The Wobbling Sprocket

The Lao people are friendly, the destination is spectacular and uncrowded and, perhaps more than anything else, in the countryside, it’s a throwback to a different time when people primarily lived off the land…doing things they always have.  Laos has a way of leaving an impression.

For me, there is nothing that makes doing these tours more worthwhile than to read participant accounts of their journey.

In the grand scheme of things, the tours are not particularly long: 2 or 3 weeks of biking, at the most.  But that’s  long enough to see and experience plenty that leaves an impression.

Anyway, I returned home from the last Tour d’ Indochine (Vietnam and Laos) to find a couple things written by participants:

1. A  letter from Fred Carson to the Lao Ambassador in Washington DC.
2. An account of last year’s Tour d’ Indochine, written by Joan Oppel, appearing in “The Pedal Patter”, the monthly newsletter of the Potomac Pedalers Touring Club.

Below is Fred’s letter.  I’ll put Joan’s lengthier write up in a separate post.

Best,

Bob

Today’s ride is about 100k. We stopped in Thanon at the floating restaurant. We had red curry which was so hot we could barely eat it. We also had some fried cicadas. Not everyone partook in those, but they were good.

Everyone made it in safe and sound. We also met up with Lee and Joel in Vientiane. They are taking off for Halong Bay. We also ran into Kevin whom we had said good bye to several nites before. He went out to dinner with us.

It was a very good tour. We had great weather the whole way.

I head home in a couple days.

Another group heads north doing the same tour in the reverse direction. They start cycling on December 2. John Fleming is leading that tour. If he has a chance he will make some posts. It is not easy to make posts from Laos, but hopefully he will be able to get some up.

I’d like to thank everyone who participated on the tour. It was a pleasure and I wish everyone a safe journey home.

Lea pope gone mai.

Best,

Bob

Thank you Mr. Brian:

Thank you Ms. Ann:

Thank you Ms. Zoe:

Thank you Mr. Jim:

Thank you Mr. Freddie:

Thank you Ms. Janice:

Thank you Mr. Fred:

Thank you Mr. James:

Thank you Mr. Graeme:

Thank you Mr. Lee and Mr. Joel.

A special thanks to Mr Bounyang, Ms. Siampi, Mr. Tou and Ms. Wat who took such great care of us:

………………ride safe………