Date: Sat, 18 Feb 2006
To: touring@phred.org
From: “Michael Ayers” <michael@terminalia.org>
Subject: Gondwana - Lateness, Luck (bad and good) and
Lousy maps in Laos
Savadee Phreds,
Way back in December, I
started to feel that it would be a shame to tour around Southeast Asia and not
visit Laos. It seemed like just the type of place that I would enjoy, and would
make a calmer alternative to Malaysia and Thailand. However, with several
pre-arranged visits and transfers looming beginning in January, there didn’t
seem to be time for that. Then, when I lost a day in Ayutthaya for repairs it
became clear that even my original route would be too tight to meet those dates
anyway. So, when I was in Siem Reap, Cambodia, I decided to push everything
back by two weeks, which was unpleasantly complicated and costly, and add a new
country to my tour.
There wasn’t much time to
do a lot of planning, obviously, and the best that I could manage was to do
some quick Web research and purchase the only map I could find, the Nelles Vietnam,
Cambodia, and Laos sheet. All that seemed adequate to devise a new route
through Cambodia and a plan to visit the Laotian places I was most interested
in seeing. That wasn’t easy as those sites, as well as the remaining places I
planned to see in Thailand were scattered about on anything but a straight
line. In fact, my planned route through Laos changed perhaps six times before I
finally left the country. After that minimal bit of additional organizing, and
obtaining a visa in Phnom Phen, I was ready to go.
Laos has had an interesting
but sporadic history. Squeezed between its two historically stronger neighbors,
Thailand and Vietnam, along the mountain range that separates them, and with the
once-powerful Khmer Empire to its south, the lands that make up Laos today had
often been absorbed by one neighboring power or another, or split into various
smaller kingdoms. Then, of course, there
was the 100-year occupation by France, which ended rather badly, followed by
two horrendous years of carpet-bombing by the Americans. The result of all of
that was 20 years of an isolationist, socialist government that effectively
closed the country until the socialist world unraveled in the early 01990’s. During
that time, there was nothing like the level of barbarism and murder that
occurred in Cambodia, and, to my eyes at least, Laos never bought in to the
structural aspects of communism fashionable in Russia and elsewhere. There were
no bland cement apartment blocks built in every village, nor any
agro-industrial style collectives established, at least as far as I could tell.
In fact, now that the country has been open again for several years, the only
visible sign of its socialist past is the ol’ Hammer n’ Sickle, which still
flies next to the Lao flag in many places. I was rather hopeful that all of
this would have left a lot of traditional aspects of the country intact, which
would make for a great visit.
In practical terms, Laos,
for the most part, is an excellent place for touring. Expenses are as low as
anywhere in Southeast Asia, though when I was there only the capital,
Vientienne, had ATM’s (or so I was told). When the roadways were good, which is
over a significant fraction of the country, they were very good indeed, smooth
and reasonably wide. Traffic was a notch lower than that in Cambodia, and fewer
drivers exhibited the obnoxious horn-honking behavior found there, which made
the country feel much more relaxing. Food was fine, for taste if not always for
energy content, in most restaurants, which were frequent enough to get by. Supplementing meals with items from small
shops and markets was a little more difficult as the selection of items was
even less than in Cambodia. Outside of the few larger towns, water and drinks
were universally available, but often not much else. Somewhat making up for
that were the abundant and obviously freshly-harvested watermelons, which were
being sold in huge piles along many roadsides. Whenever I have bought melons of
any sort while on tour they were always disappointing, but these were really
good, and juicy enough to equal a liter, or so, of fluids as well. The weather, thankfully, continued to be
excellent, and for the first time in a long while a few of the nights were
pleasantly chilly enough that I needed to use my sleeping bag. Finding a decent
spot to camp was generally quite easy, much more so than the rest of Southeast
Asia. Finally, the Lao people, and the other peoples of Laos, are right up
there at the top of the scale in terms of friendliness and hospitality. All of
this adds up to a great touring destination.
My first plan was to enter
the country at its southern tip, then ride north for a few days to see the
sights of the southern part of the country, then cross back into Thailand for a
while, and final re-enter Laos in the north to visit some interesting places in
that area. With that in mind, and after rerouting through Cambodia, I crossed
the border at a crossing that has only been open for a few years, and
contrasted sharply to the Thai-Cambodia border. This time there were only a
couple of bamboo huts on each side of the border and only one immigration guy
to stamp passports for both entering and departing visitors. It was my
misfortune to arrive just a few minutes after a busload of western
backpacker-style tourists, which slowed things down considerably. Eventually I
was in, and after a couple of bumpy kilometers, I reached the start of Highway
13, an excellent paved road that runs almost the entire length of the country,
paralleling the mighty Mekong River most of the way. Though actual sightings of
the river were fairly uncommon.
The southern tip of Laos is
surprisingly thinly populated, with no major towns, and only a few settlements,
which can’t even be rightly called villages, along the highway. That made for a
couple very hungry days as food was correspondingly scarce. However the terrain
was rather easy, and the weather good, so that helped. The area also has a
decidedly non-tropical appearance, with grassy meadows between clusters of
broadleaf trees. Eventually a few small towns began to pop up, and what I
noticed right away was the essentially ever child in the area rides a bike to
school, often over a considerable distance. What a pleasure it was to see a
couple hundred bikes leaning up against a big tree outside the schoolhouse, or
pass by the stream of students riding to or from school each day. They were
always as happy to see me as I was to see them.
The main destination in
that part of the country was Wat Phou, one of two new World Heritage sites on
my list since Laos was added. To get there required taking a ferry across the
Mekong and then backtracking south for about 12 kilometer, then doubling back
across the river again afterwards. Wat Phou is a site containing the ruins of
an early Khmer temple, predating even those at Angkor. While the site is in
relatively poor condition, and lacks the level of decoration found at Angkor,
it is nevertheless intriguing as it is built right into a hillside which
creates a very picturesque scene. With that detour, and some slower progress,
thanks to some light headwinds that had popped up, I had fallen about half a
day behind my schedule.
At that point, I chose to
skip returning to Thailand for a while and instead would ride directly to the
north of Laos. That would be better in one respect, as if I had entered the
country a second time I would have needed a second visa, which would made for
additional costs and hassle. Instead, it
was a few fairly reasonable days heading north along Highway 13, passing
through the only moderate-sized towns in the southern half of the country,
Pakxe and Savannakhet. Both had a fair amount of services, and I could have
used a full day off in either, but I did not have time for that and only
overnighted in each.
As I neared the northern
part of the country I had some difficult routing to do. The two sights that I
wanted to see were located at the tip of each arm of a “T” shape, were I to
keep traveling along the main highway, which ran up the spine of the T. That
would mean I would need to ride the entire length of the T twice, since the
crossing back into Thailand was at its base. To avoid that I attempted to take
a short cut, turning off the main highway at a town called Muang Pakxan, along
a road that made a more or less direct route to the right arm of the T. My map
labeled most of that as a secondary road, but showed a section in the middle as
a “minor road/track”. I have been on roads like that before and sometimes they’re
fine, sometimes not, and there’s no way to know in advance. So I hoped this one
would work out as I turned off the highway. After about 20 km of a dusty, but
reasonable, gravel road, a young policeman on a motorbike came alongside and
insisted that I stop. He didn’t speak any English, so I went with him to a
makeshift station nearby and waited there while someone was brought over who
did. I was the told that it was not possible for me to continue north as I had
planned as the road was “no good.” I’ve heard that sort of thing before and
sometimes it results from people simply assuming that only a crazy person would
ride a bike on a road like that, when, in fact, for anyone with just a little
skill it’s fine, if rather slow. So, I pressed them again to let me through.
This time I was told that it was “too dangerous.” I had heard that several
years ago there was some banditry in that area, and though I assumed that there
was no real trouble there today, it was clear that I was not going to win that
discussion. Instead I asked if there was an alternate way north, and was told
that if I continued north on highway 13 for 50 km, there was a turn-off at a
place called Ban Thabok that would lead to where I wanted to go. My map showed no road at all in that area, so
I was rather suspicious, but after losing another half day already, I was at
least going to check it out.
At Thabok, I stopped for a
snack, and the shopkeeper had some brochures that talked about the area
immediately to the north, where the road was supposed to be. There was a
national park there, and more importantly, a recently-constructed hydroelectric
dam. That, I thought, was good news as I assumed that there would be a nice,
new access road that would have been built after my map was printed. So I
decided to risk it and turned off the highway, with no real idea where I was
going.
The first section, through
the park was another dusty dirt road which, once again, left me covered with a
rather bright orange-colored layer of filth, which must have made me appear
rather comical to the locals, I’m sure. The road also began climbing into the
mountainous region of northern Laos, and the first climb gained about 500
meters. Much to my delight, just past the summit the road became nicely paved,
descending down into a lovely valley and passing the hydroelectric station. At
this point I was confident that I made a good choice and I would at least get
close to my destination that evening.
I still had no idea exactly
where I was, or where the road would meet any of the roads shown on my map,
however. Before long, I reached a fairly substantial village that I believe was
called Long San. It was a very interesting place as most of the teenage girls
of the town, as well as those from smaller villages nearby, were dressed in
elaborate traditional costumes. These were heavy black silk dresses covered
with a multitude of bright beadwork and jingly metal bits, with an equally
elaborate hat, some of which were turban-like, while others looked suspiciously
like early 01970’s-era lampshades. At that point I could not tell whether the
girls dressed that way every day, or if that particular day was a special
occasion. I was not able to find the answer either, as they all seemed rather
shy, at least when presented with the sight of a Farang covered in
orange dust. There was food there, but I did not eat nearly as much as I should
have. I assumed that a town as large as that one would warrant a dot on the
map, but the only possibility that appeared was a place called Keo Song Lay, which
was not far from the area I was trying to reach. Since the map had spelled
numerous placed incorrectly already, I convinced myself that I must have been
there. So for the rest to the afternoon,
I assumed that “any minute now” I would reach one of the roads that were on the
map and get back on track. While there was some pleasant riding, with a few
small climbs, there was no sign of any roads or towns that I was looking for.
Eventually, at the start of a rather steep climb, I came across a road construction
crew. That was bad news as it meant the end of the paved road, but at least
they were able to confirm that the road did indeed lead to Xieng Khoang, one of
the larger towns to which I was heading. However, I realized then that I had
been much farther away than I had thought all along. I was only able to go a
short way along the gravel road before sunset, and for the first time ever, as
I entered my day’s details in my notes, I had to mark down the stopping point
as “unknown location.”
The next day started out
well but soon changed completely. After a short while another section of paved
road appeared. It was not long before it lead to another large village, which
may have been called Songkeo, but I was never sure of that. There was a good
market there and I filled up on as much rice, vegetables, and dried buffalo
meat as I could. Best of all, however, was the first road sign that I’d seen
since I’d left the main highway. It showed an arrow pointing straight ahead to
a town, 60 km away, called Ban Tha Vieng, which was finally a place that
appeared on the map, and where the road north that I had been looking for all
along began. Optimistic that I would be
there by lunchtime, I continued on. Much to my dismay, not far from the edge of
town the gravel began again. “Oh well, it’s only 60-km” I thought.
Ha. At first things were
fine, as the road rolled along through a beautiful river valley surrounded by
some impressive mountains that were covered with bamboo forest. At the end of
the valley there was a steep climb and descent into a similar valley that was
painfully slow due to the poor condition of the road. I naively assumed that
there would be one or two of these climbs before reaching Tha Vieng. Wrong.
There must have been at least six, and with each in turn, the road deteriorated
further. One event that made the day a little more interesting came when I
heard a call of “Hup!...Whoa!... Ya!...” coming from the
tall bushes along the roadside. I assumed that this was from a man driving his
cows or buffalo towards the road, which is a common enough occurrence, after
all. Instead, two men each on the back of a rather large elephant soon emerged
from the bush and began walking along the road just in front of me. As I passed
by, I think they were as interested to see me as I was to see them.
Later, when on what turned
out to be the last climb and descent, I was really starting to feel beaten down
from all the bumps and dust. The descent was almost as bad as any road that I
have ever toured on, with large, rounded loose rocks all over the place. In
fact, it was so bad that I had to walk down several parts of the descent, which
had some sections that must have been 15-25% grades. Still trying to cover as
much ground as possible that day, however, I tried to ride as much of the way
as possible.
It was during one of those
times that the repair I had done to the bike back in Ayutthaya decided to
“un-fix” itself. This was one of those things that necessitates walking from
then on when it goes wrong.
That was the Bad Luck.
I will tell this story in
full later on, but for now, let’s just say that I was in a pretty foul mood as
I walked the rest of the way down the hill.
Much to my surprise, I shortly reached a little village, which I though
might have been Tha Vieng, but was only just a small collection of traditional
bamboo homes and buildings. Amazingly, this tiny place had exactly what I
needed to re-repair the bike and get moving again. I suppose that I shouldn’t
have been too surprised since in must parts of the world people still fix
things instead of junking them at the first problem. So instead of being laid
up for repairs for a week or two, as I had feared, I was only down for about 90
minutes.
That was the good luck.
However, there was more
luck yet to be had that day. After another rather wobbly 5 kilometers, or so, I
finally did reach Tha Vieng, though falling behind another half day in the
process. What I thought might take a day had actually taken two and a half, and
they were exhausting days at that.
However, there was one final barrier before I reached the village. That
was a fairly swift river that had to be crossed. Though not as dangerous as the
many dilapidated bridges that I had to walk across during my first tour of
Madagascar, the one there was equally treacherous. It was a floating bridge
made from rafts of loosely-tied bamboo oriented parallel to the flow, with a
single plank laid on top perpendicular to the flow. At first I did rather well,
rolling the bike along the plank and carefully walking across the rafts.
However, in the center where the river was deepest, there was no raft at all,
only the plank spanning a gap of about 1.5 meters. Somehow I managed to roll
the bike ahead of me across the plank, but as you might expect, when I made the
giant step across myself, the bamboo sloshed about under the weight and I slid
right through, submerged up to my shoulders. More bad luck. Actually, I rather
enjoyed it, as the water temperature was just right, and that was the first
thing resembling a bath that I had had in about a week. Amazingly, the wheels
of the bike had somehow wedged themselves down between various parts of the
bridge such that, even with the load of all my gear, it stayed upright on its
own without me holding it. Truly a piece of good luck, for if it had gone under
that would have been disastrous.
I must have been quite a
sight as I walked into Tha Vieng. With all that had just happened I wanted to
spend the night in that village to recover my wits and give the bike a little
more care. Going farther was out of the question anyway, as the Sun was almost
down. I asked if there was a guest house in town, and people pointed me in the
general direction of what passed as the town center. When I went up to the
largest building in town to ask again, the man there told me to go inside. I’m
not really sure just what that place was, but there were a few large rooms each
containing some cots, and several other men appeared to be staying there. A man
who ran a food stall across the street, and spoke a little English, called it “The
Office”. Exactly what sort of office was unclear, but they let me stay
there for free, which I very much appreciated.
However, sleep was not as
forthcoming as I had hoped. For most of the night there was a big wedding party
going on right across the street. A man was singing what were presumably
traditional wedding-pop songs, and he had the sound system turned to full
volume. He also must have fancied himself as a comedian as well, for after each
song he would talk to the crowd for a while: “Blah blah blah blah.....Heh
heh heh!.....Blah blah blah.....Heh heh heh!” However, no one
else seemed to be laughing.
The next day, things
improved immensely. I was now heading north on a road that was actually on the
map, and I should have had barely enough time left to get to everywhere I had
hoped. The road was still gravel for another 60 km, but now it was in pretty
good shape. However, there was an 800 meter climb along the way that I had not
been expecting. So it was midday by the time I reached Xieng Khoang, and by
then I was feeling famished after a few days of minimal food. Unfortunately,
there was not much to offer in Xieng Khoang beyond a bowl of noodle soup and
another watermelon. The town had at one point, in ages past, been the capital
of a small kingdom, and was reputedly quite beautiful. Unfortunately, American
carpet bombs finished the job that the Indochina war had started, and had
completely leveled the town. Today there has only been a certain amount of it
rebuilt, and there is not much there in the way of services.
A couple of hours of easy
riding brought me to the place that had caused me to take such a tortuous route
in the first place, an intriguing archeological site known as The Plain of
Jars. About 2,500 years ago someone was carving huge boulders into
jar-shaped containers, most of which originally had lids. No one knows for
sure, but they are believed to have been part of a cemetery. There are hundreds
of these jars scattered in groups around the dry plains surrounding the town of
Phonsavan. However, it is only possible
to see some of them as unexploded bombs lie about many of the sites. Indeed,
even at the places that can be visited, which have been cleared, there are bomb
craters within meters of these ancient artifacts. I was a bit surprised as I
expected such large objects to be made of ceramics, but whomever made them
actually carved down into solid stone, often 1-2 meters deep.
From then on, I was back on
good-quality roads for the rest of the section, which mad a huge difference.
All was not easy as the next few days had a lot more climbing than I needed at
that point. But I made steady progress towards Luang Pra Bang, my next
destination, at the left tip of the T. Along the way, there were many
interesting things to see and many friendly people. Apparently, it was time to
harvest some sort of grassy crop, the tufts of which are used to make brooms
and similar objects. Just about everyone in the area, young and old, was taking
part in the process, which involved cutting the tufts, laying the green
cuttings out in the sun along the edge of the highway, and then grabbing a
handful of the dried tufts and whacking them against the pavement several times
to dislodge the seeds and other chaff.
There were also many
villages in the area where the young girls were again dressed in their
intensely-decorated black costumes. This time there was more activity going on.
In each village several of the girls were standing in a row,
shoulder-to-shoulder. In front of them, about 2 meters away, was another row of
boys. They were also dressed well, but only with a plain shirt and dressy
pants. Each girl and boy standing across from one another, were repeatedly
tossing a little ball to their partner, who then tossed it back. In town I
learned that these were Hmong people, one of Laos’s and Vietnam’s minority
groups, and that they were participating in a courtship festival.
I was expecting to arrive
in Luang Pra Bang still with just enough time to rest there for almost two
days, and still have enough time to meet the deadline I had approaching in a
couple of weeks. Unfortunately, I was then hit by another blunder caused by my
terrible map. It had misrepresented the distance to town by about 60 km. Since
I was going to have to do that part of the route twice were I to visit the
capital, Vientienne, and cross back to Thailand there, I was now looking at
another full day of riding added to my schedule. That thoroughly messed up my
plans, and not willing to give up my two much-needed rest days, I had to then
eliminate much of my route through eastern Thailand. I must say I was rather
disgusted with that lousy Nelles map at that point, which had spelled just
about everything incorrectly, left off significant towns, showed others that
barely existed and frequently got the distance between points wrong. Ok, sure,
where Laos was concerned I’m sure the cartographers didn’t have much
information to start with, but still, there are few things in this world more
useless than a bad map.
Eventually, quite a bit
later than I had originally hoped, I arrived in Luang Pra Bang. That town is
now the leading contender to be named my favorite city of the entire tour. In
past centuries it was the capital of a Kingdom called Lane Xang. A very
beautiful city from the start, it was never destroyed by any of the numerous
wars in the region, including, miraculously, the most recent one, nor filled
with modern buildings even at the edges. Today the entire town is a World
Heritage Site, and deservedly so. There are numerous fine temples and weathered
old buildings along cobbled streets, which blend seamlessly with the
traditional villages further out. There is also an excellent night market for
handicrafts, many of which are actually produced locally, and a theater for the
Royal Ballet, which, of course, is not a ballet in the Western sense, but
richly-costumed classic Thai-Lao dance accompanied by an orchestra of
percussion and Asian horns.
The tourist-to-local ratio
was much higher there than anywhere in Laos, but fortunately, that has not
meant the presence of ugly tourist-style development. That is unlikely to
happen in the future as well, now that the town has WHS status. There are
excellent facilities there, however, including money changers (but no ATM’s),
some good restaurants with a several featuring western fare, and a good range
of accommodations. I chose to splurge a bit, since I felt I deserved it, and
stayed at a rather nice mid-range place. It was very comfortable, however, I
didn’t get as much rest as I had hoped since there were more wedding parties
going on right outside my window on three of the four nights I was there. I’d
swear that the same guy from Tha Vieng was singing at one of them. However, if
it was him he wasn’t telling any jokes this time.
I could have spent a week
or more in Luang Pra Bang, and I very nearly had to. On the last night before I
was set to leave, I apparently ate something that I shouldn’t have (I’m
surprised that hadn’t happened before now,) and the next morning it was clear
that I wasn’t going anywhere, or at least not very far away from some useable
plumbing. I slept off some of the effects during the rest of the day, and
accordingly my plans were now completely blown apart. There was no way I could
ride down to Vientienne and Thai border and still cross the rest of Thailand in
time for my next transfer.
The only option that would
work was to take a boat up the Mekong to the northernmost Thai-Lao border
crossing, on opposite shores of the river, and which would drop me off at a
place that was two days closer to Chaing Mai, my final destination in Thailand.
There were two boats to choose from a “slow boat”, which was a traditional
Asian longboat that took two full days to make the trip, and a “speedboat”
which was a cramped, noisy, and smelly craft with a huge engine that did the
journey in a single day. I would certainly have preferred the slow boat, but
that was out of the question, so it was going to have to be the speedboat.
It wasn’t cheap either, or
at least it didn’t end up being. I paid for my ticket for the 8:30 AM
departure, and I was told by the ticketing agent that it would be “a few
dollars more, at the dock” to bring the bike along. When I arrived at the dock in the morning,
they charged me full fare for the bike, and I was in no position to complain.
Then, when it was time to leave, the crew started loading passengers onto the
several six-passenger boats lined up at the dock. I did the gentlemanly thing,
and allowed the other passengers to board first, especially since I had the
bike and a lot of gear. Then when I thought it was my turn, the whole process
ground to a halt. After standing around for a long while, I learned that since
there were only five passengers left for the last six-person boat, they were
going to wait around until 10:00 AM to see if anyone else would show up. That meant that the boat would not reach the
port in time for me to enter Thailand the same day, which I very much wanted to
do. Having none of that, I walked back to the office and bought the last ticket
myself, my third for that particular trip.
The ride was certainly
bumpy, noisy and uncomfortable, but at least the river was interesting, with
many longboats on the water and small villages on the shore. In the end, for
one last piece of good luck, we arrived with just enough time for me to wander
around lost for a bit, but then eventually catch the last ferry across to
Thailand with minutes to spare. Of course,
for the corresponding bad luck, the Thai immigration office closed about 30
seconds before I rolled up.
So my tour through Laos was
over. It was much more than I anticipated, both positive and negative, but I’m
very glad I added the country to my plans. Now I’m wondering which others should
be added along the way.
Khawp Jai,
Mike
--
The Tour of
Gondwana
May 02005 -
Oct 02007
http://www.terminalia.org/tour