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Published: February 5th 2009
Superbowl or 4 day dirtbike trek....Superbowl or 4 day dirtbike trek? This was the difficult decision i was faced with this past week. But the fact that Superbowl started at 6:30 am here and there is a severe lack of interest in "American football" and therefore not a lot of places that would even be airing it here meant that we were soon on the road on a Honda FTX 223 cc dirtbike heading South from Lao's capital city of Vientienne. Riding a motorbike is not uncommon here and it is very easy to find numerous places that will rent you a scooter for dirt cheap. Finding a proper dirtbike with an engine bigger than something you might have on a lawnmower back home is not all that common so once i saw a place that actually rented them (despite being at a price almost 4 times as much for what you can rent a scooter for), we pretty much knew what we'd be doing for the following couple of days. The trip route that we took for anyone interested enough to check a map was starrting out from Vientienne, heading east and south to Nahin (aka Khon Kham), then eastward
Blue stalagtites
reminded me of something out of the movie "Aliens"on to Lak Sao, south from there around back to Tha Khek and then back to Vientienne. This is a fairly popular route for travellers as the Lonely Planet guide books published this particular route and simply called it "the loop". The two biggest attractions to doing this route are a 7.5 km long cave (Konglor Cave) which you can take a boat through and also the NT-2 hydroelectric dam project that when completed in 2009 will be the largest dam of its kind in South East Asia!
Day 1 Left Vientienne at noon, heading east out route 13 (one of the bigger routes in Laos) on route to "the loop". Driving in Laos is very safe and very easy, especially compared to a lot of the other countries in Asia. There are street signs, traffic lights, lines painted on the roads and most importantly, people here actually obey all of the road rules! There are very few capital cites in Asian countries that we have been so far that we would feel comfortable driving a motorbike through but it is really no problem here. The fact that there is really only one road going to most places
almost makes having a map unnecessary (we made sure to bring one just in case). Probably the biggest obsticle to keep an eye out for here is the many cows, goats, pigs, chickens and dogs that dart back and forth across the major highways here as fences are not yet a concept that has caught on in Laos.
Laos is know to be one of the top 20 poorest and underdeveloped countries in the world (however cities like Vientienne and Luang Prabang over here do not give a good indication of this as they have become more developed recently). That is why driving along this route was so interesting; because we were able to see the frontiers of development occur right before our eyes. This year Laos is hosting the South East Asia (SEA) Games (similar to our Pan American games) and therefore construction is rampart all along Route 13. Among some of the larger projects happening just outside of Vientienne is a brand new games stadium that will be used for the opening ceremonies. They are also building a large memorial just down the highway that we believe is in rememberance of all of those who lost their
New Memorial on Hwy 13
still under construction as of Feb 2009. There will be thousands of stupas in place when completed lives during the 2nd Indochina war and the Vietnamese/American war (although we can't be 100% sure because there wasn't any sinage for it yet). Right now the latter is not even halfway finished so the surrounding area that is mostly a large dirt field makes for an excellent area to learn some new tricks on the dirtbike!
the drive along route 13 is fairly dull for the most part; all of the roads are flat, relatively straight and much to our surprise (and delight) it is well paved and well maintained. For anyone that has had a dirtbike withdrawl, these are not the type of roads you'd be looking for. Luckily we noticed many waterfalls that line Route 13 so we picked one that looked relatively close to the highway and headed towards it. Now these were the roads we (read: Matt since he was the one driving) were looking for! Dirt, good! Curves, good! Hills, good! Losing our bags and sandal over a bump....well it makes for a good story anyways, right! By the time we finally made it to the waterfall, we truly learned what "dry season" in Laos means...no water at all! The waterfall was almost entirely
Our bike!
All nice and clean....we'll fix that dried up. Since we don't really have a dry/wet season back home it was still neat to walk around on all of the tiers that would normally be pouring over with water. This particular waterfall (Tad Xai; pronounced Tad "Sai") would be about 30 m tall and 30 m wide in rainy season and it has 2 different tiers; in dry season it is just one and it just pops out the side of the falls. well at least we visited this falls early in our trip and it saved us seeking out other falls that would be pretty much dried up at this time of the year.
Finally, 5 or 6 hours and about 300 km later we arrived in Nahin; our village of rest for the night. The last 30 km along highway 8 finally turned into the paved luge-like track that I was looking for with large limestone karst formations completely surrounding us as our backdrop for a hazy sunset. It was a good prelude to where we'd be the next day.
Day 2 40 km south of Nahin, we arrived to the mouth of the infamous Konglor cave. One of the coolest initial facts
Glorious 100+ foot, 2-tiered waterfall....
In dry season. Normally this whole width of area would be flowing with water! (see Matt in middle for reference point) about this cave was that it is actually relatively newly "discovered." It was actually just this past November that they put lighting in the cave to illuminate the many stalagtite formations. After finally giving in to the boat drivers' insistance that he will not barter on the price for a boat ride through the cave (110,000 kip=$15 CDN each), we made our way into the darkness. Armed with just 2 guides wearing old mining helmets and hopping into a hollowed out wooden canoe with a small 4 horsepower longtail motor, we began our plummet into the darkness. Although the lighting is limited at best, once your eyes adjust to the near complete darkness, you can really begin to appreciate how large this cave really is. At times the cave opens up to over 100 m squared and it could easily fit a couple jumbo jets! If ever they wanted to open the most ultimate "horror house" amusement park, this would be the ultimate setting as the sheer darkness and near quiet (if it weren't for that pesky blaring of the engine) really begins to make your mind wonder about what lurks in the darkness. Rounding one of the many snaking
turns in the cave we came upon an eerie blue and purple lighting off to one side where the recently installed lights shone on all of the limestone formations. After a quick look and many pictures, we were once again off to the darkness to complete the journey through the cave. On the other side of the cave there was a small village where we stopped to have a quick snack before once again heading back through the cave. Only once we exited the cave and got back into daylight where we could once again see the many rocks and trees that we had to dodge in the water did we really appreciate how well our guides must know the waters in order to navigate through the pitch-dark cave with little more than a headlamp. Not to mention that due to the fact that it is now dry season, the water levels in the cave are so low that you have to get out of the boat a few times so they can portage it over the falling water (make sure to wear shoes you can get wet)! After contemplating whether we should stick around and go for a dip
at the lagoon at the mouth of the cave (and then deciding against it for time's sake) we were once again off on our way.
Day 3 We spoke breifly to a traveller who had come from the direction we were heading for the day and he warned us that the roads are very rough and not at all fun. I just chalked this up to him having a boring old scooter with no power or tread on the tires so we opted to go see for ourselves anyways. It actually wasn't a bad road....after the first 50 km of absolutely horrible terrain! We couldn't help but wonder if these roads still remain as they were after the bombings of the 60's and the 70's...seriously some of the craters could swallow buses! It's really such a shame that the roads were in such poor condition (something that is supposed to be rectified in the next year or two as this will become a more major route by then) as they were a motorcyclist's dream if they were paved (or at least graded properly). after 50 clicks or so however, we stumbled upon the beginning of the major daming
project nown as NT-2. This is unbelievable! started 5 years ago and expected to be completed this year, this hydroelectric dam is projected to be "the project" to lift Laos out of poverty status. The jury's still out on how the environmentalists have allowed such a project to proceed (although it can't be any worse for the ecology than the thousands of hectares that have been raped by slash and burn clearing here) as it has literally flooded over 450 square km of former forrest here and has caused the relocation of nearly 7000 people along this Mekong river artery. What this means for Laos from an economical standpoint is that it will now have less dependency on foreign support as it plans to export 93% of the power that will be produced by this dam (almost all to Thailand). As mentioned before, this will be the largest dam in South East Asia when completed at it spans over 27 km and stands 39 meters high at it's tallest. Most of the roads winding along this project are at least graded by now, however only some parts are paved (which make for awesome motorbiking). By the time this project is
Lookout point on route 8
We just missed the sunset amidst the limestone karsts completed I suspect this will be among one of the most amazing drives (especially on a motorbike) in Laos as it combines mountanious backdrops with serpantine roads and beautiful water resevoirs. The NT-2 project, although somewhat controversial, is definately worth seeing especially since it shows the developmental efforts that Loas is now discovering in order to propulse it forward out of a poverty state. Although one of the coolest things about Laos is the fact that it is like going through a time warp to a time before industrializtion even existed, it's very interesting to actually be able to witness such a poor nation grasp the concept of moving into a new fronteir; it's like watching a new nation takes its first few steps!
We ended our day by joining back onto Route 13, settling in a town called Tha Khek for the night.
Day 4[ Knowing that we had a long drive ahead of us for the day, we got started right away. We decided to skip the few waterfalls and caves that once again stalk this stretch of the highway (dry season makes for boring pictures of dried up rock beds that normally house rushing water)
in order to save ourselves some time. We heard there's a pretty cool "Giant wall" and buddah cave near the city of Tha Khek, but at this point we were more worried about how long it might take us to complete the 350 km journey back to Vientienne.
When i first learned to ride a motorcycle, i was taught that you "can directly judge how much fun someone has had on a motorbike by the number of bugs they have in their teeth." Because dry season kicks up a lot of dust along the way, we tried to keep our mouths closed for most of the ride so we had to settle for a different visual judge of happiness; in this case a little mud! After making a short stop to a deserted sand pit and teaching Lindsay how to ride the motorbike (she's a natural) and trying a few tricks of my own, I plowed the bike through a mud puddle for one last effort towards achieving total motorbike happiness (although with all of the animals roaming freely around here I can only hope it was mud).
After a few choice words from Lindsay about how long it
will take for her shoes to come clean again and a nice long, hot-water shower, we were once again nuzzled into the comfortable city of Vientienne.
It was a great 4 day trip and i have finally satisfied my motorbike craving for now (the mopeds just weren't cutting it).
Next we head on an overnight bus down to the southern part of Laos to a city called Pakse which among other things is famous for being the area that all of Lao's coffee comes from....I can't wait to satisfy yet another craving!
Tips for Travellers * The place we rented the dirtbike in Vientiane is called "Jules' classic bike rentals." Ask for Terry, he'll set you up with everything!
* It's a toss up between doing this loop in dry season or wet season...in wet you'll see extrordinary waterfalls everywhere, but the dirt roads would be treacherous...Dry season means you really have to search out the mud! Although i realize to some that may be a benefit anyways.
* keep an eye out for when the NT-2 project will be completed as the roads leading to it will be absolutely amazing then.
* If you don't mind
doing "the loop" on a scooter, it'd be much cheaper to go to Tha Khek from Vientiane by bus and then rent a scooter from there instead
* Although we didn't do it, we heard it is possible to rent motorbikes from some places in Laos that you can drive to another city and leave it there and it saves yu a bus trip. I would especially recommed to do this between Luang Prabang to Vientiane as the buses are ridiculously slow and I'm convinced that it is in a Laos persons' genes to vomit on every bus trip they take, especially if they are sitting beside us on the bus.
* Don't drive here at night...it's really hard to see the animals on the roads.
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Danielle
non-member comment
'atta girl!
Lindz, I'm so proud of you for riding on your own! Isn't it great. I'm sure Matt really enjoyed it too--I know how anxious he has been to ride again. Your adventures sound amazing and I enjoy living vicariously through your stories and pictures. Continue to keep us posted. Have fun!