Mikes final days have both come and gone, and he is on his way back to the States. He did send a final blog entry (it fair to say he likes blogging), but I have some thoughts of my own on this entry, so his input will come in a bit.
Leg Distance: 519 mi (837 km)
The trip was diverted from taking the western route to the more direct southern route of of Vang Vieng. The reason for the change in direction is that my dear Greta had sprung an oil leak, and with no qualified mechanics in Vang Vieng, the decision was made to buy a couple of liters of oil and try to make to one. The plan was, depending on the amount of oil loss, to either limp to Vientiane where there was a semi-qualified mechanic and no parts, or push it to Udon Thani (just across the border in Thailand) where there is a very qualified mechanic, but no parts, or push it to Bangkok where there are both qualified mechanics and parts. Of course there was the real possibility that the bike would of dumped her oil along the route, and I would of had to slide a truck driver some cash to toss in the back of his bed. Well, luck was with me, and I made it to Bangkok with less than a liter of oil loss. So fortune blessed me.
The only bizarre part of the trip was crossing into Thailand at the Friendship Bridge. Both Laos and Thailand had trouble with the Carnets. I had to help both officials fill them out as they were not familiar with the form. Apparently, they do not get many. That being said, they did know the form was required, and both sides were very appreciative of the help, and were generally very nice about the situation. To be honest, I tend to get border anxiety, always thinking that I will not make it across. I have crossed well over a hundred land borders in my life, and with just two shakedowns, one each in Costa Rica and India (which I did not pay, and got the perpetrators in deep shit), the border control guards have been very helpful and accommodating. I have never been denied a crossing. The trick is when things go sideways, don;t get angry, and try to be supportive to them, and they will help you, and if that doesn't work, go to their superior. .
Mike's Final Thoughts on Lao - Sitting in Bangkok waiting for my flight from my stopover in Beijing and Wow, these last 11 days went by in what seems like a blink of an eye.
Huge props to Ken for putting up with my horrid riding and giving me helpful
tips along the way. Just hope the skills
I learned don’t fade away before I can get back out on a bike after winter
losses its grip on the NE USA.
Looking back, I enjoyed the mountain rural area the most.
The ramshackle towns were almost completely absent outside tourists. Ken and I
only ran into two other westerners on two wheels, one was riding her bicycle
thru Laos and exploring her roots as she was half Laotian. and the other an
adventure motorcyclist who has been traveling the world for the last seven
years.
Here are some overall observations of the trip
Weather: in three
words - hot, smhaze and dust. I was expecting warm but not 100+ days which
makes for some very tiring riding.
Smhaze is our word for the combination of smoke and haze. There is so much burning going on in the dry
season that we didn’t see a blue sky once in our trip. And dusty goes for dry
season. Every inch of the roadside towns
are all coated in a thick layer of brown moon dust type dirt and both Ken and I spent most of the week
coughing up what collected in our lungs during the day. It was very different to see all the
woman/girls on their bicycles and scooters holding umbrella’s to shield them
from the sun.
Roads - well they mostly suck. The two main contributors to
the crater sized pothole strewn road system is 1) natural and 2) Chinese
construction. In the northern part of the country with its steep mountains and
switchback roads you quickly loose count of the number of places the road has
been hastily put back together after a rainy season landslide. In fact, it
appears that they are just getting close to finishing up repairing roads from
the last rainy season. As for Chinese construction,
I’ll expand on that later, but the main side result of all the huge trucks is
that the Lao roads are just disintegrating and the Chinese have no interest in
repairing the damage they are causing. Getting
around the country on motorcycle is manageable but I can’t fathom getting to
places like Luang Prabang on a bus.
Infrastructure /housing. - while basic electrical and data
infrastructure exists into even the smallest most remote villages, forget about
sewer or garbage infrastructure. As soon
as you ride a short distance outside the villages you find where they just dump
the garbage down the side of a hill. The small villages are typical third world combination of
wood and tin shacks. The more developed
villages start to have homes made of concrete/brick with tile roofs and the
cities have multi-story concrete and brick construction. Nowhere in the country did I see steel
multi-story construction, but we did see the use of steel for framing of some
of the homes and shops in the larger towns.
Now for the Chinese infrastructure. They are spending billions and billions on
the largest scale infrastructure projects you can imagine. Huge hydroelectric dams on every river that
can support them and a bullet train line that will connect China all the way to
Vientiane. The Chinese construction is all 100% Chinese workers living in man
camps, with their own stores, and they contribute nothing to the local economy.
As is typical with Chinese, they will
not hire locally. In a few short years, I anticipate there will be far more
Chinese in Lao than Laotians.
Food – The surrounding landscape is comprised of, as I
estimate, 80% agriculture, so there is always a healthy abundance of vegetables
and protein available. You can see the
fresh items in the morning markets that end up at the street dining and
established “restaurants”. As for drinks.
it’s Lao Beer that appears to have the bulk of the market share. The beer is everywhere and 90% of the bottled
water is also LBC. We did see some Coke-a-Cola water, but not as abundant as
the local brand.
The people are fantastic. Friendly, resourceful and
seemingly very happy. If they could communicate with us, they would do whatever
it takes to help, and even if they didn’t understand, they would invest a lot
of effort through pointing, using calculators etc. aid in the communication. Some of the more tourist locations the locals
and Chinese would ask for a picture with us - being westerners and tall. That
honestly was a bit weird thinking that when they get back part of what they
would show their family and friends were pictures of them with some white guys
they didn’t know. The children, as I
mentioned in an earlier post were terrific. Friendly and always waving.
I had high hopes for the trip and it surpassed them on every
level. It is hard to begin the
transition back to the western world and corporate life but I am so glad of the
memories and changes that this trip has made for me.
Total Distance Traveled by Motorcycle: 36,908 mi (60,371 km)
Countries/Territories Visited: USA, Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, Uruguay, Canada, Portugal, Spain, Morocco, Gibraltar, France, Monaco, Italy, Vatican City, San Marino, Slovenia, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland, Ukraine, Transnistria, Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Greece, Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, China (for 20 seconds), India, Nepal, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam
