Farewell SE Asia!

We stayed in Bangkok for our last week in SE Asia and it's gone by very quickly.  We first arrived in this gigantic city and headed straight for the backpacker district, also known as Khao san road.  I guess we've been working our way up to larger cities, by spending time in Siam Reap and Phnom Penh but nothing prepared us for the craziness, traffic, people and just general congestion of Bangkok.  Khao San road, which is not representative of all of Bangkok, is full of tourists and people trying to sell you stuff.  It was pretty cool to just walk around and take it all. However, sensory overload would soon kick in and we would usually need to retreat back into our hotel room to get away from it all.

Khao San Road

I had been nagging Pete to check his Marriott reward points to see if we had enough for a free stay.  After John left, he got around to doing it and we were shocked to find out that he had enough points for our last three nights.  We left our hotel on crazy Khao San road and made our way to the serenity of the Marriott.  I have to say the last three days have been a blur of sleeping in, shopping, watching movies and eating.  It's been very relaxing and exactly what we needed!  Pete was better than I as he actually went for a run in the morning and a swim in the pool.  I exercised by dodging traffic on the way to an air conditioned mall.

Typical traffic on the roads of Bangkok

The police in Bangkok are better than superman!

I have a hard time believing that we are done travelling through SE Asia and that the cycling part of our trip, for the most part, is over.  The thought is so overwhelming that Pete is already talking about cycling Angola and we are also discussing the options of a two week cycling trip somewhere in Zambia or Zimbabwe.  I think we might be addicts.

A huge thanks to Krist, B and John - cycling SE Asia was tons of fun thanks to you!!  Also, thanks for putting up with crazy us along the way :)

A few pics of the group...

John and B

Kris, Pete and I

Luang Prabang to Vientiane

We have spent the last couple of days in Vientiane, the capital city of Laos. There is a big buzz of activity here, and wealth of bakeries and restaurants. I think we will have to do a bit of cycling to work off what we have eaten in the past few days.

The ride down from Luang Prabang added another roughly 450kms through some of the most mountainous areas of Laos. We were also lucky enough have a freak rain-and-cold-weather system join us for the 3 days we climbed 3700M through the hilliest section. I say lucky because climbing those mountains in 35 degree heat would have been hard work. It was by far the most impressive scenery I have ever biked through, and one that I would definitely come back for. Sadly, there are not many pictures as the rain kept the cameras under cover.

By the 3rd day, we had figured out a working system: Wear everything you have, put socks on your hands and then wrap them in plastic bags. I have always wondered what it would be like to take a 3 day long cold shower with all my clothes on, and now I know.

Here is what one of the days cycling looked like:

And here is what some of the windy roads looked like from that section:

Looking down on a section that we just climbed up - just follow the brown trail from right to left

if you ever wondered who uses hotel shower caps - cyclists are probably at the top of the list

At the end of the days in the rain, we had heard of a "hot spring", so stretched ourselves to the point of grumpiness, and came upon this great little spot in the middle of nowhere. They even cabins for us to stay in!

Hot spring pool in the front, and glimpses of the wonderful scenery in the back - giant limestone karsts  everywhere

We spent a day in Vang Vieng, waiting out the rain and trying to get dry. At this stage John and B went off to the Plain of Jars while Monica and I celebrated the good weather by cycling on another 200kms in the next couple of days.

Vientiane is full of museums, weird arty stuff and temples, so we had to have a look. Great city, and well worth a visit.

First thing in the morning, we are heading off to Savannakhet to cycle through one of the most bombed areas of Laos on our way back into Vietnam through the DMZ area from the American War. We hope to see dinosaur footprints, downed helicopters and tanks, perhaps even a tree or two.

The dogs are friendlier in Laos

Finally some sun

The view at Na Nam of one of the hydro schemes there

Mmm Buddha sculptures

Tree candle or burning bush?

Don't bite the pillars

Sleeping Buddha under construction

This guy is probably dreaming about going for a ride

Taking a break from the heat with our tuk tuk driver for the day

The pride of Laos

Highlights from Luang Prabang

After a day of relaxing in Nong Khiaw, we decided to push on the short 37km to the next town to rest up for the big push into Luang Prabang. The terrain was pretty flat, and the town arrived a whole 7km earlier, so we opted to see if we could make it into Luang Prabang in one day.

It was a monster ride - we managed to arrive, exhausted and in one piece at around 5:30 after a whopping 147kms of  riding.

We have taken a few days to relax again and take in the sites. The city is full of mostly monks and tourists, so it feels a little weird being part of the throng. 

We all decided to get a Lao Massage from the Red Cross. They train up local students in Lao Massage, and give tourists massages for affordable prices. The students get the training, plus 70% of the revenue, and the Red Cross take the other 30% to fund other projects here in Laos. The massage was very good, although a bit tender around the legs as you might imagine.

Here are some pics of the last couple of days.

Cousin to Captain Adam

One of the many, many temples of Luang Prabang

Lots of monks too!

A view from the inside of a temple

around Kuang Si Falls

dsf

Dien Bien Phu (Vietnam) to Nong Khiaw (Laos)

I'll start by going back a few days to our first real day of cycling in Vietnam, which was from Lao Cai to Sapa.  After a bumpy overnight train ride from Hanoi to Lao Cai we started our trip by cycling up a giant mountain to get to Sapa.  The elevation gain on this mountain was 1500m over 30km and it felt like we were climbing into the clouds.  Through the fog/clouds we were able to catch glimpses of rice paddy fields and some stunning landscape.  We also saw lots of local people, mostly from the Mong tribe and lots of little kids that giggled and waved as we cycled past.  Sapa is the coldest place in Vietnam and we were happy to find accommodation that included not only hot water, but also electric blankets, a heater and hands down the best baguette in Vietnam.  Just thinking about it makes my mouth water!

Train ride from Hanoi 

We soon learned that the Mong women are very shrewed business people.  They ask lots of questions to get to know you better and then follow you around until you basically buy something or until you retreat into a restaurant to hide.  I can't really fault the women as they are trying to make a living but it can get a bit overwhelming.  We did meet some very nice Mong women when we first arrived and they totally loved John and would always ask for him.  They even came by the hotel a few times to see if he was around, sadly they kept missing him.

See John in the back.

From Sapa we made our way to Lai Chau.  This day included the thickest fog that I have ever cycled in along with a very large descent over some smooth road with sections of rough loose bits in it.  The fog was so thick that you couldn't see 10 feet ahead of yourself.  Needless to say, we all cycled very slowly and carefully.  I should also mention that the Tran Tom pass is the highest in Vietnam and stands at  1900m.

The other side of this pass is actually one of the hottest places in Vietnam and as we descended we also defrosted.  We all got a taste for how hot Vietnam can get.  While we were sweating buckets, it was crazy to think that just a few hours before we were freezing cold and layered up in jackets, gloves and headbands.

Lunch on the other side of the pass

From Lai Chau we made our way to Muong Lay, which is a town that will be flooded in the next few years to create the largest hydro-electric station in SE Asia.  This was our longest day yet in SE Asia with the total distance coming in at around 110km.  It also included some fairly large climbs, one that was 600m and the other which was 200m, both of which were tackled in the very hot sun.  Pete and I had been pretty lucky in NZ as we had never had to cycle in the dark, unfortunately the same cannot be said about Vietnam.  When the sun set at around 6:30pm we still had 8km to go into town.  When we were 2km from town, we noticed a very large and well lite sign for our hotel, however it was on the other side of the river.  We stopped and needed to make a decision...do we go 2km into a town that might not have any place to stay as it is about to be flooded or do we descend, cross the river and climb back up to the hotel keeping in mind that either decision would be executed in the dark.  Like moths to the light we decided to cross the river and make our way to the hotel.  The next day we realized how lucky this decision was, but when we were descending in the dark with dogs barking at us on a gravel road I wasn't so sure.  Once we crossed the bridge, we for some reason decided not to follow the signs to the hotel and instead asked a man on a scooter which way to go.  In his kindness he led us to a 'shortcut' which required us to push our bikes up a very steep (think of the grouse grind) dirt road...have I mentioned that this was in the dark?!  Needless to say, it wasn't our best moment!  After slogging our way up to the top, we finally arrived at the hotel (which they were still building) and stayed in what I think were the only two completed rooms.  The upside is that we had one of the best meals ever, the downside was that this hotel was at the top of what seemed to be a mountain...and there were rats.  John and Bridgette unfortunately woke up to one in the room, while we just contended with the pitter-patter of little rat feet running and scratching outside our door.

Decision time...look to the top left...that is where the hotel was

From Muong Lay we made our way to Muong Cha where we were lucky enough to find Ha, who is from Hanoi and speaks wonderful english.  She helped arrange our accommodation for the night in the same guesthouse that she was staying.  After a great dinner together with Ha and her workmate Thoi, we retired for the night and slept like babies.

Meeting new friends!

We woke up early the next morning to make our way to Dien Bien Phu and arrived with lots of time to take in the scenery and the war museum.

As the next day of cycling was about 90km and included both a 1000m and a 600m climb along with a border crossing, Pete and John went off to arrange for transport to help shorten the day.  They worked their magic and we were driven 30km to the border crossing and cycled the last 6km out of Vietnam into Laos.

Leaving Vietnam, one of the boarder guards warned us that the road just on the other side in Lao was very bad.  Sure enough the road to Muang Khoua was a dirt road with lots of climbs, dust clouds and the heat of the day to contend with.  The cycling was tricky but we fared much better than the people on the bus doing the same road.  When we meet them in Muang Khoua, they mentioned that the bus was full to capacity with people sitting on each others laps and lots of knees pressed into backs and dust everywhere and they were like this for 4hours!

We stayed in Muang Khoua for the night and took a river boat to Nong Khiaw.  The first 4ish hours of the trip passed well enough, but within the last 1hr more people joined our already crowded boat and we got to experience what sardines feel like in a can.

We arrived in Nong Khiaw and have enjoyed the peacefulness of this little town so much that we are taking a rest day here and catching up on some much needed sleep.  I'm not sure that I mentioned this before, but we've been trying to get on the road by 7 or 7:30 to avoid some of the heat and all of us very much needed to sleep in today and relax.

We leave tomorrow for Pakmong and have heard that the roads are paved, keep your fingers crossed for us:)

View from our room in Nong Khiaw