Luscious Laos

 

The sound of loud rock music fills my ears, I round the bend and to my surprise find a band practicing loudly in a small bamboo hut near the road. Loudspeaker, guitars, drums, keyboards and the band are all squeezed into the tiny room, in this very primitive village, it's quite a sight, especially before 8 in the morning!
As always, the children line the streets as we pass through every village to wave and shout "bye...bye...bye", the kids here are one step more enthusiastic than the Vietnamese children, they can spot a foreigner at 200 m from before they can walk, and begin frantically waving when I still need binoculars to see them. It is a wonderful habit and sure make it fun to roll through this beautiful country.
Two days of boat rides took us from the dusty roads of the north to Luang Prabang where you could happily indulge in all the comforts of home and eat like a king from the cuisine of almost any country (for quite a price I might add). The bike was calling louder than the beautiful baguettes on the street corner so it was time to again pack my bags and head for the final hills of the journey, and quite some hills they were too! Never ending it seemed, but after 10 km hanging onto the back of a truck, the monotony of 6 km/h disappeared as I hung on for dear life trying to avoid potholes and the roadside as we cruised uphill. Sharp corners would put me into the ditch so I had to let go and pedal frantically to regain my hand hold on the truck. With a soar arm and a smile I gave the driver a toot on my air horn (purchased in China, and the best thing since sliced bread) and a wave and set about pushing myself to make it up the last km's to the town ahead.

 

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A taste of Vietnam

 

 

Unconscious and bleeding heavily, two people carry the limp, helpless body into the street, a motorbike comes to a halt and she is quickly loaded on with a third person to behind to hold her upright. Just moments before as I drifted off to sleep I was woken by the sound of footsteps outside the door which was soon followed by a very loud banging sound, like a door slamming, followed by a second, third and fourth bang each one more aggressive than the last. The sound of breaking glass fills us with fear, what the hell is going on? People are talking very loudly, arguing it seems. I edge towards the curtained window to peek through the slit to try toget an idea of the situation. We are already regretting having chosen the cheapest hotel in town. Perhaps the pink lighting and the large 'Massages' sign just behind should have been a warning, though this is all too common in this part of the world. We want to leave but it feels more unsafe to open the door and risk getting involved than holding tight and hoping things settle down. The voicescontinue for quite some time and through a slit in the door I see a man hastily packing things into a bag, from the other window I see 5 or 6 people climb into a taxi and leave, finally we are able to breath easy and get some sleep in preparation for another tough day ahead.
Vietnam came and went all to quickly, we were welcomed and fair welled by endless mountains with not much relief for tired cyclists in between either. The small villages were brimming with wonderful, beaming children all yelling "bye bye" continuously like wee stuck records, each one too cute to not acknowledge. The adults were for the most part happy to give us at least a smile and a wave, or invite us for a thimble sized shot of the rather potent local 'wine'.
The immense diversity of these mountain people was evident from the ever changing pallet of colours and styles of the women's outfits, each one of spectacular intricacy and decadence, painstakingly handmade with utmost care. The advent of modern materials is replacing these works of art with printed substitutes as well as more modern but far less faltering attire. The men and children have all but abandoned these traditional clothes.
The all too familiar site of massive earthworks for hydro dams made for two rather dirty, dusty cyclists at the end of each day and made me a little sad to think that all these old villages we were passing through will soon be drowned beneath the 'progress'.
The catastrophic loss for the French and Vietnamese armies during the wars in the 50's made Dien Bien Phu an ideal place for a day off to explore the remnants of war and to ponder how it is possible that just half a century later we can freely visit this place and be welcomed so warmly. The 38,000 lives lost seem all so pointless now as we sit at the border checkpoint with the officers on their lunch break and sip tea from tiny porcelain tea cups, ready for more adventures in Laos.

 

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Ni hau (or not)

 

The bed bounces as the grating sound of poorly sung karaoke seeps through every corner of the room to make sleeping a far off dream. This relatively expensive Chinese hotel room provides little comfort to tired cyclists.
Chinese hotel rooms will have, without fail, cable TV, free soap, comb and shampoo, dirty walls and condoms. Bath tubs, air conditioning, vibrators to quote: 'make your pleasure with or without your sex partner', buzzing switches, mosquitoes, nightclubs and noisy sex next door are all part of the surprise when you get to the room (or try to sleep). The price varies wildly depending on who you ask, what is written on the wall is never the actual price and the price has no connection to the quality of the room, this is China!
A month in China was enough to see that this is a country full of history and cultural diversity. I had been a bit unsure about cycling here as I had heard lots of stories of communication difficulties and hassles with hotels etc. This certainly wasn't the case for me. People reacted quite differently to a hairy white guy, many just stared as if I wasn't human, these people usually reacted to a wave or hello. It became a bit of a game to try to guess who wouldrespond to my "Ni hau" (Hello) and those "or nots" who chose to ignore me and leave me wondering what they were thinking as I whizzed past. The Children were shy but wonderful as always, and if you could break the ice, which didn't always happen, were very curious and generous with their affection.
China was a wonderful combination of good food, good people and very tough cycling. I hope to return some day for more.

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