Astonishingly when we woke up Mum had full blown flu. Considering we'd both been far too hot for the past 5 weeks this was seriously impressive. Sadly we had to leave as our spontaneous rest day had left us a bit behind schedule and we needed to move a bit. (Ps I was all in favour of spending another day lying in a hammock). We packed up and left for our adventurous day along the Mekong Discovery Trail. This involved hopping from island to island to start with, and then riding up a dirt track on the west side of the river. The island hopping was fun, we had to get boats inbetween them, and one of these boats was a human powered ferry. There was a rope between the two islands and a raft, and a man standing on the raft pulling on the rope until we got to the other side. I was seriously worried he was going to have a heart attack but then after we'd got off, a fully loaded motorbike with a trailer went across! Fairplay. We weren't sure if we were supposed to be helping?? It cost about 20p.
The trails on the islands were pretty bumpy but worth it as we went past tiny villages and fields full of water buffalo having a great time. These islands were not touristy and we couldn't find anywhere to buy food which meant we had to have some of our reserves for lunch - stale baguette with unsalted peanuts. As we were eating we were surrounded by 20 small boys who were obviously fascinated. They stood stock still in complete silence and watched.
Soon we ran out of islands and had to hit the west bank. This turned into a proper dirt road which was of a much better quality than the tracks we'd been on previously. We also saw lots of children cycling to school, which made me want to cry with happiness, having not seen any evidence of people going to school since Thailand. Mum was feeling worse and worse so we stopped at the only guesthouse for 50k, which turned out to be quite nice. For supper we had noodle soup which was a nice change from fried rice.
April 24th - Leuad Khuay to Champasak. The Pad Thai of my dreaaaaaaaaams
Mum was feeling a bit better in the morning and we thought we'd try and make it to Pakse, which is quite a big city about 100km away. Sadly the dirt road was against us as it was a bad one and really really hard work. Neither of us fancied another lunch of stale bread and unsalted peanuts so we decided to push on until Champasak, a touristy town. After 75km kilometres we were so close, but so far as it was getting seriously hot. Although the Mekong technically was next to the road, we had to settle for tantalising glimpses inbetween the bushes. This dirt track was lined with children (clearly schools are few and far between) who all shouted SAIBADEEEEEE after us. Honestly I felt like I was solo off the front of the tour de france with a 10 minute gap to the peloton. We stopped at a gorgeous restaurant on the banks of the Mekong and had pad thai, which came with separate piles of crushed peanuts, sugar and chillies. It was one of my top 5 meals of the trip so far. So delish. The restaurant encouraged us to wait out the heat of the day reclining in their hammocks and we obliged...
and then couldn't leave. We decided to stay in that town that night and go back to Thailand the next day. A tough decision but we were struggling with Laos and needed to make some miles up to Vientiane.
April 25th - Champasak to Kong Cham. An emotional reunion with 7-11
We woke up and had oats, peanut butter and condensed milk for breakfast. This is a breakfast I'm looking forward to never ever ever eating again, and we've probably had it for 90% of mornings in Asia. The problem is, the locals are all really into big meaty/ricey/relaxed breakfasts which don't work for us for a number of reasons (The main one is that even writing the sentence "eating rice and meat at 6 AM" makes me feel a bit sick. It would be like drinking water in the mornings). We usually have the oats/peanut butter/condensed milk at 5 ish and then stop at around 9 for some rice. France and its mid morning croissants feel like a distant dream... Our decision to leave Laos was reinforced by the fact that we couldn't get anything on this road. No food, no cold drinks... Occasionally we'd stop at somewhere that looked likely and the people running it would sort of vaguely look up from their hammocks, see that we were falangs and look down again. Often people would rather not sell anything than try and converse in English. This is very frustrating as we really do not expect people to speak English and there are lots of other ways of communicating what we want. I mean, I've got a B in drama GCSE let's not forget. We both find this attitude quite surprisingly because everyone is so poor, but nobody makes any effort to do any advertising or upsell, or check if people even want to buy things. This is in such contrast to Africa where people would literally sell anything. Including washing machines to bicycle tourists. Eventually we got to the Thai border and crossed back over. We were told that this was the last border crossing into Thailand we could make in 2017, in a very final and serious way. The official kept underling 2017 so we would definitely be sure. We met european men doing visa runs so they could stay with their thai girlfriends, including one french speaking man who couldn't speak english! I even got to translate between him and his girlfriend (although she didn't speak English making me feel like 9 weeks in a french hospital next year won't be a complete disaster). After we crossed the border we made a special diversion to see the "two coloured river" which was a massive anticlimax. The meeting of the two rivers was nice, but there was definitely only one colour. The road was very nice though.
We soon found a nice guesthouse that absolutely ripped us off but again we failed to haggle. Why is this?? I'm not one to pull any punches but I am incapable of haggling. Anyway we did get some more water. Supper was... fried rice! We had stocked up at Tesco Lotus though and had nice cakes for pudding.
April 26th - 1st of May - Up the Mekong to Vientiane. We meet a communist rebel and cross over the Friendship Bridge.
I'm aware these posts are getting longer and longer and more rambley. Once we were back in Thailand we gave us ourselves a week to get Vientiane and it wasn't a particularly eventful week. We woke up very early, cycled until we got too hot, had a break, cycled again until we found a cheap hotel, stopped and went to sleep. Here are some notable occasions during this time.
We stopped at one very tiny guest house and found an English speaking young Thai man there. He was able to translate and invited us to share his evening meal as we didn't have any food. We sat down to eat some weird cold omlettey thing, and talked to Cap. He was absolutely fascinating. At university he'd joined a communist rebel group against the king/military government, been found out and had to go into hiding in the Laos woods for 4 years. Our impression that everybody loves the king is incredibly perpetuated by the milarity government. Mum and I had both been shocked at the number of people mourning the king in the Grand Palace, but it turns out the government pays for people to do these trips, and provides the transport. The old king killed his wife's old boyf, and his own brother so he could be king. As for the new king, he sounds absolutely appalling. Apaz he's got 20 wives spread throughout Germany and flies inbetween them and Thailand by private jet. The underground network of rebels refer to him as Justin Bieber because if you're found dissing the king than you're arrested and cut. Literally cut. Cap took us back to his house to tell us all of this because he's scared - one of his friends was found sending links about the king to other people and is now in prison. Cap lives in Japan, he was on holiday in Thailand. The government is not at all democratic, and there's no way for the people to oppose. I cannot imagine living in a country without free speech - and I had no idea that Thailand was like this. It was very interesting talking to Cap and we really appreciated him taking a risk for us.
We cycled along this incredible cycle path suspended over the mekong - the locals were all really proud of it and rightly so.
We took a diversion to this waterfall, and there was literally no water.
One night we stayed in a really wide place of the Mekong that had a beach where we could swim. The swimming oppportunities had been few and far between because of all the damns making the water deep and fast flowing. The water in this beach was very fast flowing but very shallow. There were lots of anchored rafts which you can hire for a day with a case of cold beer and sit in the middle and get smashed.
The food during this leg was very disappointing. In South Thailand we had loads of really high quality cheap choice, and in north thailand we had to mainly eat fried rice.
Soon we were at the friendship bridge, ready to pay our bribe and go back to Laos. Before we bridge we stopped for an ice cream and a Thai man came to talk to us. He told us we were crazy to cycle to Luang Prabang because "even men cyclists find it difficult". Mum and I obviously both bristled at this, and left 20% scared, and 80% determined to prove him wrong. Cap had told us that Laos and Thailand were not really friends, despite all of the "Friendship bridges". I imagine it's like if the Severn bridge was renamed the "Wales-England Friendship Bridge".
Anyway we got over the bridge and into Laos, and were soon in its Capital, Vientiane. When we got there we went out for the pizza we'd been craving for a very very very long time. It really didn't disappoint. Absolutely delicious. After this we met up with Toby and Laura (the british landrover couple) who we were amazed we'd manage to cycle at the same speed! We went to sleep, all ready to wake up in the morning and apply for Chinese visas.
Next time, lost passports and mountains to climb.
No comments:
Post a Comment