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Published: October 2nd 2006
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For my last few days in Laos, going off cycling on my own through some semi-remote villages seemed like a nice idea, as I had been sticking so much to the tourist trail and also spending way too much time eating and lazing about! It seemed surprisingly straightforward to organise, I found an ok mountain bike to hire for $2 a day, I left my rucksack at a hotel and just strapped my day pack to my bike. It felt so great just to travel with a couple of kilos for a change, I didn't even take any shampoo with me!
I had my first minor hiccup only 6km along the road when one of the pedals on the bike fell off... I had checked the bike over quite carefully and asked for a couple of adjustments to be made before I set off, so I was a bit annoyed with myself for not noticing a pedal was loose. I was just about to turn around and go back when a Lao woman saw what had happened and waived me in the direction of a motorbike mechanic shop. The guys there were so helpful, they stopped what they were working
on and fixed the pedal straight away for only 20 cents, they were so nice! So that really was a good start in a way, as it reassured me that if I had a major breakdown I was sure to find some nice people who would be able to help me. And that first day, where I rode 50km uphill, I saw so many friendly people who were so curious about me, I even became sick of saying 'Sabaidee' to everyone, it seemed like every person I passed wanted to say hello.
The first day was tougher than I expected, I set off at about 8.30am and didn't arrive at my guesthouse in Paxsong until about 4.30pm - although I did stop at a few waterfalls along the way. I was really lucky at Tad Fan waterfall as the mist cleared away while I was there. It was pretty impressive and I had a great local cup of tea sitting in a restaurant right next to the waterfall. This restaurant was attached to a resort, so it was a bit expensive and I decided not to eat there, which later on I really regretted. Instead I went and found
a local street vendor, and ate noodle soup, as that seemed to be the only thing on offer... but 2 days and 5 servings of noodle soup later I was completely sick of the stuff... I was really regretting not learning to speak Lao, as the only English the people at the restaurants seemed to know was 'noodle soup'... but what I really couldn't get over was that it seemed to be all the locals were eating too... So when I finally got back to the tourist trail on day 3 at Tad Lo waterfall I had a chicken and salad baguette, and I can't remember the last time I enjoyed a sandwich so much!
But for the first 2 days I really was off the tourist trail. When I signed into the guesthouse in Paxsong on my first night I noticed that since my Dutch friend had stayed there a bit over 2 weeks ago there had only been three other guests... and this was the only guesthouse in the town, so I was sure that night that I was the only tourist in Paxsong. It was a pretty dreary, depressing place, apparently the whole town was obliterated
during the Vietnam War and had to be rebuilt, so there were no nice old buildings anywhere, all the architecture looked like Soviet inspired designs from the 70s and 80s. .
The next day I was really tired so I decided to take it easy and just ride to the next town Tha Teng, which was 38 km away. I really enjoyed that ride through the hills, it was both a bit up and down on a nice sealed road, and while it did rain a bit, the sun was also shining, so I really should have taken some pictures while it was possible... The day after that, riding from Tha Teng to Tad Fan the road was all downhill but dirt, and then the rain started which made it all pretty slippery and dangerous. I slipped and had an accident going downhill around a corner and I think that was the turning point of the trip. The rain that started at about 12pm on Saturday did not stop until some time in the morning on Monday...
And it was mostly really heavy torrential rain, with really, really bad wind too. In over 2 months of travelling in
Asia so far this would have to be the worst storm I had seen, the sky was just so incredibly grey... so it wasn't great fun cycling.
I later found out it was a typhoon that had hit the Philippines and then Vietnam, and was next making its way across Laos. The sky really did look terrible, and it wasn't even worth trying to take a look at the waterfall at Tad Lo, so rather than just sitting around all day I decided on Sunday morning to keep going. I had no idea that the rain was not going to stop until the next day... I thought at first that I would just ride 20 km to the next town Ban Beng, and spent the night there. But cycling there was just so horrible, the first hour of cycling in the rain is always the worst until you are completely saturated, and when I made it to this town I didn't like the vibe there at all, so I thought I would just keep going. I was already completely drenched, and didn't have any clean clothes to change into. So I ended up cycling 85km back to Pakse in the rain and wind, just making it back at about 5pm as it was getting dark. When I arrived in Pakse, I saw that most of the shops were closed and everything felt really creepy with the rain, I checked on the internet then and read about the typhoon. A bit after that the electricity went out for a few minutes, it really was very scary!
I had left my pack at the hotel I had hired the bike from, and not wanting to have to go searching for a guesthouse in the rain I decided just to spend the night there, it was $8 a night for a room, which is the most I have spent in Laos, but I had a tv, and while the reception was really bad, it was so nice to relax infront of a tv after having a hot shower! I really would have to say that that 85km cycling from Tad Lo to Pakse would have to be the hardest day cycling I have ever done... while it was actually mostly downhill, the wind and the rain made it so much harder, especially as the bike wasn't going so smoothly after a couple of days in the mud and rain.
That last day of cycling, I didn't get so many people calling out 'sabaidee', but I did get quite a few people whistling and laughing and yelling out things about the 'farang' (which means foreigner). And I guess I really was a crazy farang to be cycling around the Bolaven Plateau during the rainy season in the middle of a typhoon!
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lisa
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crazy farang on wheels
Clearly you ARE a crazy farang :)