With an unusual rattling sound, followed by a ‘tink, tink, tink’ and a loud “SNAP!â€, I knew I was in trouble. It was coming from the rear wheel and I hoped that it wasn’t anything major. The roads were some of the most gruelling I’d experienced on the expedition to date, and both myself and the gear had taken a battering over the last five days.
On a tip off from a good friend, I crossed the border from Thailand into Laos with a plan to cycle to Luang Prabang. China, Thailand, Vietnam and Korea were investing heavily in Laos and the rate of change for such an undeveloped country is phenomenal. In just a few years, new roads and bridges were being planned and built, the country was opening up to trade, tourism was thriving. If I waited until the journey home (another six years), it would be a completely transformed place. The only way to get to Luang Prabang by road was to head into and over the northern highlands. As with all great adventures, it’s not about the destination.
Crossing the border into Laos was a fantastic experience. Narrow wooden longboats ferry people across the famous Mekong River.  I pushed the bike up the sandy banks to the Laos immigration office finding a swelling crowd of tourists with confused looks.  I could make out two small ramshackle buildings with two tiny windows somewhere in the mob. With little order, bags everywhere, travellers not knowing if they were coming or going, it reminded me of how it must have been to travel many years ago, before international borders became streamlined and efficient. In Laos, crossing borders still requires a lot of patience. I filled in a number of forms, handed over a passport photo, talked to a few officials in military like uniforms, paid the $30 US and an hour later, ‘Voila!’, a month in Laos.
From the border at Houay Xay. it was a little over 150 kilometres to another crossing of the Mekong at Pak Beng, then another 230 kilometres to Luang Prabang. I’d been told by a Thai cyclists that about four years ago a tourist was hung in the area I intended to ride. I pondered on the plausibility of the story, then wondered what he did to deserve such an end. This was followed shortly by an exclamation, “Well … lets hope that I don’t share the same fate!â€Â I was also informed that there wasn’t much food outside the major towns so decided to stock up on two minute noodles, sticky rice and sugary treats for the push over the highlands.
I stayed in a Buddhist temple the night before and, with an early start, headed south along the Mekong River adjusting to riding on the other side of the road. The Mekong wasn’t nearly as mighty as I’d imagined and it appeared to be suffocated. The water was low, huge sand banks exposed and very few boats were navigating this once prosperous ancient trade route. I heard there was a lack of water due to China building a dam upstream. I wondered what this meant for the millions of people downstream who relied on the life giving waters of the Mekong for their very survival. Despite this, people still trafficked the Mekong, fisherman still cast their nets and families washed and played by the side of the river.
The roads were gravelly, sandy and bumpy which made the progress slow. Dry rice fields terraced the valley floor. Farmers used rice ploughs as engines for makeshift tractors. From the Mekong valley floor the route followed the Nam Ta River into a steep sided valley where the surrounding hills almost enveloped the river itself.  The Nam Ta flowed like a mighty river and it soon became obvious how serious the deteriorating health of the Mekong had become. It also became apparent that I was in for some gruelling riding as the climbs began to get steep.
The initial climb started like any other. As one tributary lead to a smaller one, the climb continued up and up. Out of the valley and far from the small streams, the road followed ridge after ridge up and down with 20% climbs (well beyond the limit of riding) up steep rocky slopes. The surrounding hills were naked, stripped of vegetation so all that remained were bare earth, grasses, shrubs and a few immature trees. The distant hills appeared to go on forever. I struggled to get traction in the loose gravel unable to come off my seat. My hamstrings burned as I just kept spinning in the granny gear. The trail reminded me of the abandoned fire trails in the mountains outside of Newcastle, but I was far from home and these hills were much steeper. The view was spectacular and, with the summer haze, the hills appeared a light shady blue in the afternoon light. Day one and I managed to find a camp on a small earthen patch on a ridge just big enough for the tent footprint, while chasing my sleeping bag downhill as it tried to run away.
The seemingly endless climbing went on for two days along the ridge lines. The Khamu villages themselves were often precariously positioned on the only flat piece of ridge for kilometres around. I saw the bamboo outline of a grave on the outskirts of a village staked with a pig’s head. I hoped this wasn’t the foreigner I’d heard about a few days earlier. The only source of water I could find was in the few small isolated mountain villages. It was always questionable to drink, but I figured if it was alright for them it was alright for me.
The huts were simple dwellings, one room, often on stilts made out of bamboo. The kitchen was on an earthen floor either outside or under a black sooty bamboo awning. Pigs, chickens, goats and the odd cow roamed the village like it was their personal playground. In my clumsiness, I nearly stepped on a baby chicken that ran about under my bike while getting water to drink. I saw one girl who couldn’t have been more than 10 years old, hauling what looked to be her weight in water up the hill. Small children ran around naked, the others in gritty clothes, noses running or bleeding, but there were always smiles on their faces. Like birds warning each other of approaching danger, the kids called out “FARANG, FARANG!†(foreigner) and that swept through the village like wildfire. As more kids came out they lined the road just to look and stare, then smile. If I stopped, it only took minutes for a crowd to form around the bike. If I learnt nothing else on this journey, then it would be to smile, to smile at myself, my situation, with others in joy and learn to say “yes” to it all.
By the end of the second day, I arrived in the small town of Pak Beng, absolutely exhausted.  The descent into the town on the Mekong was one of the steepest yet. I sat on the rear panniers to keep my weight back through the numerous twists, turns and switchbacks. The rear wheel skidded in the loose gravel, the bike shook and the brakes squealed. As they began to become increasingly overworked, I stopped to see the waves of heat coming from the steel rotor in the shadows.
From Pak Beng I crossed the Mekong once more on the way to Luang Prabang. Two longtail boats had been bolted together with wooden planks to ferry people and scooters across. Another articulated barge and punt took cars and trucks for what must have been a small fortune for locals. The dock was gravel on the back of the river and as I negotiated a price of 20,000 kip (it started at 50,000 kip), they used another plank to wheel the bike on board and in the space of three minutes I was on the other side. There was barely enough room to stand in the longtail boat, but it seemed to work well. It was getting dark and I found camp away from the ferries on a sandy bank by the river.  With nowhere to lock the bike and, being slightly paranoid, I pegged down the cable running to the bike using tent pegs and fastened it to the tent. If my bike was to get stolen in the middle of the night, I at least wanted to make it as difficult as possible. With a full stomach of noodle soup laden with sugar, I fell asleep to the sound of a nearby stream.
I packed up the tent, wet from the cold valley air and heavy condensation during the night. Another climb awaited that morning past the bulldozers, graders, dump trucks and piles of earth. Being one of the main roads that linked China and Thailand, it was being upgraded. Partly tarred, it felt smooth and free, but this feeling soon vanished after three hours of climbing in the morning sun.  Cut into the mountain itself, there were no trees beside this road to provide shade. It was still a grinding and winding climb.  As I began to reach what I thought was the peak and looked back over the valley, the road appeared as one snake-like scar on the landscape.
I continued to cycle from valley to valley, content that I was a little closer to the destination.  From the town of Muang Ngeun the road became gravel once again.  I’d run into an American briefly in Pak Beng who had attempted to cycle over the mountains from Luang Prabang, but gave up when it got became too rough and too steep, describing powder-like road conditions. It sparked my curiosity more than anything. It was tough, there was no doubt about it, but I was more determined than most.  He advised that it was a three day ride over the mountains to Luang Prabang and that there was little water or food. By the end of day three I reached the Honsa Valley and a place where I could resupply. I stayed at a Buddhist temple once again, repairing a slow leak in the front tyre, adjusting the brakes, repacking some gear and cleaning the dust from the chain and sprockets.
I picked out an Australian at a roadside restaurant while eating the largest and most filling bowl of rice soup I’ve ever laid eyes on.  His face looked old, sunworn and blemished, the kind of face I regularly saw drinking beer with my father at the local bowling club.  His name was Rob and he’d been working clearing unexploded ordinance (UXO’s) in Laos for the last 13 years. With an army engineering background, he retired and came to Laos to work and decided to stay. Divorced, he had three kids in Australia, a caravan on the Northern NSW coast and now lived in Southern Laos.  I also met Rob’s third Lao wife who acted as his translator.  Rob was clearing UXO’s in the area so the government could build a new coal fired power station in the small remote valley. As we talked, I learned of Rob’s past, the charity work he’d done training hundreds of Laos people to clear UXO’s over the years, how he’d been in the Vietnam War, how he once used helicopters to plant explosives on the spires of limestone peaks to build electricity towers and how, for some ‘play money’,  just about any type of explosive can be obtained in Laos from the local military commander. Rob was an interesting guy. He reminded me of home.
The monks offered breakfast the next morning from the leftover alms. I took my fill of sticky rice and vegetables and set off with four days of food and a full load of water. It didn’t take long to find out about the lunar-like conditions my American friend was talking about. Fine dust an inch think covered the road making it impossible to see what terrain was beneath. A cloud of dust puffed up on every step, accentuating the features of the rock into which the road was cut, like some kind of tropical snow. I averaged about 4km an hour pushing the bike up the steep parts of the trail. The sweat stung my eyes and dried on my shirt in a wave of tie-dye like patterns.
As I became more and more fatigued, I started to make mistakes. My feet were taken from under me, the bike fell on top and my knees hit the ground hard. Fortunately the dry air and dust caused the bleeding to stop quickly. The soft dust covered my sweaty limbs sticking like glue. The downhills were just as bad causing me  to bail a number of times, jumping off just before the bike toppled and skidded down the mountain. I had to be careful and even the downhills were painfully slow. There were no safety barriers on these roads and the edges were loose. If I came off it was a steep 400 metre almost vertical descent down the other side. Being alone and with only one or two 4WD’s I saw drive the track each day, if I went over and was knocked unconscious, I doubt if  anyone would have found me.
… The story continues on the next blog post. Stay tuned.
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