HELLO FROM VIENTIANE, LAOS!!! Well, I can officially (or maybe unofficially) say that I have successfully completed The Loop around southern Laos (see previous blog entry below), and it was everything I'd hoped for, nothing I could've prepared for, and something I'll never forget. Ok, let's start at the very beginning (a very good place to start!)
After waking up at 5am to grab a tuk-tuk to the bus station in Vientiene, I was pretty much thrown onto the overcrowded local bus heading south that stops in Thakek. By overcrowded, I mean there were people sitting on plastic chairs in the aisle, and any
child younger than 12 had to sit on huge bags of something piled in the back of the bus. Fortunately, I had a little Lao boy next to me the whole way (never ONCE complaining about being uncomfortable!!!) who was very entertained by my iPod and digicam photos. After arriving in Thakek at noon, I caught a tuk-tuk to the Thakek Travel Lodge where adventurers begin The Loop.
---Let me take a break from the story for one minute, and acknowledge that I would never have done The Loop if it weren't for my friend Brad McCammack (aka my former American travel budy through Vietnam, part 1). Brad: After finishing the Loop, I have mucho respect for you, since you were able to do it all on your own. Kudos to you, and thanks again for encouraging me to do this!!----
Ok, so as luck would have it, just as I was checking into the Thakek Travel Lodge, a British traveler named Matt Dallow was doing the exact same thing. After a brief exchange, we decided to embark on The Loop together. I originally thought that I was going on this adventure solo, but as a backpacker, one must always go with the flow, and Matt seemed like an easy going person to be around. In retrospect, I couldn't have done it without him. That evening, Matt and I enjoyed lots of good chat & food before leaving the next morning. Earlier in the evening, an Australian couple had just returned from the loop and gave us a full report on the road conditions, so we had some pretty good recon for what laid ahead.
Basically, the loop works like this: on Day 1, you drive east from Thakek along an evolving highway (ie, the road isn't quite finished) that passes a few caves and mountains along the way. You are encouraged to stop and explore some of these caves and rivers before arriving at Mahaxay, a tiny village/town where you can have dinner and then spend the night. On day 2, you are supposed to go north along this horrible highway (70 kilometers of rocky and barely passable roads) ending in Lak Xao. On Day 3, you drive your bike west to the Kong Lor cave, spend the night, and then on Day 4, you head further west and then south back to Thakek, thus creating The Loop. Matt and I basically decided to cut out Day 2 since rainy season is now upon us and that only means that the '70 km of doom' would change from worse to worst.
In order to navigate this multi-day feat, Mr. Koo at the Thakek Travel Lodge has conveniently created a hand-drawn, not-to-scale, and incorrect map of The Loop (would one expect anything less?). Fortunately, Matt had a proper road map of Laos, detailing exact highway routes and road conditions. (This was the first of many saving graces Matt brought to this adventure).
SO - Day 1, Matt and I set off east on Route 12, and since Matt isn't gung-ho on seeing caves, we tried to find Tha Falang, a swimming river just off the highway. It took us about an hour to find the right turn off to Tha Falang; basically we drove too far east, stopped and asked for directions, then we turned around and drove too far west, stopped and asked for directions, repeated the first step, and then repeated the second step, until we narrowed down the possibilities of entry points to just one. Phew. Going down the dirt road to Tha Falang was pretty tough; it was my first exposure to real, gritty, muddy dirt bike riding. My bike skidded a bit, and I almost fell off the thing a couple of times, but luckily I kept my balance, made it through the mud, and reached the river. It's a shame the river wasn't much of anything except a cool respite from a hectic and sweaty ride. On the way back to the highway, I had gained confidence in riding through the mud, and I followed Matt, who was proving to be the more advanced biker out of the two of us, so we made it out no problem.
The rest of the morning was spent driving all the way out to Mahaxy for lunch, admiring the limestone cliffs that lined the highway. We weren't too sure we had reached Mahaxay when we actually did, since the town is a conglomerate of wooden shacks and motorbikes strewn about. BUT - we had a delicious (and rather huge) fried rice lunch in a village restaurant. After lunch, we decided that we'd rather go back to Thakek and spend the night there than risk going northward on the '70 km of doom.' BRAD - I will never know what that road is actually like, but similarly, as you will soon read, you will never know what it was like to experience what we went through on Day 3. :-)
The night back at the Thakek Travel Lodge was great, especially since I was caked in dirt head to toe from the dusty highway ride back. A good shower and a great night's sleep set us on our way for Day 2 - heading north from Thakek (taking the western portion of The Loop in reverse), then turning east at the top of the Loop toward Kung Lor cave. I must say that the 50 km stretch after turning east at the top of the loop was the best motorbike driving I've done yet. Traveling through the mountains, you wind up and down through the rocks and trees, and there are some lookout points offering great views of the surrounding national park. I became quite adept at the whole gear-shifting thing after that stretch. (2nd gear rocks for those steep hills!) Finally, we reached the turnoff to Kung Lor Cave. Kudos to Brad (again) for informing me about the paved road here. After about 35 km of driving on paved road, then dirt road, we reached a river. As this wasn't on either the hand-drawn map or the legit map, we were a bit confused. We still hadn't reached the guest house, so we knew that the road should still keep going. A construction crew was at the beginning stages of building a bridge across the river, and there was no bypass road to get around. Apparently the rain from the previous night had changed the river from a passable stream to its current impassable state. SO, Matt and I left the bikes on the riverbank, crossed the river by foot (the water only went up to our knees) walked the 2km down the dirt road that cuts through a huge plain of rice paddies, and finally made it to our guest house: Sala Hin Boun, $16 per night, and pretty pricey food & drink. But hey, being the only game in town, there wasn't much room for negotiation.
After a fairly decent dinner, we headed to bed after a long and tedious day. Sometime during the night, the rain started again...and it rained....hard....all night. We were scheduled to depart for the Kong Lor Cave at 7am, so at 6:30am, the rain was just starting to dwindle. By 8am, the rain had stopped and we decided to risk venturing down the river to the cave. So, we boarded a wooden longboat (very simple wooden canoe-like boat with a motor attached to it) and headed down the river for about an hour until we got to the cave. The greatest part about that boat ride was that we passed a bunch of villages with all of the women villagers standing in the river performing their daily "fishing" duties. They use a huge square-shaped net, and each of the four corners of the net is held up by bamboo poles, converving into one pole which the women hold. They basically lower the net to the bottom of the lake, and then raise it up quickly in order to catch whatever fish happens to be swimming over the net at that time. It seemed like such a primitive way to collect fish; more often than not, each time they raised their fishing nets, they were empty. Noticeably absent were the men from each of these villages. It is universal that throughout my travels around each of the 4 Southeast Asian countries, the women are the ones who perform all of the backbreaking work: farming, fishing, cooking, cleaning, while the men are nowhere in sight - most likely asleep in their houses. While this phenomenon is extremely shocking and unjustifiable (yet deeply ingrained and most likely impossible to change), the women and children along the river had only the biggest smiles and warm greetings for us as we passed by. Their life exists only as they know it, not how a Westerner may perceive it.
So after an hour-long boat ride, we arrived at a nearby village where we had to change boats and boat crew to head to the cave. This took about an hour, because our first driver had to wake up our new driver to get the boat ready for us (see previous paragraph). Finally we were on our way. All in all, the Kong Lor Cave experience is a fairly tourist-ready attraction; it's just that in Laos, everything takes a little bit longer. :-) The mouth of the cave sits at the bottom of a huge rocky cliff; the rapids were too rough to drive directly into the cave, so we had to get out of our boat, walk around the rapids, and then get into another boat waiting for us inside. Finally we were on our way. Kong Lor Cave was unlike anything I had ever seen before. It's absolutely massive; our boat followed the river into the darkest depths and into huge caverns. Fortunately our 2 boat crew members had flashlights to guide the way. It kinda felt like a Disneyland ride, but a lot creepier. I have to admit, I was a bit scared the entire time we were in the cave...it was completely dark, and the flashlights were racing back and forth as if they were searching for a looming predator around each turn. We stopped and checked out some pretty amazing stalagtites and stalagmites: gigantic structures, and hollow inside which made for some interesting bongo-playing sessions inside the cave. After that, we got back on the boat, headed back out, ate our packed lunches, and then back to the guest house.
OK - here's where the story gets good: the ride home. Once we got back to our guest house, Matt and I decided to journey back to Thakek so we could catch a night bus back to Vientiene, thus saving a night at the guesthouse. SO, after leaving the guesthouse, about 50 meters away was a brand-new river, formed from last night's rainstorm. Completely impassable, we had to walk back to the guest house for them to show us the way around. Ok, river #1: done. We had to walk through a huge rice paddy in order to make it back to the road, and we finally made it back to the original river over which our bikes were happily waiting for us. The bridge construction crew floated us over the river (which was now completely impassable by foot as the water had risen by a few feet) on their longboat, and we were finally back on our bikes, ready to hit the road. River #2: done. After about 5 minutes of carefree dirtroad driving, our smiles quickly faded as we came to an unexpected break in the road in the form of another river. The rainstorm from the previous night had completely eroded through this bypass road (there was a new concrete bridge also going in here, albeit slowly). There was absolutely no way over this schism; the riverbanks were too steep to drive down & up, and we had no idea of any other detour. When we did drive up to the riverbank, a group of about 10 Lao people were in the process of hauling their tractor down and up the riverbank. When they saw us looking blankly into the river, one of them shouted "Ok, now we move your motorbikes over." I was completely shocked. They lowered a wooden plank across the water and, one at a time, they literally guided our motorbikes down the steep riverbank, through the river across the plank, and then lifted it up the steep riverbank, safely seated on the other side.
My love for Lao people was only further solidified here. I had heard how nice Lao people are, but being in the tourist centers of Luang Prabang, Vang Vieng, and Vientiene, it was hard to discern genuine kindness for ulterior financial motives. This was a prime example of kind hearted generosity, bravery, and 'doing the right thing for another.' I was completely shocked; in fact, I still find it hard to believe that we got our bikes over that river. I have no idea what we would have done if it wasn't for them. Matt and I helped them move their tractors over the river after they finished with our bikes, but I'm sure they expected absolutely no form of compensation. It was the purest form of kindness, community, and humanity I had experienced. So simple: helping another out. River #3: done.
Finally we could get back on the dirt road (which was a bit more slippery than our initial venture in), and made it back to the main highway to head west and then south back to Thakek. The ride back through the mountains was probably the best live video game experience I'd ever had: quick turns, changing gears, avoiding oncoming cars, revving the engine. It was like Cruisin' USA, Ridge Racer, F-Zero, and RC Pro AM all rolled into 1. Fantastic. I'm a pretty damn good motorbike driver now. :-) I'm sure my mom is thrilled to read this. After a lunch break, we realized that we probably won't make it back to Thakek before dark, and so we cruised south down the highway as the sun was setting and turning into night. For about 30 minutes, we were driving in pitch black when Matt's bike slowed to a halt. Matt: "Big problem, I'm out of petrol" (gas) We were on a dark road with no form of civilization in sight...what do we do? This is where Matt proved himself yet again as my saving grace on The Loop. For about 5 km, he rode my bike and pushed his bike (with me on it), which was set in neutral. As if we didn't have enough challenges today, this was one last test of our will to finish The Loop. Fortunately, Matt got pretty good at steadying his foot on the back of the other bike, and I was pretty skilled at keeping it on the straight and narrow. Finally we reached a home that sold gas and we were back on our way toward Thakek. Victory!!! At the Thakek Travel Lodge, we showed them my pictures of the motorbike/river crossing fiasco, and they were pretty shocked to see what we had to do. I hope that future Loopers know in advance NOT to drive down to Kong Lor Cave. We made it home, showered, and then headed to the bus station to get back to Vientiene. Sadly, the VIP (aka non-local bus for westerners) was full, and so we had to endure a very crowded, hot, karaoke music-filled uncomfortable bus ride for 6 hours. Once we got to Vientiene, we headed straight for a guest house and slept for the next 5 hours. That day, Matt and I visited the main stupa in town (Buddhist holy sight), which is actually on the cover of the Laos Lonely Planet guide, in case anyone passes a bookstore. We enjoyed our last night in Laos together with a great dinner and my last night of Beer Lao before calling it a night.
Meeting Matt Dallow - I must say, for having the preconceived notion that I was going to do The Loop on my own, it couldn't have worked out any differently. Matt and I became fast friends; I guess that's what happens when you do something together like The Loop. Great guy - we bonded over our love for Nintendo video games, British music, and, well, all other things British! :-) Safe travels Matt! Enjoy China!!! Stay in touch.
And that brings me to now - (I started this blog entry in Vientiene, but I'm now sitting in an internet cafe near the Koh Sahn Road in Bangkok) I left Vientiene yesterday, had a great flight to Bangkok, met up with my British friends Leona and Tom from Vang Vieng (see the previous blog entry), and now it's the morning of June 16th, and my last full day in Southeast Asia.
Thank you all for reading this entire blog entry!!!!
The Loop was amazing; getting through it when I thought we couldn't proved yet again that being a traveler is the most rewarding experience. I'll save my closing SE Asia remarks for the next blog entry. Until then, I miss you all, and please be in touch!!!
Lots of love always!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(This is Zack and me after in the middle of a rainstorm in Luang Prabang!!)
HELLO FROM JODHPUR, India!!!!! So much has happened since I last wrote. Unfortunately, I don't have enough time to write all about the amazing things that have happened lately. (It took me a while to find an internet cafe tonight, and they're closing in a few minutes). So, here's the quick update:
