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...
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...
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