Phonsavanh

24-26 June 2011

Rain and lots of it. These stalls drew
 the short straw being under the waterfalls
 from the roof.

Rain and lots of it about sums up my time here.  About half an hour after I arrived it began to rain and it only got heavier.  Non-stop for the next day and a half and it drove me a bit insane.  Wanted to get out and see the Plain of Jars but in torrential rain it wasn’t very appealing so I was confined to some solid hours in my room, wandering around the town and eating.  I have now purchased an umbrella they are a very handy accessory in this weather!

Me and bluey

I found some jars...

Stayed an extra night here and managed to get out to the jars in some showery weather.  Only went out to Site 1 (3 sites around Phonsaven) as apparently the roads are not good in the rain for Sites 2 and 3.  I think the best explanation for why/how the jars exist was from an Aussie guy saying maybe there were giants that just threw them into the ground.  The most logical reason I read was that the jars are funerary urns used in the Iron Age around 2000 years ago.  I like the giants idea.  As impressive as these jars were I actually thought there were going to be more and bigger, possibly getting to other sites may have changed my opinion.  A wee tick next to the Plain of Jars anyway.

Next to the big daddy jar

Meant to keep on the tracks and in between the red and white markers - identified safe zone from UXO's (unexploded ordinances).  Don't really think it matters I walked everywhere and didn't blow up and where they cut the lawns is well past any markers.  Just to make it more exciting for the tourist.

I was also very nicely ripped off by the tuk tuk driver charging me for both the trip out and then the trip back even though we had agreed on a price to start with!! Grrr! If only they could be honest with their price they might get return customers.  First driver to rip me off anyway so whatever, I’ll be very clear next time agreeing on a price.  Should have hired a moto probably be cheaper, much more fun, go where I want (might have got to Sites 2 and 3) and go at my own pace – my driver initially said he will wait 20mins for me to look around the jars but I stretched it out to an hour.  

It’s funny how frustrated you can get in countries where you can’t communicate properly.

And I thought motorbikes carried too much 

Nong Tang

Arrived 23/6/2011

Mooooove.  It's actually more like ding, ding,
da, ding (its bell) I don't really care I'm in the
middle of the road people will move around me.

Back into the routine of cycling and 90km of undulating and a big hill climb towards the end was a great to settle back in.  a beautiful part of the country to be cycling through and the hills make it interesting, bring all the great views and you just never quite know what’s around the corner.

I had a funny disaster today – well looking back at it, it’s funny but firstly I was amazed and then concerned.  So coasting down a small descent and I ride over a depression that did not appear bad until I hit it.  It was one of the ones that are just the right size and shape to dislodge both your panniers from your bike and send then cartwheeling, literally.  I steered back at them watching them perfectly roll down the road in an impressive diverging V to the sides of the road.  One ended in the gutter the other disappeared into the roadside vegetation.  It looked pretty cool because they cartwheeled for a good 50m and seeing them diverge from my bike in perfect fashion – this is where I was amazed, it was like watching synchronised panniers run away.  The concern set in when I started to think of damage to the bags, contents inside and that I could only see one… luckily spotted the other hidden well in vegetation only by seeing the reflective diamond.  No damage, no cuts, everything was safe a sound.  Lucky.

I have come across a really nice guesthouse sitting on the edge of the towns lake/pond.  Pretty basic but think I will sleep well tonight with being both knackered and it's a peaceful place.  This wee town even had a Budda Cave for me to check out but of course it was over a small steep hill, I’m just whingeing it wasn't that bad and worth the short 3 or 4km to it.  Took my headlight this time but it wasn’t really necessary as the whole cave was lit with lights it was pretty cool – a trail of lights to follow.  Of course I did a little bit of self exploration (mainly to justify taking the headlight) crawling through some small tunnels but really only managed to get myself covered in dirt and didn't find any gold or skeletons! 

Amesome looking rice fields that I came across, picture doesn't really do it justice.   Rich green and just looked that perfect picturesque scenery you would imagine

Me at the Budda Cave - would you guess

My wee wooden room on the lake front

Phou Khoun... again

Arrived 22/6/2011

I experienced the thrill of a bus ride back up to Phou Khoun.  Upon which I have concluded that I’ll be happy to stick with riding my bike.  I reckon there is a much higher chance of being in crash on a bus than on a bike.  We constantly drove on the wrong side of the road, and yes, unsurprisingly we almost crashed to some oncoming traffic after they blasted their horn at us.  Waking our driver up (not sure if was asleep but he didn’t exactly have the quickest reactions) he swerved and missed the oncoming traffic directing us straight towards the cliff edge, hard swerve again and we back on our side of the road.  Exciting! If you want to die.  The wee truck we narrowly missed chased us down and arguments began and continued for about half an hour.  Couldn’t see any damage to them but it was all a big commotion.

 

I arrived at the familiar town of Phou Khoun but decided to try a different guest house. Got my own toilet this time, but the water doesn’t work, I’m directly off a lounge and the room smells of damp cement dust I should have gone back to my room with the mint view.  Live and learn ay… slowly.

Holiday within a holiday – Luang Prabang

16 – 21 June 2011

Myself and Megan looking over Luang Prabang

Something seriously wrong with this dash

My cousin, Megan, has also made a wee stopover to join me in Luang Prabang on her way over to India for a motorbike trip so I have been able to hang out and do things with someone I know which has been awesome. 

I have done my first bit of touristy shopping in the markets and happy to have waited until the Luang Prabang night market to do so.   There is some cool stuff here.  Couple of lanterns and some paper paintings – they’re cool, you could totally redecorate a house at this market.  The post office, that was interesting trying to explain where New Zealand is to the lady there.  Surely you’d have some general knowledge – I even showed her on a map and she kept saying it was in Europe!!  Hope it makes it home!

Buffet alley 

So what have I/we done here?  I have been eating like 17 kids gone crazy in a free candy store (stomach has come back to normal and making up for the previous week) and the food here is fantastic.  The bowels have even decided to work properly again! yay! Buffet for $1.50, chicken baguettes galore, bakeries and flavour sensation restaurants.  Food heaven currently.  I have made friends with a local baguette lady – see remembered me after the third visit in two days.

Me and my sandwich lady

We have done a two day elephant mahout (elephant driver) course.  It was pretty funny booking this.  We booked the day before going and the guy said there is still space for us.  Show up in the morning and they tell us we are the only ones.  Classic.  Luckily I was not loner and had someone to go with!  We stayed in a mint as eco lodge/resort place and rode, bathed and tried to command the massive elephants – not sure if they really listened to us or just the trainer walking alongside…  Also did some tubing (float down a wee stretch of calm river in tubes) where a group of local kids (some naked, some with daks) playing in the mud swam over and commandeered my tube.  Kayaked down the Nam Kang river back to Luang Prabang to finish off the trip.  A great couple of days! 

Bathing

Naked mud throwing kid

Me, Megan and Tong (guide)

Weeeee!

Biked out to Kuangsi Waterfall.  A great way to do it. A bit under 2 hours there and 1½ on the way back.  Rope swing into the cool green/blue water – fantastic after sweating on the bikes out there.  First rope swing attempt I pulled in the rope with the perfectly shaped hook stick, lost my balance and just fell in.  Goober.  Then I lost the stick on the bottom of the waterfall pool.  Luckily found it after a few minutes of diving to find it.  What a moose.  Second attempt went for the big swing.  Hands slipped down the rope over the rope and cut one finger and bruised another – has been stiff for a few days now.  Total moose.  Third attempt I nailed it, I’m sooo cool.  Also got bitten by some yabbies.  Took me a while to realise I was getting bitten as I didn’t expect it so both my feet provided a nice snack for them for a while.

The Green Monster

Tried out a cooking classes and whipped up some amazing flavour infused dishes.  We’re pretty good cooks to be honest.  Got a recipe book to take away so I’ll be attempting to make some local dishes when I get home.

Gourmet cooking

We woke up way too early this morning (21^st) to see and be a nosey tourist watch the Monks walk the streets taking offerings from everyone.  Well we were quickly approached given fruit, sticky rice and biscuits, wrapped in a sash and took a seat of the side of the road to be the offerers!  Along come the Monks, they open up their pot thing and in go the goodies – like a prearranged trickle treat.  You have to be fast though I missed a few and got denied but a couple others – maybe they were sick of sticky rice?  All over and done with by 6:30am.  The ladies that gave us the food for the offerings then asked for money.  Fair enough I was happy to give them something for us to experience and partake in it but they were asking for 350,000kip!!!  That’s what you would pay for a 6 star hotel room here.  No way.  We left them 10,000 each and walked away and left them to argue over who gets the money.  I didn’t even really get the chance to take any photos!

Pak Ou Cave

Jumped on a slow boat ½ day tour up the Mekong to the Whisky Village and Pak Ou Cave.   Whisjky Village I just tied the rice wine and 15% whisky not the 50% stuff, think I’ve already had a fair share of that stuff along the way.  The cave, ok, but I was a bit disappointed with it as it was more deep hollow in the hill..The caves in Vang Vieng were more exciting.  The boat was pretty cool and just cruising up the Mekong.  I now wish I had made it to Chang Mai crossed into Northern Laos and taken a two day slow boat trip to Luang Prabang.  Another time…

Also had a good bit of lazy time in between but the bike is starting to call again and the legs (and belly) want to get riding again. 

Luang Prabang

Arrived 15/6/2011

Man it was an epic day today.  Epic, wicked sticks, awesome, sic as views, big grins and big descents!!

I didn’t expect to get this far today as by lunch I was on 50km down but things just got a whole lot better after lunch.  My lunch was awesome, fried fish and rice and some pineapple to finish off a satisfied stomach.  I undulated along for another couple of k’s then, ooooohhhh yea!!!!!!! 20km of pure uninterrupted descending, apart from me stopping for a video at pothole death corner.  Smooth roads (generally), not too steep (but happy not to be climbing it) and nice flowing corners with sunken depressions for me to use as a berm – perfect!!  I’m soooo happy!!!!  I’m actually contemplating back tracking the 130km of hills because I just grinned for so much of it but that may have been because was going generally descending.

Garth, Thomas (hiding) and Anga.
Hope you guys find the hot spring resort!

After so much descending it was inevitable to head back into climbing, but being so happy and a reasonable grade meant a middle/middle gear climb so it felt good, in comparison to the slow progress of other climbs.  Randomly while making another of my captivating videos a farang cycle tourist zipped by and soon enough two others followed and we had a good cycle tourist yarn.  Gear, bikes, how far, how much climbing, the great descents, places to stay, where we’ve been and stories involved. Always fun bumping into other cyclists, sharing experiences and passing on a few tips of the good and bad.  Another awesome descent but only about 15km this time and a bit of undulating breaking it up but can’t complain.

It was actually more like 50km but that was ok.

Only one pincher of a sneaky hill (half killed me with the steepness but it was comparatively short) before finally arriving in Luand Prabang.  Man what a day of riding.

Luang Prabang is somewhere down there

So that only gets me to Luang Prabang.  The city itself I am not even sure how to begin to describe it.  It’s relaxed, fun, friendly, touristy but not, the age and culture has been maintained, monks walking the streets in the morning collecting offerings, the night market, the beauty of the fairy lit streets at night, the food, the people, the smiles.  Man it’s cool here and I’m stoked to be spending time here to take it in.

Walking down the street into the night market

Up into the Hills!

13/6/2011

Today I got a small taste of the pain to come, the hills of Northern Laos.  Following some directions from another cyclists web page – “77km north of Vang Vieng is a nice a guesthouse and hot spring” I thought I’d aim for that.  Only thing as I found out is that it’s perched near the top of a hill.  Vang Vieng 360m alt. and guesthouse 760m alt. with a few ups and downs in between, I was very happy to see it!!  (I tripped 80km from Vang Vieng and thought I had passed it as I began to descend down the hill I thought it was on top of but it was a wee down/undulating and it would be hard to miss with the sign and restaurant.)  The hot pool unfortunately was not its normal hot self due to the recent downpours but I thought the temp was perfect after sweltering away in the heat during the day.  Hot spring, accommodation and restaurant set in a spectacular mountain pass – you can’t ask for much more!!  I would love a fat, juicy eye fillet steak though.

Man anyone that passes through here has to stop at this place.  Although the room may be cosy it’s cool, the food is fantastic (noodle soup with vegetables and beef with ginger – written on a semi English menu – there are French pried if you want), the hot spring or warm spring if it has been raining and the scenery.  Well I reckon this place is pretty sic bix!

Stomach finally feeling better today I managed to eat some lunch!!  And stuffed myself for dinner – a good feeling especially with what lies ahead.

Phou Khoun - Arrived 14/6/2011

A mountain village on my up the big daddy hill

View from near the top.
Background in Phou Khoun Mountain

Well I climbed ‘the hill’, wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be.  It was steep and long but the top (more or less) just appeared all of a sudden.  I was keen to keep heading along after reaching Phou Khoun early but very unsure of finding somewhere to stay along the way so I just made it a short day today and anyway it’s pretty cool staying up this high.  The guesthouse is 1320m alt. and it’s still warm enough to get around in a tee and shorts – maybe it will drop below 25 overnight?!  My box/room, that I realise I paid too much for, has a wicked view when it’s not raining.

3:30am rooster starts going.  5am is starts up again.  5:30am most of the town is getting up. 7am some loud speaker radio broadcast starts.  I just want to sleep in peace.  You can’t even do it at 1300m alt.!

Not too far to go on 140km of hills

The morning leaving Phou Khoun.
Think I was still the only  one wearing shorts and  a tee
and finding the temperature pleasant

Vang Vieng

Arrived 11/6/2011

Sun, sweat, downpour, sun, dry out, sweat, downpour….

Vang Vieng adventure capital of Laos and tourists galore.  Tourists, guest houses, restaurants and shops galore.  There is loads to do here (tubing down a river between bars, kayaking, rafting, walks, boats, caves, rock climbing, getting drunk every night, everything) and you could easily end up spending a fair bit of time and money, but to be honest it was just not quite my type of town and most of the stuff I can do at home for free and looking into the brown river wasn’t that enticing. 

One of the entrances to the caves

Me I hired a motorbike, apparently a ‘manual’ but there was no clutch so and half cross between manual and auto.  I checked out some caves and as it poured down the night before it made for some fun biking down the dirt roads.  Some of the access roads to the caves involved a bit of pushing, riding and skidding down clay slopes great fun!  The caves were pretty cool one had a budda inside it and small swimming hole, although the water wasn’t as warm as I was expecting.

I thought sightseeing was going to be a cheap and generally free option but anything you do here costs something.  The main bridge from town over the Song River to get to the caves:  4000kip to walk across, 6000kip to cycle across or 10000kip (about $2 NZ) for a vehicle including a motorbike.  Thought I’d be clever and hire my bike on the other side but the cost to hire was just 10000kip more than in town!  Then the bike had no petrol so buy petrol.  70000kip later I was off.  The caves, a natural wonder, they’ll be free… 10000kip per cave.  Then the guides (always agree on a price beforehand) 20000 first time then 10000 next one.  Being me I was dumb enough to leave my headlight in my room so I reliant on the guides and their headlights.  The second guide was a pretty funny came up to me and said he’ll take me for 70000kip – ah, no and I started to walk off.  He quickly came back to me at 10000kip.  Only 60000kip different, cheeky.

The main bridge over the Song River

Walkway to one of the caves

To finish off my day I spotted a viewing platform at the top of one of the massive rock mountains (krasts maybe?) so headed in search of how to get up there.  Cost me 10000kip to walk up.  I pay someone for me to sweat out every pore on my body (fingers and all) to walk up to the top?!  Awesome view though.

The view

And me!!

Most of the restaurants here also showed either Friends or Family Guy on TV – episode after episode.  Was quite fun watching some good old English speaking TV but if worked there man you’d get sick of it I reckon.

Houay Ileud

Arrived 10/6/2011

Stomach still not feeling the best but it was time to leave the big smoke of Vientiane.  My initial destination approached sooner than expected so I continued on to make my next day a bit shorter.  Kind of a good choice kind of not, had to climb hill – a taste of what’s to come.  Over the hill and I started looking for somewhere to stay the legs had had enough.  It seems when you want a guesthouse to appear it does – I like that. A small village and I stopped at the last shop after not seeing anything else and asked if there was a guesthouse near.  She pointed up the drive, wicked.  Oh there was a sign saying guesthouse behind me…whoops.

preparation for the local cock fight

My stomach wanting to eat (a good sign) I wandered down the road to the stalls.  Sa bei dee, sa bei dee (hello) to all the little kids as I walk by.  One kid just yelled out “Oi!” I turned in the general direction and when she realised I saw her she ducked down – classic, so I gave a wave.  On my way back a guy caught my attention and said something.  Couldn’t really hear him so I went over.

“Sa bei dee.”

“Sa bei dee. Whisky.”

Oh man I didn’t feel like this.  Homemade fuel injected, twin turbo rocket fuel.  Some more locals joined and watched and laughed at my sour lemon faces when having the shots.  Even the local policeman joined in for a round! Four or five shots later, I busted a move, that stuff is feral! 

Stopped to watch a cock fight on the way.  The entertainment in the village, classic.

A massive gecko in my room - the biggest I have ever seen.
About the same size as my sock! And very loud when  it started to call "gecko"

Vientiane

Arrived 7/6/2011

Arriving into Vientiane - Pra Tou Xay

So soon enough I was riding into the capital city of Laos.  It’s funny I always expect masses of traffic and chaos but it never seems that bad riding into these cities – maybe I’m getting use to just going with the flow of method to the madness?

First things first, I found a café and got myself a BLT, cookie and fruit smoothie, oohhh yea!

Downtown Vientiane

Since arriving here it feels my body has gone into shutdown.  Stomach playing up, just wanting to sleep and going in and out of phases of wanting / being able to eat.  I think the daily routine of getting up and cycling must override the body and once you get moving it’s just riding as usual.  Resting seems to give the body a chance to catch up on how it’s actually feeling.  That or it’s the random foods I have eaten in Laos so far.  Sometimes I don’t even know what I am eating but just know I need food.  One lunch on my here included a banana leaf wrapped salty thing that when served to me had (I think) maggots or something similar crawling around on them…. Yuck!  I put them aside.

Anyway Vientiane is an easy city to get around and has all those western comforts including English menus and speaking locals.  Not too sure what you would do if you stayed here for long.  I’ve had 2 days since arriving and not much to do around here apart from eat and shop.  A bit of sightseeing and some activities to do outside the city but seems Vang Vieng and Luang Prabang are the places to go.  Looking forward to it!

That Dam Stupa

Back on the bike tomorrow and heading towards the hills.  The next few weeks are going to bring some pretty tough times mentally and physically.  Had a wee yarn with one of the hotel fellas last night and he said I shouldn’t be riding in the hills.

“They are big hills.  Really big.  And there are people that want to take your money.  How do you say… robbery.  With guns and take the foreigner’s money.”

Cool thanks for positive encouragement!  I’m pretty sure it will be fine by the number of cycle tourist who have done the same before and I haven’t read anything bad.  I’ll just pull out some kick ass Chuck Norris kung-pow if need be or ride really fast... up hill.

Chao Anouvong Monument

Wat Sisaket - hundreds of Budda statues big and small.
Each of the holes in the wall have two wee Budda

Fattest Budda I have seen so far.

Me and a massive unnamed temple - maybe Wat Phonekeng

Pha That Luang - I must have been keen to get
out of the sun taking this photo on a lean.

Unnamed temple but it was massive - monk bottom centre.

These two poor goldfish didn't quite make it in Vientiane.  (had breakfast here)