian border.
We take a seat and watch as the others try their luck again. The situation gets quite heated and becomes a slagging match, slowly getting louder and louder until both parties are shouting. Another officer comes over and stands next to the lady, trying to calm things down. The money hungry, shouting officer comes out from the door next to his window and escalates the situation again. We remain seated.
A couple more minutes of shouting ensue before a more senior member of staff comes out. He commands that the tourists and his colleague go inside for further questioning. We stay seated as everybody disappears into the building.
The senior officer then comes out and over to us. Almost in the same words as his colleague previously, he demands money. The conversation goes the same as before. He adds a few new layers of attack to previously, but the outcome is the same; we refuse to play games and aren’t going to be paying any bribes.
After two episodes of bad cop, the calmer officer comes over and tries it with the good cop version, “just pay then you can leave.”
“No thank you, we will wait,” I reply.
After a pause the officer goes “OK, wait 15 minutes then we will stamp you out”.
I acknowledge his words with a “Thank you.”
As promised, around 15 minutes later the angry officer from before comes back to the window inside. We go up and hand over our passports. Without looking at us or saying a word he stamps our passports and we can leave Laos. Quite the dramatic ending to what has been a great country to travel through.
Expecting the Cambodian border to be similar we walk over and join the queue. We already have an e-visa so when an unofficial man looks through our papers and asks for 3 dollars I laugh and respond quickly with “No”. He just shrugs his shoulders and hands our papers back. That has to be the worst attempt at bribery ever, I think, at least put on a show like the Border Patrol in Laos!
The expression is, “easier said than done”, not ‘harder’! That is the only comment I can make to your excellent English.
Thank you for the feedback! I have made the necessary correction. Greetings from Australia, Joel
Brilliant Joel, cracking read and wonderful memories.
lots of love Aido x
Awesome. Cheers Aido. See you soon! Joel
Pingback:Thailand - Freedom Beneath our Feet