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??

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.

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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After that, we had a 25k downhill.

We had lunch in Binh Lu.  To be honest that place doesn’t look like it used to.  the main road is torn up and the only way to get through town is via a side road.  The place we stopped in was deceiving.  It really wasn’t much in front, but it has a lovely little garden in bank and Mr Joe came up with some pork sandwiches and fried rice and tomatoes and cucumbers.  I’m not sure where he got the food, but it was very much appreciated.  It is Tet New Year’s here and very little is open in the way of restaurants.

We made it in to our destination of Lai Chau about 4:00.  The place we are staying in can only be described as weird.  It’s a big 10 story hotel with cement dinosaurs in front and a replica of what look’s like the Eiffel tower in back.  I have been here several times and my reaction is always the same….this is really unusual.

Tomorrow we have a longer day…about 110k to Moung Lay.  Muong Lai’s days are numbered.  A dam is going in and the whole town will be under a couple hundred feet of water shortly.  Last year the were working on relocating the road to a point high up the valley wall.  It will be interesting to see how much progress they have made.

Posted via email from Bob’s posterous

I do have photos from 2004 and here are some:

That's a color coordinated butterfly on Gywn's shoulder!

Another….

Gwyn

Gwyn (and her old bike) in 2004

and another…

Hot Springs...the way it used to be!!!!

We are glad Gwyn is going to make it!