Travel story about cycling on the roads of Laos; a lot of uphills, potholes from hell and monsoon weather to boot.
I’m back in Chiang Mai after a visa run to Laos.
I spent close to three weeks there. This time I took my bicycle. I stuck it on the bus then on a boat to Luang Prabang.
Spent about a week there before setting off on my trip. Laos has very dramatic scenery, which is beautiful. On a bike it has another dimension, sweat. Most places go uphill for a while then down a little then up again, with more ups than down. In Laos you go uphill then as you turn the corner it goes up again and again.
Setting out from LP, which is in a valley on the banks of the Mekong, I started up the valley. Going up, then up, followed by up. Six hours later, with a lot of stops to catch the scenery (and my breath) I reached a downhill stretch. It turned out that it went down for 20 km. It was a welcome sight, even though it takes quite a bit of energy to go down. You always have to watch the road as it often goes from smooth to potholes from hell and back in a flash. Unlike the northern part which I visited in April which goes from potholes from hell to a hell of a lot of potholes.
Anyway as I was cruising down the mountain feeling a little shagged due to the 34°C humid weather, a monsoon rain storm came a callin’. As there was no shelter and I knew a village was at the bottom of the hill I decided to keep going. I had my sunglasses on, not my regular glasses. So my visibility was a little impaired (can you cycle with a white cane?). No Glasses and a monsoon was like riding through a car wash on a foggy day.
As I approached hair pin alley, my front wheel tried to go left as I was going right. My elbow, knee and shoulder decided to put a stop to this misguided intent by gripping the road. It was like Chariots of Fire, everything in slo mo.
I watched my bicycle sliding along with me still on it thinking, “It’s interesting I’m still on my bike,”
Inch by inch it started to drift from under me. I watched as my water bottle started to separate and roll away from me at a 45° angle to the storm drain. The whole scene was like seeing an expanding universe…
Feeling angry for having fallen, the thoughts continued, “It seems there are no broken bones….I wonder if the bike is OK…lucky there’s no traffic.”
The thoughts went through my head as I slid to a halt. After I stopped I picked myself and the the bicycle up. The only damage was a bruised thumb, a few scratches, a slightly banged up shoulder (which I can still feel) and a bruised ego.
As I arrived at the village the sun had resumed it’s burning intensity with a new found humidity. I decided to have lunch, rest up and lick my wounds (If my family is reading this there wasn’t much damage nothing to worry about, just a few scratches. If any of my girlfriends are reading this, it was like Rambo in First Blood covered in mud and blood but because of incredible bravery and endurance I managed to stitch myself together and carry on).
The village was about five huts by the side of the road. Three of them were shops hoping to make a killing on passing traffic and banged up cyclists. The shops all had the same merchandise. Some kind of white flour fish flavored chips, bottled drinking water, and a few cans of sardines in tomato sauce. One shop had soy milk from Thailand at a 50% price increase and another had eggs.
I went to the store that had eggs and asked (mimed) them to fry up three eggs. They offered me sun dried fish from the river and some sticky rice. One has to think about liver flukes from fish and the rice is boiled so it sticks together in a big clump which they manhandle several times a day. They cook it once a week so there’s no knowing how old it was. I stuck with the eggs. Later I went to their competition and had soymilk. The guy in the first shop had a porch to sit on, so I just lay down and rested. He very kindly brought me some red stuff to put on my wounds, I think it was tamarack.
After a couple of hours rest I decided I’d better move on. What comes down must go up. As I had come downhill for 20 km I had to start to climb again. My right shoulder pained a little so I took most of the strain going uphill on my left side. But my left thumb was banged up so I had to change gear by using the heel of my right hand which put a strain on my left shoulder.
After an hour of this circus work had passed, switching from banged up thumb
to tender shoulder, the heavens opened…. No, it wasn’t a vision, it was pissing down again, with a vengeance. This time I stopped. Thunder and lightening were crashing and flashing all around. Here was I standing in water, under a tree, next to a hunk of metal. I thought I could be on the nightly news, “skeleton of tourist found welded to a bicycle”.
After an hour or so of this I decided to go back down the hill to the village I’d “dined” at. Five minutes into the s-l-o-w ride downhill, a bus (truck with benches down both sides) came the opposite way going to the next town on my route. I signaled for him to stop. You could see his thinking, “Why does he want me to stop, I’m going the opposite way?”.
It must of been my eyes burning into his back because 500 meters down the road he stopped. I turned around and ran after the truck, pushing my bike uphill. “Pucam,” I said, which was the name of the next town. “Pucam.”
He had that blank look one has when you meet an extraterrestrial with a bright yellow helmet, yellow and blue stretch nylon top and yellow and black stretch nylon shorts, on a metallic blue bike sporting a bright yellow pack. “Yellow Flash strikes again” and no phone booth to get changed in.
“Pu kahm” … “Puu cam” … “Phu kharm” …. “Aahhh Puu Khaam”
He signaled me on board. I didn’t ask the price, too tired to care, plus I remembered the reverse call girl principle. I sat in the back of the open sided truck with just a cover on the roof. With wet clothes and rain blowing in I was wet and cold, but happy not to be riding in it.
I arrived at Pucam, found the store that doubled as a “hotel”, and slept.
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