Back on Motorbikes!

We finally did it. We found some motorbikes to rent in Laos. Not the best bikes, but they let us take them for more than one day at a reasonable rate, and they start, and the horn works. What more could you want?

We took a public bus from Luang Prabang south to Vang Vieng. It was very likely one of the best bus journeys we have had. I guess the travel gods decided we've had enough hardship on public transport and it was time to give us a break. Nothing special about the ride. Just a proper size bus, a middle age, cautious driver, seats to ourselves that weren't falling apart and no cargo or people in the aisle! And more really nice scenery.

Vang Vieng is not really a nice city, but its surroundings are spectacular. Lots of those limestone cliffs similar to what we saw in Halong Bay in Vietnam, but take out the bay. It has become a must on the backpacker route, which is why it is not a nice city. TV bars have taken over the street....every restaurant has a TV and it blares movies, or more likely Friends episodes...day and night. Kind of weird, but plenty of falang filling the places up. The moment we arrived into town, it started downpouring. Sheets of rain. And it didn't let up until sometime in the middle of the night. We woke the next day to cloudy skies, and thought we'd postpone our trip a day (it's not much fun riding in the rain), but when we looked at the map and the days left on our visa, and the clearing skies, we decided at the last minute to go.

A boy I met just outside of Vang Vieng after I had to turn around to pick up a piece of metal I thought fell off my bike after hitting a pothole...he wanted to practice his English for a while.


So the first day was spent heading right back where we came from...north towards Luang Prabang. We stopped about 100km shy of Luang Prabang, and stayed in a very small junction town called Phu Khoun, where the north-south Highway 13 meets the east-west Highway 7. We stayed the night in a not so nice place (not a lot of options here!), and met two very nice fellow travelers (Hi Lindsay and Sarah!).

Day two took us east about 130 km to a tourist destination town (but not hugely traveled) called Phonsavan. Not realizing it, this stretch of the drive took us through the last remaining hotspots for H'mong guerillas! Ooops. We were wondering what all those guys dressed in official uniforms with AK-47's were doing (they were Laos patrol officers obviously protecting/watching the road).

Phonsavan is home to the 'Plain of Jars', which is a grassy field littered with huge jars made of stone. They still don't know what purpose they served or when they were built. The best guess is sometime between 500 BC and 800 AD. We drove out and had a look at them late in the afternoon. Pretty strange. The other sight to see in and amongst the jars are many, many huge bomb craters courtesy of the American military and their "secret war". If you are fascinated by these mysterious jars, wikipedia does a pretty good job: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_of_Jars

One of the many jars. We'll never tell what Keith found in there.....


Day three we really started to get into some remote areas. After heading about 60 more km east (through more stunning, lush, pituresque villages), we turned north onto what our map showed as a dirt road. We were prepared for the worst and were pleasantly surprised to find it paved the whole way. It has been fun to finally live up to the name of our website and get to some places a bit less traveled (by falang anyway). Driving through these small villages we are greeted in a variety of ways. Sometimes its an eager wave, sometimes a furrowed brow, sometimes a cautious smile, but most often a look of utter bewilderment followed by a delayed, yet beaming smile. Whoever is riding second has to do most of the waving, because they don't realize who/what we are until the first biker has passed. It is hilarious.

So there we are cruising through some of the most remote areas we have been where villages are getting a little fewer and farther between, and we get a flat. Good fortune continues to follow us as there was a village just 2 km up the road. We pushed my bike in and, I kid you not, I think the whole village came out to stare at us and the bike. Thank goodness one man there spoke very little English, enough to say, "I can fix here". We were so relieved because the only other option would have been to wait for and load the bike up onto the next bus. We spent a very pleasant hour there with most of the village surrounding either the bike and its repair progress or one of us showing them something from our bag. You know you are off the beaten path when you take out your camera and children run for their lives. Or if you approach a small child and he starts to scream bloody murder. So funny. We made it out of that remote stretch and to the next main highway junction town, Nam Neun, where we bedded down in another marginal guesthouse, but a lovely, peaceful town where they wake and go to sleep with the sun.

The villagers surrounding me as I am showing them pictures from home:


The next day (day 4) we turned back west and the map held true to its word as we nervously navigated a stretch of about 40km of dirt road. Not just dirt, but sharp rocks as well. We made it out without anymore flats, and eventually hit pavement again. The rest of the ride was uneventful, with more nice scenery, lots of friendly villages, and relatively good weather. Lots of rain lately, but thankfully most of it falls at night. We pushed on this day quite far, with no guarantee of a guesthouse at our intended destination, Muang Vieng Kham. Luckily there was one there...pretty rustic, with a room barely big enough to fit the bed, but our cheapest accommodation yet at $2.50.

Lots of limestone scenery. It is all so pretty!


Day 5 was a short ride! Yay! As the butts are starting to get sore. We are back in the land of falang-a-plenty, which in some ways is nice...access to hot showers, more variety of food at the restaurants and not so much staring. The town we stayed at is called Nong Khiaw and is, I think, the prettiest town we have seen yet. We are back into limestone cliff scenery and with the rainy days, and misty clouds, this place looked like a bit of a paradise. The main tourist destination here is to take a boat ride up the river one hour and stay in a more remote (but more touristy....is that an oxymoron?) village. We opted to just go up river for lunch at this village so that we could sleep where our bikes were. Quite a scenic river trip even with the sketchy rapids in the overloaded boat. Back in Nong Khiaw we splurged on an $8 room which got us a balcony with a view of the river, a soft mattress and a hot shower in a private bathroom. Heaven!

Here we are enjoying Beer Lao on our balcony after our first proper shower in days:


The view in Nong Khiaw from the bridge looking upriver:


More Nong Khiaw scenery. This is along the river on our boat ride:


And that brings us to today, where we are back in Luang Prabang for the THIRD time! Today's ride was long - 140 km. We are back onto main roads again, so potholes are becoming more scarce and the kilometers click by a little faster. We got another flat today (this time Keith's bike, mine was the first one). It was his front tire, and we knew there was a big town back 5 km, so we borrowed some tools, took of the wheel and rode back into town for a quick repair. Before setting back off, I glanced at my rear tire to find the tube bulging out of a whole in the tire! Back to town again for another repair. Then we were off, and it was smooth sailing through more great scenery to good ol Luang Prabang. Two more days and we should be back in Vang Vieng.