Nam Neun

Arrived 28/6/2011

One man down bottom right one centre
just below treeline breaking rock  away.
The guy  up top just laughed as i took a photo

The day started with 6km of easy riding then the rest was incredibly steep hills both to climb and descend.  Granny gear was thrashed to pieces on the climbing and the brakes run hot on the descents.  It seemed like endless climbing and every bit of descending just meant more climbing to come.  End of the day however, I was nicely rewarded with a 15km descent into Nam Neun – that always keeps you smiling!

Some fallen powerlines on one of the descents.
 Landslides became a bit of a common occurrence.

Finding food along this stretch of road was pretty hard.  I had a few bananas to keep me going for a while, other than that there was just the occasional roadside stall with some drinks and junk food.  One drink stop I had the whole village standing under a house steering at me.  I’d give them a smile and wave but they just steered at me gob smacked, quite funny.

Man this would be pretty out of control on these hills!

My one food stop (biscuits and some sweet shrimp chip things) I met my first every albino Laotian.  I thought he was a random westerner working in the tiny hill top village, but once he started talking I realised he was a local.  His name Bon Ton and he worked as a maths teacher at the primary school.  Earned 700,000kip (just short of $100US) a month.  I couldn’t really comprehend how you live off that, as I would spend that within 3 or 4 days pretty easily, and they have to live off it.  Crazy.

After passing 834 cattle, 274 hens and roosters, 73 pigs and 302 dogs running free on the roads I finally had a wee ‘encounter’ with a couple of dogs.  Play-fighting in the middle of the road completely unaware of me, I slowed right down pulled over to the wrong side of the road to avoid them but still they managed to fight and walk back into me! Idiots, gosh!  No problems with the bike and I think the dogs were ok they just seemed to continue on.  Bound to happen at some stage just happy it wasn’t a cow!

Nam Neun was a cool wee town based down in a valley (only meaning you had to climb to get out of it though) the centre was off the main road and the shops surrounded ‘the main road’ so all the kids just ran around the street playing.  It was really cool to see.  I was also pretty impressed (but forgot to get a photo) that lots of houses used solar panels for power – good work! My guesthouse just ran a generator for a few hours at night because I was staying and when I went to bed they shut it down.  Needless to say I was pretty warm that night with no fan.