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Eric’s Post
Hanoi – city of motorbikes. The lightweight 100cc motorcycle has taken over as a mode of transportation here. The main streets appear an unbroken stream of bikes whizzing by at 20mph. Many wobble along piled high with boxes of fruit, electronics, and construction materials. Others carry entire familes – dad driving, baby squeezed between dad and mom, toodler holding on behind. Like any river, traffic does not stop for pedestrians. Crossing any main street is an exercise in faith. Stop thinking, shuffle forward at a slow and steady pace and don’t step backward.
After the mushy, unspiced International menu of the Annapurna circuit, the food of Vietnam is a welcome relief. Spiced pork, large quantities of seafood (squid, prawns, fish) on delicate rice noodles. Beer on draft. We eat happily, glad to put the lentil behind us (for now anyway).
The road to Sapa feels familiar and unfamiliar. Familiar in the sense that all roads outside of cities look the same- semi-finished cement buildings, endless storefronts, cars and motorbikes honking and buzzing by. It feels foreign with pieces of dog for sale in glass cases, stripped of fur, the faces on the detached locked into a death growl. We see bears in cages near the side of the road but are quickly shooed away when we go over to look.
Much of daily life takes place outside near the main road. Small produce stands abound, people work on their motorcycles and bicycles in small open garages, children run alongside and toddlers play in the dirt or near the occasional burning pile of trash. When school lets out for lunch we are surrounded by dozens of kids on bikes. Many are excited to see us and weave crazily about, showing us how they can ride without hands or race us. It reminds me of a small schoolkids critical mass.
Ordering food is often a comical experience. Vietnamese is a tonal language and the same word pronounced slightly differently can mean many different things. We usually try the brute force approach and keep saying the phrases with high and low vowels until they respond. Happily, it usually ends with a decent meal – noodle soup with some kind of stir-fried meat, boiled greens in soup, rice and beer. Occasionally we end up eating Pho (noodle soup) for two meals of the day – but we are mostly able to get a varied diet.
During the the day, during breaks from riding, I read short passages of various edifying books and spend the time reflecting on them. I get through a book on Buddhism, books on motorcycling safety and a scandalously dirty book by Leonard Cohen. Dense philosophical books work well in this setting. I am able to slowly digest the material.
After 2 weeks of riding we reach Dien Bien Phu, a place where I understand the French army was kicked out of Vietnam. Passing through these areas without understanding the language or culture, history does not confront. We see no obvious signs of the “American War” or the large battle where the french were defeated. We skim through this country. This is OK, it’s interesting enough to see the countryside, wave to hundreds of people, and eat delicious food.
Traveling by bike, even through a crowded place like Vietnam, we see how the population centers are islands among large areas of semi-populated jungle and mountains. It feels to me like this everywhere I’ve biked – in Mexico and the United States, in Ireland and Nepal and Vietnam. When I am in a town or city, it feels like the center of the world. Then I slowly bike out of the city center and through the outskirts and eventually look back and the city is just a small thing.
Crossing the border into Laos is uneventful. At this sleepy outpost, we encounter many small fees – a fee to take you temperature, another to process your visa application, and yet another fee to receive it. While we wait, one Lao guy tries very hard to sell us a $100 bill – first for $150, then $100, and ‘final offer’ $50. It seems a remarkable deal but sadly we are unable to accept it.
Laos is a friendly place. As in Vietnam, foreigners on bikes are a fun attraction for the children. When they see us, kids line up and start chanting “Hello” or “Goodbye” or “Saabadee” (hello). Here in Laos, they also get very into the cycle-by high five. By the end of the day, my arm is sore from giving a 10mph high-five – balancing with one arm on the handlebars, getting close enough but not too close. Sometimes older kids pick up toddlers and hold them out vertically so the little kids can also get in on the action.
After a few days in Laos, we take a boat ride to a small village, accessible only by boat. The guidebook says that in the 1990s tourists stay here for months in a drugged out opium haze. Now, after drug crackdowns, it is a tame place full of upscale, thatched cottages. Sadly, the inevitable food sickness from restaurant food hits here and I spend the day in a haze over the toilet. Thankfully, it is a short and intense sickness and partially thanks to Kate’s medical skills, I am mostly healed by the next day.
Although Thanksgiving is a sad affair and I eat nothing except one banana on that day,we do have our own small Hanukkah miracle. As we are setting off one morning, we realize our small bottle of oil for the bike chain is almost empty. Alas! Without oil, we will be subject to increasing chain noise, decreasing drive chain efficiency and shortened chain life. But amazingly, enough oil comes out of the bottle to keep our chain lubed for the next 8 days (or so). What a miracle!
In the center of the country, in Luange Prabang, we transition from thatched huts to upscale-quaint houses which line the Mekong river. Faces on the street switch from the darker Laos people to various shades of ‘white’ foreign tourists. We eat roasted duck on palm fronds while a restaurant band sings soft American hits in a country rumble with just a touch of an Laos accent.
In southern Laos, we encounter karsts similar to the ones in Vietnam. The rock pinnacles rise through the smog in sharp spires. Biking through these areas is a fun roller coaster. We rush down the steep hills, throw the bike into sharp corners and then feel the pleasant burn of the legs on the short, steep uphills. Here again the 15mph high-five comes in handy, as kids see us riding by and rush excitedly to line up by the side of the road.
Finally we reach Vientiane, the capital of Laos. Here we visit the excellent COPE center and learn a bit of the history of this place. We learn that Laos is the most heavily bombed country per-capita in the world. This is almost entirely due to the American ‘secret war’ in which they dropped millions of bombs. Because the bombs had a failure rate of up to 33%, much of the country is littered with unexploded ordinance. Because of the poverty of the country, children collect the ‘live’ scrap metal and many lose arms and legs (20,000 people since the war ended).
Trying to reconcile this devastation with the friendliness of the people I meet, I realize that it is a good thing that each new generation is mostly unaware of the history of past generations. Although I often hear older people bemoan the ignorance of the youth, how else can a society move forward except by forgetting the atrocities of the past?
From Vientenne, we take a night train to Bangkok in order to prepare for the next phase of the vacation with Kate’s family in southern Thailand and India. One highlight of Bangkok is the movie theater. For a $15 matinee, we get giant reclining seats visually separated from the other theater-goers, popcorn included and delivered to the seat on demand, and a 15 minute massage at the end (no happy ending for either the movie or massage).
Kate’s Post:
Wow! Hard to believe it’s been a month since we last posted! In the meantime, I’ve completed my first significant cycle tour, and covered some pretty amazing ground! We’ve made it over 850 miles from Hanoi up to Northern Vietnam near the border with China to a touristy town called Sapa, across mountain ranges and river valleys into Laos and down from Luang Prabang to Vientiane (the capital of Laos, bordering Thailand)! It has been a GREAT introduction to cycle touring, with flat sections to get us going and recharge part way through, and high mountain passes and ridge rides to make us earn it! I’ve felt proud of our progress. Some quick cycling stats of ours:Days on bike: 20
Rest days: 2 (Sapa)+ 2(Luang Prabang) + 1 (Van Vieng)+ 2 (at finish in Vientiane)= 7
Sick days: 2 (over thanksgiving :(, on the river North of Luang Prabang )
Shortest day riding: 15 miles (we rode elephants that day too!)
Longest day riding: 100 miles! VangVieng to Vientiane- mostly flat, but still a long day…but we wanted more time to explore the city!
My favorite parts:
- Staying in a stilted cabin literally on top of rice paddies in Sapa, Vietnam. Though the views of the terraced fields were mostly hidden by thick fog, we occasionally got glimpses through the mist of the spectacular scene, right from our cozy bed!
- Ridge riding from Phou Koun, Laos down to the valley of the Nam Song River and Van Vieng- we had gorgeous ridge top views of the mountains this day, and then dropped quickly to the valley floor whizzing past stunning karst (limestone) craggy mountains, dripping with jungle and then cycling along the meandering, clear waters of the Nam Song river. A pretty long 60 mile day, but so gorgeous! And we ended up at a fancy riverside resort for the evening to top it off! (Luckily splurging in Laos is still very affordable by US standards!)
- Luang Prabang- a gorgeous town situated on the banks of the Mekong River. It’s lined with “Wats” or Buddhist temples and monasteries and you can watch the procession of monks every morning as they collected alms of food for their day from locals. It was once the capital of Laos and still retains some of the French colonial architecture. Now it is very touristy, but tastefully done with beautiful river side cafes and restaurants and hotels overlooking the splendid, ornate Wats. There were also few hawkers of goods and the vibe is very relaxed. Aside from the beauty of this old town, I also thoroughly enjoyed having a real cappuccino and chocolate croissant- decadently delicious.
- Elephant riding!- just 10 miles by bike from Luang Prabang we stopped at Tad Sae waterfall, a gorgeous limestone tiered falls of turquoise blue waters. But that’s not all- they have elephants here! You can ride them and even bath with them in the river pools! (We just did the ride, but did walk through the river a bit with them). They are amazingly strong and lumbering creatures! Seemingly very gentle giants. I was glad that our guide was able to direct our elephant without brute force but instead by voice commands and riding on its neck and using his feet to push on the elephants ears- very cool!
- I love, love, love how the kids both in Laos and Vietnam are so eager to greet us as we cycle past! In Vietnam we were constantly greeted by a chorus of “Hello! Hello! Hello!”…in Laos the kids say “Sabadee! Sabadee! Badee! Badee!” (“Hello” in Lao). They are so smiley and cute and many just laugh and laugh. It feels great to bring so much joy to these kiddos, even just for a few fleeting moments, and just by BEING there. And they make me smile too! It’s especially heart warming when I’ve just gotten fed up with cycling, exhausted by this or that darn mountain we are climbing, and out of a small ramshackle home come running kids with big smiles and eager waves, “Sabadee! Sabadee!”- the best cure for grumpy brain. Here in Laos it’s also especially fun because often the kids will literally run across the street and line up to give you high fives as you pass! I wish I could capture more of these sweet moments on camera- but I’m too busy enjoying them and occupied with cycling to be able to go and snap a photo. But trust me, it’s just about the cutest thing in the world.
More challenging days:
- the steep, long ride up to Sapa: 4200 ft elevation gain, over 15 miles! I averaged about 3 miles an hour, a snails pace and super hard work…I was so grateful for my low, low gears. And the last hour was in thick mist/rain meaning we were tired AND cold…and then the hot water in the shower ran out so quickly I didn’t even get warmed up! At least I had dry clothes, and a dry comfy bed to jump into! And I was very proud of the physical accomplishment- this was only on our 6th day of cycling from Hanoi, and the route had been very gentle until this point!
- On our way towards the Vietnam border, and the town of Dien Bien Phu (historically famous for the battle that won the vietnamese independence from France). It was the day after riding a rough stretch of dirt road that was under construction. I was tired at the START of the day, my right knee was bothering me from the get-go, and I knew we had a relatively high mountain saddle to ride over- not a great start. Then I’m riding along (Eric is a few minutes ahead of me) and a teenage school boy sidles up alongside me on his bike. I say “hello, good morning” and get little response (which is unusual from the usually positive and eager kids here). We ride nearly side by side at the same pace for a few more minutes. Then, out of the blue, on a lonely stretch of road, the boy rides closer and grabs my butt! Yes, he really did that (I couldn’t believe it myself at first, and just looked at him stunned). And then he had the gall to almost try to touch me again, at which point I yelled at him, “Don’t touch me!” and swatted his arm away (all whilst continuing to ride). Then he finally turned and cycled away. I was so upset and appalled! This young man had acted SO inappropriately, and he was not of an innocent age (I’d guess 14-15 years old), he knew exactly what he was doing. I wish there could have be a way to discipline him somehow, teach him that grabbing women is NEVER okay. But I don’t speak Vietnamese, I don’t know him at all, and I just wanted to get away…so alas, I felt upset knowing he may go onto repeat that behavior with someone else… Needless to say, my happy view of all the cheerful school children was severely jaded for a few hours, as that incident made me wary of the perhaps not-so-innocent youngsters I continued to encounter. Fortunately, the kids’ big smiles and cheerful greetings quickly won me over again, and by midday I had returned to enjoying their brief company, realizing that one creepy kid should not cloud my impression of all of them. And though a terrible start, the day DID improve drastically: Eric helped carry most of my bags up the steepest part of the mountain to rest my knee, and we had a lovely rolling ride down to a comfy guest house with friendly owner that evening.
- Don’t trust peoples’ opinions of the road conditions. As we crossed the border from Vietnam to Laos we were at the top if mountain pass (which we’d anticipated). From that point on though, we had only very basic maps of Laos, with no topography, and no access to Internet to consult. We knew we were headed to a river crossing though. The border guard assured us that now we’d made it through the mountains and Laos was a flat country! He said “no more like Vietnam, no up, down, up, down. Just flat.” I knew we at least had to go down a little since we were at a pass, but figured he meant we’d soon arrive to the river valley and enjoy flat rides. Ha! Just take a look at “terrain view” of Laos on google maps (something we did once we got internet access…not until 4 days later). Northern Laos is ALL mountains, with river valleys to be sure, but NOT wide plains. You cycle down to a stream/river crossing then up a mountain, then down to the next stream/river crossing, repeat. And we’re talking 1,000-4,000 foot ascents here! I find I do much better on these rides when I have an idea of what terrain to expect, the not-knowing makes it much harder for me to power through physically (Eric, on the other hand, takes this in stride much better, as evidenced by our previous Samari adventure in Nepal). So, anyways,now we know the terrain of Northern Laos (mountains, NOT flat), and I do better anticipatory research. However, it IS nice that all those slow up hill stretches are rewarded with fun downhill rides! AND the final 100 mile ride from Vang Vieng to Vientiane really WAS flat through a wide river valley.(Below: picture of the road to the Vietnam/Laos border. You can see the mountains we cycle over in the distance, and there are more mountains beyond those…)
Other observations:
- I’m glad for our experience cycling/walking up that road to Samari in Nepal- it puts challenging cycle touring in perspective. Especially helpful on the tough days.
- I, of course, miss my Mom a lot and think about her every day. Though I’m crying (at least a little) less often. I find I miss her the most when I’m having a tough time. Like many mothers, my Mom embodied the role of nurturer, comforter, and provider of unconditional love and support. When I’m feeling low, I can almost hear what she would say if I were to relate it to her, “Wow, Kate. That sounds so hard! I’m so proud of you! You must be getting so strong.. I love you sweetie. Send more pictures!” etc… I have other people in my life who are also nurturing and supportive, but Mom had a special role. I also miss her worried/enthusiastic emails (You know, the mom emails we so often take for granted and roll our eyes at: “Hi honey, just checking in! It’s been 3 days…Wondering where you’re at on the road, is the terrain any easier? Hope you’re still having fun. We’re making Thanksgiving plans here- [
insert long description of planned recipes and activities]-….Write/call soon!”). Those “Mom-things” are precious. I’ve recently found my phone has saved voicemails from my Mom- those are real tear jerkers- it’s nice to hear her voice plain as day and extremely painful simultaneously. I’ve only let myself go there twice. Healing is a slow process…my short hair cut (partly a physical manifestation of grief at the time) is a good daily reminder of this. I think my hair has grown a millimeter in 3 months! (So much for my plan to have shoulder length hair for job interviews in the spring!)…hope my healing grows a little faster than that!
(Below: the nice triple mohawk I get from my helmet!)
- Google hangouts is awesome. Technology in general is amazing and I’ve been shocked by how widespread Internet is and EVERYONE has cell phones. Luckily, I brought my iPhone with me and it’s phone service is turned off, but I can use the wifi on it, including my google hangout app when there is high speed wifi! This has allowed me to keep in close touch with my Dad, chat with my entire family at once, do group chats with my closest nursing friends (we’re all in different places right now), and keep in touch with my other closest friends. Even though the chats are relatively infrequent (once a month at best!), they are a great way for me to maintain closeness from afar. As long as I’m willing to be patient with the various technological glitches and robot voices that invariably occur.
- Laos appears (and is) much poorer than Vietnam, but the cost of travel is the same or more (interestingly). Most notable from my bike is the poorer quality of homes (mostly wooden and more ramshackle) and decreased quality of infrastructure (roads in particular are a bit worse, I also see less general maintenance workers- road, trash, etc…). I’ve also noticed, like in Nepal, use of public water spigots is fairly common, whereas from the road in Vietnam I don’t recall any use of public water supply (it seemed homes individually had running water). Laos, unlike its SE Asian neighbors is a landlocked country- there are very few landlocked countries that are truly economically prosperous (a few notable exceptions in Europe)…this along with a complex history, I’m sure, have contributed to it’s current economy. Also noteworthy are the number of road and hydroelectric projects that are advertised as being largely supported by Chinese aid. We saw some of t his in Vietnam too, but more so in Laos. Their powerful neighbors are clearly playing an important role in infrastructure development, but at what price?
- Food: I spend a lot of time thinking about this, considering we’re riding anywhere from 3-7 hours a day!
–Healthy and generally delicious. Laos food seemed pretty similar to Vietnamese, but with some more curried influence (like Thai food). Both have a base of rice or noodles, almost always with some sort of meat and often cooked greens. Fresh herbs like mint and basil are common condiments, especially with their soup dishes.
–We would have noodle soup (“Pho” means soup with flat noodles, “Bun” means soup with round noodles) nearly every day, and sometimes twice a day- it was the main item you could be sure to find in any town. Fried rice or sauteed meat with rice/noodles was another common dish. It was not uncommon to have meat 3 times a day.
— I found myself craving things like bread, salads, falafel, and cookies! or really anything besides noodle soup and meat. Luckily, in tourist centers it’s easy to get your “fix” of varied foods, but back on the road again, I was always grateful for the assurance that we’d find hearty bowls of Pho all along the way.
–In Vietnam, I also enjoyed the Bahn mi sandwiches (french bread with meat, fresh herbs, and pickled veggies) and fruit shakes we found in a few towns. Fruit shakes are common in all touristic areas, but off the trail they were a rare and special find! Another treat for me was each evening in Vietnam hunting down an ice cream bar, I could find one in some corner store freezer somewhere, usually- yum! But in Laos ice cream was much harder to come by when off the tourist track, I believe because electricity was more intermittent and so frozen foods were unavailable.
–I’m also sure we missed out on a lot of delicious food options on our journey, just due to the language barrier.
- Bangkok is wild! We took the train here from Laos (or just across the border from Vientiane). The train ride was overnight in a sleeper car, and was a fun way to travel.
When we arrived we rode through the crazy traffic to our hotel. Traffic here drives on the left and has MANY more cars than Vietnam or Laos and far fewer motorbikes (cars are more scary to navigate on a bike).
A little exhausted from all the travel, we decided to take it easy and check out one of the theaters in the Mega Malls here- these places are unbelievable…you feel like you’re in some futuristic movie. Everything is fancy, and sterile. There are Rolls Royces for sale in their mall here! And when we went to the movies we got fully reclining seats, a pillow, blanket, popcorn, drink, and free 15 minute massage all for $15/person… awesome.
Thanks for reading this epic post!
For the next month or so we’ll be traveling with my family over the holidays here in Thailand and India. Our plan as of now after India is to finish our trip off with a ride from Bangkok to Singapore! We’ll keep you posted.
Sending love over the holiday season,
Kate & Eric
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