The Wobbling Sprocket

Mike did the Lao Tour back in Feb 2008.  He is coming back now for the combo platter, Tour d'Indochine…..both Vietnam and Laos.   Seeing both countries on one trip is a good idea.  They are very different places. 

Tour d'Indochine starts in Hanoi.  We head North to the border with China and then West.   We cross the border into Laos just outside Dien Bien Phu.  

Mike celebrated a birthday when we were in Vangvieng (a real party town) last time Laos and the group decided to decorate his bike for the occasion:

I am not sure what that blue thing is. Isn't Spider Man red? Help!.

Oh, yeah, I am showing my age.  Isn't that thing a Power Ranger??

With the benefit of hindsight, the boat ride from Muong Khua was a good choice. The ride is scenic and replaces a hard two days of riding with what amounts to a rest day on the water. We did have a ride from Nong Khiau to Pak Mong. It was 37k rather than the 20k I expected. I was off by a factor of 2, not bad.!!!

Doug arrived before Maryvonne and rode his bike out of the guesthouse to greet her and managed to fall in the gravel parking lot and scrape up the palm of his hand pretty badly along with his knee. It’s unlikely to keep him from riding, but swollen and looks fairly uncomfortable.

Pak Mong is the same as ever. We had buckets of hot water for showers. That was nice. For breakfast,

Chantal tried for a repeat of the great pancakes we had in Muong Khua. What arrived were omelettes with bananas on top. That was a first. Pancakes are generally an unknown in Laos but they gave it a try. Something was clearly lost in translation.

It rained hard last night with plenty of thunder. I woke up a few times wondering if we’d have a long boat ride down the Nam Ou in the rain. Fortunately, it stopped by the time morning rolled around and it’s now simply cool and overcast.

At the moment we are on two small boats which are making surprisingly quick progress with the flow of the river. This morning we met at the usual time of 7:30 for breakfast. We had pancakes with bananas and syrup, toast and fruit. The pancakes were surprisingly good. We then packed and made our way to the waterfront. There was a Dutch couple looking for a lift down the river. We had met some guys last nite looking for the same thing. I like to help people out, but we have plenty of people already and adding more just makes things a lot less comfortable and, the bottom line is, you can make your way, it just means that you have to spend your own money to do it.

As I write this we are on the Nam Ou River. The water is moving faster than I expected and every now and then the driver is gunning the motor as we enter some shallow rapids. There are plenty of rocks and we come within 5 or 6 feet of some. If we hit one at this speed, I think we’d be in the drink pretty fast. I’m sure we could swim to shore, but I’m definitely thinking it would have been good to have some waterproof matches with. We’d need to get a fire going. If we do this again, I will have to remember to bring some. They’d be a lot more important the electronic gizmos I’m lugging around. There are a couple life preservers aboard for the seven of us.

We will visit a couple villages along the way. One will be our lunch stop. There is no road anywhere near here.

Loading onto small boats

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The source of all these posts

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Jeff T checking the scenery from Muong Khua

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