Leaving Laos and Hanoi

After our motorbike tour we went to the local bus station with the aim of booking a coach to Hanoi in North Vietnam. We had read that there were daily coaches from the town and they took a full 8 hours less than the 24 hour bus from the capital of Laos. Unfortunately the lonely planet had lied to us and the bus was only twice weekly. Instead we would have to take the 6 hour bus back to Vientiane and then get the 24 hour bus from there! This sounded pretty bad to start with but when the bus broke down 2 hours into the journey it became much worse. We ended up sitting in the midday sun for about 4 hours waiting for another bus to pass by. When this eventually happened it was of course full so we spent the next 4 hours sitting on plastic stools in the aisle! 

The bus to Hanoi wasn’t too bad really; except that we were lied to about it having beds, it drove back over the same route we had spent the previous bus ride doing and it arrived at the border in the middle of the night meaning we had to spend 6 hours just waiting for the border to open.

4 men on a motorbike

We didn’t really do too much in Hanoi apart from drink and wander around. On one particular night I drank far too much and ended up getting lost. The point at which I regained my memory was as I was pushed/fell down some stairs by some annoyed Vietnamese guys in some sort of fancy uniform. That earned me a nice cut on the knee that ended up lasting over a month (yer that’s how far behind the blog is). A few days after that we went out to Ha Long bay for Christmas but there isn’t much to say about that as we were drunk pretty much constantly the entire time we were there!

The other interesting point from Hanoi is that I spent all the money in the next picture on Pete’s Christmas present and he did the same for me…

Laos Part 3: The Tha Khaek Loop (Part 2)

After having lunch and cleaning off as much of the dust as possible we set off in the wrong direction for the cave in search of a hot spring marked on the map that looked about 5km up the road. It turned out to be more like 25 and when we arrived (after plenty of encouragement from locals giving us directions) we were met with laughs and told “no, no hot spring”, this despite us seeing signs for it!
 

After wasting a lot of time on this trip out of the way we set off at a fast pace in the right direction. The roads here were much better, no wind, no gravel, no sand and there were some really good views over the valley we would be riding into for the end of the day. Things were going really smoothly until on a straight section of road a chicken made a kamikaze leap from the side of the road and stuck it’s neck right under Pete’s wheels! I narrowly missed its body and we stopped a short way down the road. Pete and the other guy we were riding with went back to asses the bird whilst I waited with the bikes. It turned out the stupid chicken wasn’t dead and was instead still flapping about; apparently Eamon was about to hit it with a brick when the owner came over from her house. 

Instead of being annoyed and asking for compensation she just laughed and kicked the bird a bit before picking it up and walking off! After this the rest of the day wasn’t too dramatic though the scenery we passed through was. We ended up in the small village of Kong Lor which lends its name to the cave we had travelled so far to visit.

The next morning we were up early to visit the caves so that we would have time to make the 200km trip back to Tha Khaek to return our bikes. At the mouth of the cave we got on a narrow local wooden fishing boat and were motored through the cave. The whole cave is 7.5km long and contains a river which winds its way under a mountain. The height of the ceiling changed dramatically along the way from being low enough to touch to chambers up to 100m high. At certain sections we had to get off the boat and walk across strange beaches whilst the boat was carried up shallow rapid sections. After about 45 minutes we finally saw the daylight at the other side and emerged into a jungle area to an isolated village. After a short break here we returned through the cave (though this time we could ride out some of the rapids downstream) to collect our bikes.

 

The ride back was mostly uneventful apart from the gear situation on my bike getting worse and worse becoming almost impossible to shift down without stopping first. About halfway back Pete’s poor luck on the bikes struck again and a horrible black, orange and yellow bee landed on his leg and proceeded to sting him. On the way the route took us over the top of a steep mountain pass with a view point at the top that took our breath away.

We made it back to town with time to spare and so dropped our stuff off at the hotel (next door to where we had rented the bikes) and were about to go to the bus station to organise our coach to Vietnam. As I tried to start my bike it kept failing as it had been doing on and off for most of the trip. Just as I was getting ready to bump it the owner came over to give it go for me. Instantly he noticed the broken gear shifter and pointed it out to me. With my best acting I said “wow wasn’t it lucky I made it back before that happened”, either he bought my story or thought I was a massive idiot who had been riding it like that for the last 3 days without knowing! Anyway his response couldn’t have been better, he just pointed at another (less broken) bike and said I could take that one.

Laos Part 2: The Tha Khaek Loop (Part 1)

Back from the Christmas interruption to the actual timeline, even if I am still nearly 3 weeks behind. So we were in Laos and had 5 days to kill before our visa for Vietnam started (it was actually 6 days but we managed to waste one of those away through laziness). This isn't enough time to get to Southern Laos as it is a 24 hour bus ride down there and we had to be in Northern Vietnam for Christmas. Not really knowing what to do with ourselves we decided to just go to the bus station and see what was leaving that day. 

The first bus out of the station was heading to a place called Tha Khaek so we bought tickets and boarded for the 6 hour drive. Luckily we were one of the first people on the bus and so managed to get extra legroom seats for the journey. On the way we read up on what there was to do in the town, it seemed that the best local attraction was a cave a few hundred kilometers away called Kong Lor. The best way to get there was to rent motorbikes and take a 500km round trip over 3 or 4 days. Due to the timing of our visa and the local buses to Vietnam we decided to sort our bikes and leave the following day on a 3 day trip. The bikes were 100cc "Honda" Waves, an extremely popular bike in this part of the world. It also seems a very popular bike to make crappy copies of and then brand as Honda's. After a 2 minute tutorial on how to use geared bikes we were sent off onto the loop with nothing but 2 dodgy little helmets and a hand drawn map. And I mean nothing; the bikes weren't in a happy condition, no speedo, no milometer, no fuel gauge,  no electronic ignition and barely working lights. However the engines seemed to be alright so we went for it.

The first day wasn't all that interesting, we visited a few small caves but most of the day was spent battling ridiculous cross winds to make it to a town with a guesthouse for the night. With a few hours to sunset we thought we were making good time until the road turned into a dirt track. For the next 2 hours we battled through gravel, sand and dust feeling more like we should be on dirt bikes than a couple of scooters! 

We made it to the tiny village where the guesthouse was and managed to find it just as darkness fell, something that happens quite fast around here. That night the temperature fell sharply and as we were sitting in our stilt house commenting on how we could see chickens underneath us through the floor loud music suddenly started blasting outside. We went to investigate and it turned out that there was going to be a Muay Thai (or Muay Lao?) competition that night. The fights were pretty cool even though they were mostly between children aged about 12 to 16 who were guarded by men with big guns!

 

  

After a fairly cold nights sleep we set off early the next morning. We had been told the next 65km would take us around 4 or 5 hours to complete and there would be another 140km to do after that if we wanted to make the loop in 3 days. It was soon apparent why it would take so long to do the first 65km. The "road" had now narrowed to one cars width and had potholes you could mistake for quarries. 

We took a lot less than 4 hours in the end but the speed we moved over the terrain took its toll on the bikes. Both me and Pete regularly had to bump start the bikes and mine now required a real kick to shift down gears. In addition at one point I though it would be funny to top gear style crash into the back of Pete's bike, unfortunately his mud guard hung a little lower than I expected and half of it broke off... it was still funny. By the time we returned to tarmac roads we were all covered head to foot in dust.

I've run out of time to write any more so I will continue with part 2 at some other time...