A tour or not a tour, that is the question. It was a tour, but unlike any that we’d ever done before, because it was all about UXO. That’s unexploded ordinance, not unexplained objects like the pair of thick thermal long johns you find in your bag even though you knew every country on the trip was well within the tropics when you were packing. Anyway, the ride was about helping unfortunate Lao people whose lives change due to UXO. And riding obviously.
The Every People tours have been happening since the first in 2015 and are organised by Owen Holcombe. Owen doesn’t run the tours to become a millionaire, it’s only about giving something back, which makes him very unusual. I met Owen when he was a maintenance superintendent at Phu Bia Mining’s Phu Kham copper-gold operation in Laos, and I knew of the Every People tours in SE Asia and South Africa through old work mates. A summary of the tours was – fantastic. When this Laos tour appeared, we were on, and it didn’t take much to get recently retired very good friend James Mcquie on as well.
From Ho Chi Minh City into the Laos capital Vientiane on VietJet Air, a supremely budget carrier, and we were soon through immigration and into a taxi for the brief ride to the Le Charme hotel in the city. We had a couple of days to relax and wander about and find a French restaurant. Laos was a French colony as was Vietnam, and although they weren’t particularly popular as colonists they could certainly teach people how to cook. Some of the best meals I’ve ever had have been in Laos, and the restaurants run by French chefs are the high achievers. Meeting up with Owen, we were soon meeting the rest of the bunch, Australians pretty much all except David and Graeme who were pre-Australians, i.e. English. Most had ridden as an Every People before, which shows how good these are, the return rate is huge. Unusually, we’ll just progressively introduce them through the story when they do something embarrassing, which they all do.
The fleet of 21 were all 300, 250, and 150 trail bikes, so light and perfect for rolling over anything. Half came from Joy’s just over the road from the hotel, and the other half came from Fuark’s Motorcycles. Unfortunately, ours came from Fuark’s, quite a way from the hotel. Into a tuk-tuk, we were soon out at Fuark’s. But the motorcycles weren’t at Fuark’s Motorcycles, they were at Fuark’s Home. Where’s that? No way of getting the address from Lao into English, Mrs Fuark will take you. At the Fuark’s we could select a bike, make sure it was set up for us, and leave our passport as security. That isn’t a Fuark idea – it is a Lao PDR requirement, and even though it sounds scary no-one asks to see your passport when you are in Laos. Three in the ute cab to go back to the hotel, the rest in the tray, just like the very olden days in Australia, especially when Mr Fuark threw a bucket of cold Beerlao cans in with us.
Up on Saturday, henceforth known as Day 1, we were dressed in riding gear and back out to Mr Fuark’s to pick the bikes up. The organisation on this tour was a bit different, we were split up into three groups of seven-ish, with each group having a leader and a sweep. Behind the last group was Mr Nok the mechanic in the support ute which was also a fuel tanker, then behind that came the van with the passengers and the luggage. South-east Asia gets almost all its fuel via the Strait of Hormuz, so there were serious fuel supply concerns coming into this ride – but of course Owen had it covered. Borrowed a ute from his mate Dan, got some 200 litre drums, and sent the team out to get them filled. We often saw big queues at the servos, but no dramas for us. Anyway, back onto the ride….
The plan each day was for a group to lead out, and then the second and third groups at 15 minute intervals. More Owen genius – this stopped 21 bikes all rolling into a tiny Lao roadside shop for morning tea at once, and also stopped the inhale-more-dust-than-an-Okie problems on the road as we were well spread out. So Day 1 specific – the ride was from Vientiane to the famous tourist town of Vang Vieng. It was 160km, and was great up to the enormous Nam Ngum dam where lunch was had.
After admiring the enormous dam, showcasing Laos’ huge hydroelectric power generation exported south into Thailand, it was back on the road. Road is a loose term for this section, my winner for the worst of the trip. Bitumen islands in a sea of pot-holes, it was very tough riding. At one point Cindy’s oil light came on, so a stop in the withering heat to try to figure that out, then we got separated from our group, then we thought we were lost, so did a You-ie. We weren’t lost, the next group appeared about 1 minute later so we did another You-ie and joined on with them. Then my phone fell out of its holder, very luckily hitting my boot on the way down so I looked in the mirror to see it skid off into the ditch, so a turn around and a group stop, luckily Ian managed to quickly find it.
Fuel was becoming a serious concern by this stage, many of the Honda XR300’s fuel lights were blinking like mad things, including mine, and we still had 50 km to go. Luckily Rick noticed a roadside fuel-in-water-bottles “servo”, so the most expensive fuel ever was purchased with 100,000 Kip handed over for about 1.5 litres – the equivalent of US$3.50 per litre. But better than being stuck waiting for Mr Nok, and we were soon re-joined with our group and headed on into Vang Vieng via easily the worst road ever – like broken lumps of concrete had been put down and only gently rolled to make them slightly flat – just brutally rough.
Straight into the pool with a few Beerlaos, we stopped whinging about roads for a bit, then headed up to the rooftop restaurant at the end of the block. Our timing was good, it was coming into dusk and that is hot air balloon and paraglider time, so watching these floating and buzzing around the rooftop bar was good fun.
A good thing about this tour became apparent on Day 2. We had a day off. This set the trend for the tour – it was very rare to do two riding days in a row, and with the road quality up there with freakin’ awful it saved a few from a meltdown. Having a van also made a big difference, with all the baggage out there was heaps of room for up to 16 of us. A wander around Vang Vieng, a coffee sitting on the river, find an ATM to top up the kip, and then back to the hotel. Did we want to go out to the Blue Lagoons? Yeah, OK, into the bus in the swimmers, off we went. There are around nine Blue Lagoons, these are ponds full of water coming out from the limestone karst ranges, and they are well set up for the international tourist. As per normal Laos restrictions, there are no restrictions and no-one is ever going to tell you not to do something, so there was some teen boy levels of behaviour in and out of the water after a few Beerlaos.
Back to town for a lie-down and a wander through the packed street food zone, inevitably we ended the day in a quiet restaurant with our riding group of Greg, Grant, and James for a dinner and few house reds. Day 3 started with Mr Nok trying to get someone’s motorcycle to work, and a lengthy discussion with a Korean chap who simply could not believe women could ride trail bikes like Cindy and Bianca were clearly about to do. Our group was last on this day, and it was always nice being last with the extra ½ hour to relax. The roads leading out were OK to start with, not as rough as coming in, but then went next level fantastic as we climbed up into the mountains. Again a feature of Lao roads – the ones used by trucks especially near the Chinese mines are just awful, those which don’t have trucks are very good unless they haven’t been maintained since the French were running the show.
We summitted the mountains for an early lunch and discovered that as well as lunch they could also provide carbs for the motorcycles. Again not cheap, but when the alternative is standing beside the road in the middle of Lao nowhere, we tend to take the strategic option and buy the fuel. The lunch wasn’t bad either – I had a sausage on a stick, Cindy had a BBQ’d sweet potato. The problem with BBQ’d sweet potato is that it looks like it hasn’t been BBQ’d, and in fact resembles something you’d see in the off-cuts bin outside the Civil War battlefield medical tent. So I wasn’t having one, but had serious non-buyer’s regret, it was awesome. Not that the sausage wasn’t up there with all other meats on a stick.
Down the hill, the road quality continued so we were doing well. Into a series of Bans, which means village rather than things we aren’t allowed to do, although Ban Lycra has a certain ring to it, and we got into the famous Luang Prabang. With Vang Vieng, Luang Prabang ticks off the biggest tourist places in Laos, but Luang Prabang is overall higher end with quality accommodation. We lobbed into the Visoun Hotel, lugged our stuff up the stairs while washing said stairs with torrents of sweat, and were quickly into the bathers for the mandatory swim. Wandering down, Ben tells us there is no pool. Because he is from Geelong, we don’t believe him, but more wandering reveals he is unfortunately correct. Dammit, back upstairs, Cindy into the shower, which she tells me is broken, the spray nozzle has nothing to hold it on the wall so showering is a miserable one-handed affair. The shizz-nit is lost at this point, and onto booking.com to look for alternatives. A hotel next door? Pool? $35 per night? I am easily convinced, off Cindy goes to check it out. I get the message – we are moving. Off I go, into the new hotel, and greeted by a young girl in a narrow and grotty hallway. She says the reception chap is in the loo and I look up another narrow grotty hallway and confirm he is, as I can see his trouser wrapped ankles under the door. Cindy giving this establishment the nod is like a third Michelin star being given to a western suburbs taco restaurant, I’m very obviously in the wrong place. Phone to the rescue, which actual hotel are we at? Okay, I’m in the wrong one.
Swum out, we picked up the message from the Mt Isaites Michelle and Steve that a riverside bar was the go-to for the evening. Strolling through the up-market sections of Luang Prabang to get to the river, although not the Mekong, we found a couple of our team there. Within an hour, everyone was there and the Lao staff had run out of restaurant to add more tables and the usual funny evening was had. Up on Day 4, the options were reduced to one by laundry requirement, had it already been a week? Impossible! But the number of remaining underpants said so, and they couch no argument. The googs said there was a laundry nearby, unfortunately right back at the restaurant where we’d been last night dammit.
Of course there is only one thing that can be had for lunch in the Indochina sphere of influence – the Banh Mi. The ingredients were always a mystery, especially the orange fairy floss sort of stuff on the top, until this day, when the bakery announced it as pork floss. Some speculation on how pork floss is created, ranging from using a very fine and sharp comb to vigorously scrape away at a trapped pig’s bum, to using a very fine and sharp comb to scrape away at something other than the bum, maybe the upper thigh. Either way the very fine and sharp comb was essential. Turns out the very fine and sharp comb is not required, it is pork cut with the grain and boiled until the fibres separate. Boring.
Back to the same river-side restaurant for dinner, and Luang Prabang was done. Day 5 was easier riding, with the roads in good condition as we continued north, leaving the Mekong once again. We expected drama when we ran into another motorcycling tour in Pak Mong, but the road into Nong Khiaw was excellent. OK, that was easy, now to find our room at the Nong Khiaw Riverside resort. No.2? Just past reception? That’s easy we say while waving to James on his way to room No.18 which was up near the Vietnam border.
This resort was an absolute cracker. Up to the restaurant, open the fridge, grab a Beerlao/wine/softie/water, make the room number sign to the staff, and repeat. Dinner was excellent. Wandering into town was not required, of course there were the usual display of bars and restaurants in there but ours was way better because it was like 10 metres away. Powering through to Day 6, a boat ride and a walk to a waterfall had been organised by Ian, so we’d better do that. The jetty was typical for Laos – the river level goes up and down so the jetty is not normally to the highest marine berthing standards, and this one had a seriously dodgy ladder without un-necessary nonsense such as a handrail.
Off up the river, it was very pleasant just cruisin’. Eventually the cruisin’ stopped and we landed in a very small village. There were signs to a waterfall, unfortunately every sign seemed to be to a different waterfall, but this is Laos so just follow every sign. That worked, we were soon at the booth to pay to go to the waterfall. Ian paid because he was in charge. Then we entered farmland and headed into hills that looked perfect for waterfalls. Wrong, those had no waterfalls, keep marching. Then the other perfect-looking hills were dry and barren, then more farmland, and we came across a slashie. A slashie is a café/restaurant/organic farm/bar/recycling facility/café again. The very nice bloke who ran the slashie was offering free water, and a voucher for anyone who carted rubbish out. We borrowed a big bottle and borrowed some water as it was a bit hot. Then back out to find a waterfall.
We found the main waterfall after another seriously dangerous ladder with no handrail, and bumped into everyone else up there. The water was cool and verging on cold, it was extremely slippery, there were very sharp rocks, but in we went regardless, and had a great time.
The return trip to the river included a stop at the slashie, where literally everyone else was gathered having cocktails. We returned our borrowed water bottle, dumped rubbish we’d picked up en route, and enjoyed a coffee/fruit drink/cocktail. Then we stopped for a final rest at a river restaurant. A heap of western people showing up at these places makes a real difference, mainly due to our ability to hoover chips and drinks. It’s like cashed up locusts swarming in, hopefully the owners can sit back for a while after our patronage.
Back to the boat, and back to the resort before a wander into town to find an ATM, a regular necessity given the mainly cash based society that is Laos. The Lao ATM journey is one of mystery and suspense, and it is unfortunate Alfred Hitchcock had passed before the widespread use of ATM’s as he would have made it a great black and white movie – Enter ATM PIN for Murder. The googs maps would have had a big part in the movie, it would tell the leading actress Janet Leigh she only had to go down three blocks and left to get to the BCEL to get the money she desperately needs. Her card goes in, but the ATM says it isn’t a valid card and spits it out. Knowing she and her husband owe Ian 1,800,000 Kip for the boat ride to the waterfall, and Ian isn’t a man who tolerates disappointment, Janet moves on to another ATM across the road, an Indochina Bank. This one works, but only gives 1,000,000 Kip, and Janet is horrified that she is charged 45,000 Kip for the withdrawal. Next to the Indochina ATM is a Phongsavanh Bank ATM. Desperation is creeping in. Janet puts her card in. The ATM makes that clicking sound like there’s a giant typewriter in there, and for a long time. Then it asks Janet for her PIN. Janet’s shaking hand hovers over the keypad – does she enter it, or just get the card back and quickly leave town on her Huajue XR150L? But she knows Ian will chase her down, he has like a proper Honda XR300. She types in her PIN. The giant typewriter kicks in again for what feels like 2 hours. The sun shines brightly on the screen, which only has Lao as the language option. Choices come up, she has to guess, praying that ບັດສົ່ງຄືນ means withdrawal. More giant typewriter. Then out pops her card. Fear and anger and frustration overwhelm her. At that moment Janet’s husband, played by Anthony Perkins, appears and says he needs to give Dennis 1,000,000 Kip for a carton of Beerlao. She murders him.
Day 7 was a commute on a pretty average but very winding road to Muang Hiam. The only photos taken this day were to try to capture the riding through the awful bits.
Into Muang Hiam, we were staying in a very basic guest house. The reception staff were like ethereal beings, most never saw anyone on the desk, some claimed they saw someone fading back through the wall. Cindy got a key from the someone or something, off we went up to the top floor. The egg-nishna remote was missing, and it was disturbingly hot. Don’t worry about that yet, over the road to help fuel the bikes, Owen rightly losing it with anyone who didn’t leave their keys with the bikes to allow Mr Nok to take the petrol cap off. Then up the street to a restaurant for an excellent pork with rice. Then back to the room, which was still an oven. I’m going down to find the remote says I. I bump into team-mate Grant and ask if he wants me to find his remote as well, such is my self-confidence. The ethereal beings were super-ethereal by now and were completely invisible. What wasn’t invisible was the sign saying the egg-nishna remote is an extra 50,000 Kip. Don’t care, need to sleep. People who look even vaguely Asian are bailed up, without success. Eventually I realise that the ethereal beings might not be like those in Raiders of The Lost Ark and might not be able to physically stop me going behind the desk and rifling through the drawers, so I do that. And find a remote, success. Upstairs, sweating heavily due to stair climbing and contact with ethereal beings, the bloody remote doesn’t work. Down to put the remote back, then up again, Dammit, I’ll just have a shower to cool down. Then I have a very pleasant night because the room cooled down a lot.
Day 8 continued south-east until we got to the T junction at Ban Kor Hing, had a morning break with the usual water, chips, and coffee in cans. Chips are a big thing in Laos, with an infinite number of flavours available from the familiar original salted to Mekong weed and spicy lobster, so extreme care must be taken unless one is feeling wildly-verging-on-insanely adventurous. A left at the T junction had us heading north-east, but not for very long as we hit road works. They weren’t actually works on our road but were getting dirt for roads on the ridge above and pushing it down the hill onto our road. So we rested for an hour or so, took some pictures, laughed a lot at and with others, and generally had a good time. Then it was “we’re off!” and off we went. Around a couple of corners, we reached the landslide of road material, very slowly being cleared by an excavator. We quickly had Mr Bee into the action, he works at the Lao gold mine I helped start back in 2012 so he knows how to get “manure” done. Barking instructions to the works supervisor, they gave up the excavator nonsense and got a loader in to clear the road.
The roads still weren’t great but fortunately it wasn’t a very long day. Arriving into the large town of Sam Neua, we were leaderless so missed a turn-off. But we had the motel details, so a You-ie fixed that problem and we were there. This hotel was classic Asian. Huge, room to hold a conference with 25,000 delegates, tiled throughout including the stairs which is just super-duper fun when it is wet, but empty. We wandered for ages and decided there was no bar or restaurant, only to discover that the bar/restaurant was around the back so a huge distance away. Mr Joy and Mr Bee had decided it was time to show us how serious Lao people are at BBQing, and had obtained a wild boar and other hooverable meats. Let’s just say that night won’t be quickly forgotten.
Sam Neua is nice but our main reason for being there was its proximity to Viang Xia, or Victory City. So Day 9 was dropping the laundry off at the hotel laundry facility then into the van and heading up there, it is only about 15km from the Vietnam border, and was the base for the Pathet Lao leaders. The area is in the karst limestone country common up in this neck of the woods, so caves provided protection from the odd CIA bomb-dropping exercise in the secret war during the Vietnam War – the problem with the UN putting rules of engagement onto the combatants to not go into Laos was that they were naturally ignored by everyone, and they all went into Laos. Ironically the big winner was actually a member of the royal family, Prince Souphanouvong, who like most Marxist-Leninist leaders came from the classes most hated by the communists and who became the first president of the Lao People’s Republic. Also ironically, we had powerful wind gusts while strolling through a pomelo orchard – these are like enormous grapefruit – it was a miracle no-one suffered a citrus-related head injury.
Into the caves with the audio headset giving the history, spoiler alert it wasn’t terribly exciting – the odd bombing experience, trouble getting stuff, and building stuff inside the caves. It must have been excruciatingly boring living there because they couldn’t go outside or leave. But it is very important in Lao history so as per communist protocols the struggle was hard but glorious and the victory of the people was sweet.
Back to Sam Neua, the usual evening excitement of finding dinner and getting ready for the next day was enhanced by picking up the laundry, some of which was only slightly wet, as it had been raining on and off all day. Back to the restaurant for dinner, and next thing we knew it was Day 10. There was a bit of worry about this day, it was 260-odd kilometres, which is a very bloody long way in Laos. Adding to the worry, we were heading to Phonsavan, which contains the nearly entire reason for the trip – the Plain of Jars. And we were only staying there for one night, so the plan was push hard to get there early. Naturally the plan didn’t survive first contact with the Lao roads – we were delayed again at the road works, and we were on very winding and average quality roads for most of it.
Heading into Phonsavan we reached a fork in the road, so took it. Turned out we’d taken the wrong fork, but this section allowed testing of bike top speeds. I reached 125kmh on the XR300, Cindy managed into the 90’s but wasn’t really trying too hard – that would come later when Bianca and Michelle on 150’s cracked the tonne. We stopped, put the hotel address into the googs maps, and rode through the Phonsavan ‘burbs to the hotel. Our group was leading this day, but we knew we were way behind and had taken a wrong road, so expected a big crowd in the hotel car park. No-one. Nada. Totally clear of motorcycles. Hmmm, they must be all out at the Plain of Jars. Let’s go there. Down the main street, which goes for a long way, we turned left and headed out past the airport. We bumped into Mr Bee – he had no idea where the Plain of Jars was, so he joined our brace to create a trio. Out near the Plain of Jars we realised we were going to be too late – it was 10 to 5 and the site closed at 5pm, so stopped and turned around. Then we saw Grant coming from the Plain of Jars direction, he was totally lost. Four is the invincible number, thinking the Fabulous 4, so we smashed through everything back to the hotel. Now lots of people were there, and we could re-set.
Off up the street to re-visit one of my work hangouts; Craters. This was where we used to hang out while working at a mining project near Phonsavan, and the ex-US military blokes who used to do UXO clearance for us also used to hang out there. If you want to hang out with people with interesting stories, UXO clearance people are winners or at very least on the podium. Their belief that the enormous ordinance out the front of Craters, unchanged 15 years later, hadn’t been properly defused just made it even more interesting. Due to the delays in getting to Phonsavan and us missing the Plain of Jars, there was a bit of Owen re-jigging of the schedule for Day 11. Our group would get up early, head to the Plain of Jars, and catch up with the other two groups during the day, or not, because we were last anyway. The challenge of Day 11 was it was once again a bloody long way, heading to Kong Lor in the skinny bit of Laos between Thailand and Vietnam. But the Plain of Jars cannot be missed, and we even picked up a spare Greg for the trip from another group as he’d missed out as well. Always wise to have a spare Greg.
The jars were always a bit of a mystery, but likely were made for cremation and burial purposes during the Iron Age from around 500BC to 500AD. There are loads of sites, but No.1 is the most visited because it is so close to Phonsavan, and unlike my first visit in 2011 it has been fully cleared of UXO. The large number of jars and the bomb craters on the plain make it an exceptional place to see, and as always there were hardly any people there.
Enough jars, we were soon back on the road and heading south-east. Road quality was excellent, and things were improving, at least until leader Greg missed a turn-off at Xiangkhoang and we had to take a “scenic” route through the mountains to get back to the main highway. The scenic route started out brilliantly, unsurprisingly due to the scenery, and the “no potholes” road. We stopped for a glutes break at a very pleasant spot, then immediately afterward it all went sideways. Firstly, the road became dirt, then it was obvious that roadworks were underway. Ruts, big rocks, excavators, trucks, very steep sections became standard. Questions about Greg’s navigation were starting to be raised by a gathering mob, but then we came across spare Greg’s group. So we must be on the right road. Spare Greg disappointingly changed teams, and we had to once again nurture our only remaining Greg.
It was only about 30km, but it wasn’t until nearly the very end that the road condition improved a bit, then we suddenly popped out on the main highway. Soon after we stopped for a well-deserved lunch, where we discovered that we and spare Greg’s group had gone the wrong way, but never mind no-one died and we had seen some excellent scenery. Lunched, we continued on at high speed down the good quality highway, which was positive as we still had about 250km to go.
The roads became even better as we got closer to the end, at one point MotoGP quality going down through the mountains. It was a very long day, and starting to get dark as we rolled into the SpringRiver Resort at Kong Lor. This resort had great rooms, and awful rooms, luckily we’d selected the great room option which had air conditioning. We felt very sorry for those in the non-air-conditioned rooms, of course not sorry enough to allow them anywhere near our rooms, but after waking on Day 12 from 8 hours gentle sleep and seeing sweat-dishevelled and exhausted people at breakfast we asked the staff if those people could dine somewhere else. A win win. Plan for the day was a cave. Rumour had started several caves ago that Owen had some sort of cave fixation. Grant suggested that Ms Scarlett Bündchen, a 20-year-old PE teacher at Owen’s school, with Victoria’s Secret hassling her relentlessly to join their display team, became trapped with him in a cave and after the candle guttered out, they were forced to huddle together for warmth. Owen’s counter was more convincing but very disappointing to the group – the whole of Laos is ridiculously over-stocked with limestone mountains – caves are everywhere and unavoidable. Anyway, off to the cave.
The Kong Lor cave is the cave. We’ve seen caves, but this one goes the entire 7km through a mountain range, all via a river that can be travelled via a boat. Some parts of it are just huge. So we lobbed up, got into a boat and sat on a wooden plank 1” above the floor level a.k.a a getting-a-bit-old-person torture seat. The water level was low, but I was proud that no portage was required through the low bits, maybe just a bit of dragging. We got out a few times to walk through some of the more impressive parts of the cave, then back in to boat, and eventually out the other end. Naturally there was a little tourist village with heaps of stalls and restaurants because people do the cave from both ends, so we could relax and enjoy a coconut before boating all the way back through.
Lucky 13, and our group were leading as we pushed back to close by Vientiane on the second last riding day. The roads were still very good over the top of the range, but when we hit the Mekong it started to get a bit warm. A pleasant break, then discussion about the Noodle Shop Nice lunch stop where we would get fuel. Off we went, cruising along, then Cindy and I at the back missed a set of lights in Paksan. The group behind us caught up, then off we went. One second they were there, the next not. Where had they gone? Discussion on the intercom, I was getting very low on fuel, maybe they’d been forced to stop. No worries, keep going. We got to around the Noodle Shop Nice, no sign of Greg, James or Grant. Bloody hell, where are they? Never mind, I’m on fumes, find a servo. Up to the bowser, give the 4 finger salute to the attendant for 4 litres each. That was misinterpreted by the attendant as 400,000 Kip worth of fuel. I got distracted, my tank was full, Cindy got none, and we’d blown all our cash. Righto, into Thabok, the next big town. New priority 1, find an ATM. There were two according to everyone we asked in town, which was everyone. Neither worked. Right, into several banks. Can’t use cards in the banks, but luckily Cindy had some AUD and changed those into Kip. As we came out of the bank we saw Greg, Grant, and James ride past, wild waving achieved nothing. Righto, I can find the accommodation, so we don’t need to catch them, and besides new priority 1 was fuel for Cindy. Don’t need lunch, we’ll do without. Off up the road, there’s a servo. As soon as I pulled in, I knew I’d accidentally found it, the Banh Mi Holy Grail servo. When working in Laos we’d always stopped at this place for a break and a Banh Mi, the greatest on the planet. Lunch now priority 1. What was in it? Absolutely no idea, besides the pork floss and a little bag of hot sauce. Didn’t care. Two please. OMG that is good. Don’t care that another group ride past while we are sitting there, these cannot be rushed.
After turning the day around through the agency of the Banh Mi, we were quickly up the road into Nampien Yorlapa, in a National Park. Park the bikes, get into a bus, then a long ride up to the hotel. Check in, a quiet drink or two at the pool, then a ride to the fantastic room with the bags. Dressed for swimming, back to the pool via the swing bridge route. Which took about half an hour and nearly resulted in casualties, thus we decided to never use the swing bridge route, especially after drinks. The pool had a water slide, so inevitably when a few in the 50 – 65 age range meet up and have drinks, someone decides it must be done. No.1 was Shane, and he didn’t die, so the slide became viable and in fact mandatory after 3 Beerlaos.
Day 14 was planned to be full of physical activity, including luge-ing. None of that occurred because it was bloody hot and we were bloody lazy, and all we achieved was to wash layers of Lao dirt off the gear and have a small nap. Then we decided to go down to where the bikes were and visit the local shop, thinking about snacks and stuff because the resort was a little bit expensive by Lao standards. $1.00 for a very large Beerlao at the shops but $1.75 at the bar does that to people. Into the bus, and down the hill. Where is the shop? The driver points vaguely over there. Wandering around we find nothing that resembles the type of shop we are looking for. “Shop?” we ask anyone who even looks vaguely Lao, including James, who was spectacularly unhelpful. Finally, someone (not James) leads us to the shop, and opens it. It is a souvenir shop without anything we wanted, but we’d better make an effort.
Day 15 was the big one. A short ride to Vientiane, except it wasn’t that short and we ended up on a very bad dirt road out in the ‘burbs along the Mekong. Once again, we were going full “Greg’s totally lost! We are going to die! A pack of Lao dogs will be fighting over my corpse!” and then we arrived for a very long lunch at moto-themed Mekong Garage Bar No.2. Chilled out but getting a bit sweaty, we pushed on to COPE, the Cooperative Orthotic and Prosthetic Enterprise, which our ride was raising money for. The COPE visitors centre shows examples of UXO, with cluster bomblets the most common cause of problems. About 300-odd cricket ball-sized bomblets were contained in a cluster bomb, and these were just a simple shell which opened at a set height from the ground. The bomblets have fins on them, and after spinning a few times would be armed. There were three types of bomblets – ones that would explode on impact, ones that were like true mines and exploded when disturbed, and ones that exploded at some random time. The ones that are like true mines are obviously the worst of the lot – farmers hitting one with a tool can cause bad injuries. The movie in the COPE theatre about the farmer who lost his sight to a UXO was tragic – there is no welfare in Laos so his wife had to do absolutely everything from working all day in the fields to preparing meals. We were very happy to have the opportunity to give something. Wild confusion then followed trying to finish the ride, we all headed out and then realised we had no idea how to get to Mr Fuark’s place for the bike return. Owen to the rescue, he sent us the googs map and we were soon finished.
That night we were out to dinner at Mekong Garage Bar No.1, which included a darts competition and a speech from the head of COPE to thank everyone for their contribution. And Beerlao, which you’d probably already assumed by now. The general feeling was good, but tired, so when the call for the bus was made everyone got on and went back to the hotel. Yes, some may have decided to kick on back in the city, but not us. We’d earned our riding stripes in Laos, with a(n) hilariously funny and capable group of people, and it was time to go home.
Thanks Owen, loved your work.
travellingbennetts 