The Wobbling Sprocket

We ate breakfast at the same spot we had dinner. However, the chef was gone. Her little baby had a fever so she had taken her baby to the hospital in Luang Prabang. I hope she is ok. Our own Ms. Mae was pressed into action and produced some nice fried rice for us.

The ride into Luang Prabang is about 115k. We hit the Nam Ou river about a 30k short of that about 1pm. It’s hot at that time of day and there are rollers near the river so it’s just a long slog. I had arranged a boat to take us down the river to Pak Ou caves where the Nam Ou River joins the Mekong River. That gives us a chance to see the popular caves and cuts off the least pleasant of the biking. There were sandwiches on the boat.

I didn’t do that though. I felt exceedingly lousy and took the bus with all our gear straight to Luang Prabang. Something I ate or whatever got to me. Not that unusual. I have felt great all through Cambodia and Vietnam…almost 4 weeks. The good thing is you usually recover fairly fast.

Luang Prabang is a great town. We have a well deserved and needed rest day here. Then it is on to the hardest day of biking and the most basic of accommodations in Kiu Kacham. I try to prepare people as best I can. However, it’s a fine line between prepare people and scare people. I suppose it is good that it is a hard ride to get there. No one cares what about the fine points, they just want to finish. The final climb to KK is 24k.

In Luang Prabang I stopped by to see Sasha at Big Brother Mouse. BBM produces reading books for Lao kids. There are very few reading books in Laos and they are badly needed. Chantal raised quite a bit of money for BBM in the past. I bought some books and we will visit a school and drop them off. It’s fun. The kids enjoy it, we enjoy it, and we can leave them with something that can help them learn. The schools here are not endowed with much other than a blackboard and chalk.

A big thanks to Jan Z. Sasha told me what a great contribution you made to BBM in the name of Far and Away Cycling (for a little help on a planned solo bike tour). Wow!!! Thanks for that! Very generous.

From here on out, it is biking every day to Vientiane. We have a break some kayaking and maybe one more boat ride, depending on the conditions.

As Andymann would put it, “Life is good”.

We got up today, walked down to the restaurant for some western style flapjacks and then hauled our luggage and our bikes down to the riverfront where we packed the same onto a couple small boats for our trip down the Nam Ou River.

The Nam Ou flows through some pretty rugged territory. There is not much on the river in this part of Laos: some water access only villages and some gold mining dredges.

As we pass an isolated village and watch a mother carrying her child down to the water, one can only wonder how quiet a live here must be…..50, maybe 60 villagers in the community and only the passing occasional boat linking you with the outside world.
The boat trip lasts 4.5 hours or so. The boatmen clearly know what they are doing. The ride is initially chilly with cloud cover, but eventually the sun breaks through and warms us up. It feels good!

This is the point when one typically falls into the daily rhythm of the tour. You’ve been away long enough and you are in a place that is foreign enough, that you set aside the things that normally occupy your thoughts and take on something more of your surroundings; you become a little more Lao. It’s not a bad thing.

We will stop at a small riverside village for lunch and then continue on for an before disembarking in Nong Khiaw. At that point we have a short 35k ride to Pak Mong. The bike ride is “Lao Flat” as Doalit, our local guide, puts it. That means rolling hills and a few short climbs…but no real mountains. At this stage everyone seems ok with “Lao Flat”.

A scenic ride down the Nam Ou. Life is Good

We rode 40k from Dien Bien Phu to Tay Tran. My chain broke on the way, but I got a lift from a local up to our van. No problem I haven’t looked at the chain yet, but I will figure something out.

We met a local bus and our Lao Guide, Daolit, at the border and moved our stuff to it. We said our good byes to Mr. Dan and Mr Hup who have been with us in Vietnam and made our way. It’s good we did not try to bike it. The road is not done and it is dusty. It would have been really hard. It takes awhile to get organized at the border and we probable would not have enough daylight to ride anyway.

We arrived in Muong Khua about 3pm. Surprise, surprise there is now some internet here. We had a nice dinner overlooking the banks of the Nam Ou River.

Tomorrow we take a small boat to Nong Khiaw and then ride our bikes 40K to Pak Mong.

This guy rode next to me for 15 minutes on the way out of Dien Bien Phu. We "talked" the whole time. That doesn't mean either of us understood much of anything. He did get that I was head to Laos and was from the US. Very friendly. It was fun.