Group_Vietnam

From left, Jeff Campbell, me, Grace McNally, John Fleming and Graeme Watkins.

And John, Willie and Fred in Laos this time:

And here is Mr. Joe, our local guide in Vietnam, munchin’ on somethin’:

Mr. Joe

Willie and John kayaking on the Nam Song River outside Vang Vieng, Laos. These double rigs can definitely result in a “Domestic”……all was well though. No one flipped.

Willie and John on Nam Song

We weren’t limited to biking and boating. At a few points, it felt like we were dancing our way thru Asia. This was at a the karaoke joint next to our hotel in Lai Chau, Vietnam. Anything goes, including the local guys dancing with foreign guys. In Kasi, Laos they remembered us from last year and pulled out their dancing pictures to prove it!! Yeah, Mary and Barry, they have a bunch of you guys.

Bob Dancing

We had some adventuresome eaters (especially John and Freddy) and Graeme was a big fan of fine wine (pretty hard to come by, but he worked it!). I’m not quite sure I should share some of the photos I have of the local cuisine. This one is ok though…it is from the La Cave des Chateaux in Luang Prabang, Laos. Don’t let your imagination get the best of you.

Pork

It’s only an erotic presentation of a stuffed pork filet.

In Laos, our support team was “Mr. Pok” (sporting the Far and Away hat) and his charming wife, Bounmee. They were both great. On the left is Bounmee’s uncle.

We stopped at Bounmee’s uncle’s place for lunch on the way to Pak Mong. He and his family were great and served us bamboo soup (it was good!). Bounmee’s father was there as well. Her uncle was in the low lau (moonshine) business. You can see the set up behind Mr. Pok:

On the right is Bounyang, our local guide in Laos, who was joined by Mr. Pok to belt out a song in Vieng Phouka. Vieng Phouka is on the road between Luang Namtha and Houxai. This has to be the best road in all of Laos (and they are generally all good). The Chinese and Thais built this road. It connects nothing to nothing. We were all kind of scratching our heads over it. There are more water buffaloes than vehicles on it. No hot water at the guesthouse. I opted to bathe in the river. So did Bounyang, Mr Pok and Bounmee. Along this road, there are minority villages with their own language. They have spirit gates and spirit houses that are very interesting. Bounyang taught me how to say “hello, ladies and gentlemen and children” in the local lingo. That got some smiles from the locals.

Bounyang studied some marshal arts when he was in the monastary (kind of Bruce Lee kung foo stuff). He was kind enough to teach us some moves. I wish I had some film of them. Anyway, John demonstrated same for some of the local monks in Vieng Phouka. By the looks on their faces, you can tell that they were pretty impressed.

You see some interesting and creative mechanical devices, especially in Laos. There isn’t much power there. Long wood boards for homes are all sawed by hand by two guys putting their backs into it for what has to be hours and hours.

We stopped along the way to check this one out. This is a sugar cane press. It’s a short and long log jammed into a hole carved into a tree trunk. The far of the end of the long log is tied with ropes to a bent-over tree and some other overhead branches. The kids bounce up and down like on a teeter totter while someone rotates the sugar cane between the two logs and the sugar cane juice is pressed out. The kids were having a blast.

sugar cane press

Here is another. This guy has fashioned a makeshift “elevator” to send gravel down to his wife at the bottom. It was a long way down….maybe a 100 meters.

In a lot of ways, life is very hard life in SE Asia, but in some ways, it’s a blast. Kids, in particular, seem to find a plenty of ways to have fun.  Near rivers, you see little boys all the time with diving masks and little tiny spearfishing guns.  Water buffalo riding too is big. And how about the mud baths?

Kids

I get asked occasionally, “how long are you going to keep doing this?” That is a good question. My stock answer is “until it stops being fun.” It doesn’t seem like I’m anywhere close to that yet. Best, Bob

Since my camera was stolen, we had to revert from “the picture of the day” to the “quote of the day” for awhile.     Here are the best of those:

Grace (who works for the FDA)  “I don’t do drugs, I do pharmaceuticals”

Bob – (when riding the rocky road) “This road is as smooth as Lao Whiskey.”

Graeme – (almost any time)  “I am only lost when I don’t know where I am.”

There were some others that escape me at the moment.  They will come to me.

We get to poke around the Old Quarter one more day.  

Best,

Bob 

This is me on the way up Tram Ton Pass:

Bob

Just like Laos, repairs haveto be made on the road in Vietnam. This guy is dropping the tranny out of his truck:

This is the typical set upforlunch onthe road:

Jeff, Grace and I taking a break:

Jeffand Grace

There are a bunch of floating mines on the Nam Ma River. They are going for gold. They dig up rock from the bottom and sift for gold:

goldmine

Here John and I are riding into town:

Boy

Brian -thanks for the post! Nice to hear from you. Everyone has asked about you.

I will try to make some posts from Laos. The sun just came out. That is a welcome thing in Sapa so I am signing off to go enjoy it!!

What the heck..one for the road. This is Graeme and John on top of Tram Ton Pass…grit?…determination??….triumph?…relief?   You make the call:

Sapa

Here

Water Buffalo

Here is Grace and the very helpful lady at the Karaoke place in Tam Deoun who spent half the nite showing us how to crack open the itsy bitsy tiny little nuts that came with our beer. We eventually gave up and ate the whole things shell and all. We also played pool with the locals and managed a little dancing (with the local guys!).

Here we are on the way to Tam Deown waiting for a construction crew.

Sorry…these are out of order, but way too hard to mess with from here.

Best,

Bob

waiting

nice lady

We have a rest day in Sapa…that is very weclome!

Tam Deuong is now a huge place.  We stayed at the fanciest hotel in town.  A 7 story affair with an elevator no less.  It has 150 rooms but only 50 are open.  It is brand new.   The rooms all had baclonies and were nice.  I had to laugh though.  When I turned the water in the sink on, I heard some splashing on the floor.  I looked underneath to investigate.  The drian pipe was offset about 1 inch from the pipe in the wall and draining on the floor.  They must have had some Lao plumbers working here.

We stayed in Lai Chau at the very happening Lan Anh Hotel.  There is always stuff going on here.  Not much going on in the town itself.  I suppose that is understandable since in a few years everything here will be under 50 feet of water (a dam is going in).  We did make it down the road to a bar for a nightcap though.

Today we rode from Son La to Tuan Giao.  This is  a challenging section in the best of conditions.  It is doubly hard now because 70 of the 90k is torn up for constuction.  We carried the panniers of Wim and Alfons, a couple from Holland in the van.  I don’t think they would have made it otherwise.  They are headed to Dien Bien Phu tomorrow while we are headed to Lai Chau  on the “rocky road”.

We have some great pics. and I bought a card reader than will read any sort of camera card.  The challenge now is finding a computer with a USB port.  These pc’s all seem over the hill.  They are old.  Plus 35 million Vietnamese kids have been beating the daylights out of the keyboards playing games.   You can’t read half the letters on the keyboard I am using now.  Anyway, I am hellbent to get some up so I will keep trying.

Gotta go, the Aussies serving “G and T’s” on the veranda before dinner…..

Best,

Bob 

At the restaurant last night they has some interesting stuff on display. I’m not too sure that it is appropriate material for public consumption, but got some laughs out of Joe when I inquired about it. Maybe more on that later.

This morning we got the loud speaker treatment at 6am. You know you are in the countryside when you start hearing that. I am not sure that it matters much to the locals. They are all up anyway. It’s also not have as bad as some of the truck drivers who insist on blowing their air horns when they get to the main intersection.

Today there are hot spring on the way to Son La. We may check them out.

I wish I had my camera to upload photo’s. No one thought to bring the cables needed to do so with their cameras and all the storage devices are different from the one I had. I may try to pick something up in a store along the way. Son La is a likely spot since it is bigger city.

Sorry for any typos in this…too tough to correct on this computer.

Best,

Bob

We are now in Yen Chau. The ride was about 110k.It is not as clear as it was last time. They have burned the rice fields….and there is persistent haze. The weather is perfect for riding though…in the 60′s.

Tomorrow it will be a relatively short 65k ride to SonLa.

I am sitting in internet cafe that looks to have twenty 15 year old computers overhead and wires hanging everywhere. It actually works pretty well though…..

More later…..

Best,

Bob