Laos 2012 and a brief summary of the last couple of years.
Velomad
We’re still on the road if you can believe it, - 7 years and 10 months! We are back in my favourite SEA country, Laos – one of the few places left in SEA where they still prefer to snooze in the sun rather than rip off tourists.
So if you’re surprised at suddenly getting a newsletter out of the blue from us you can thank Richard as he’s been nagging me for months to write something. Of course, for the multilingual French speakers who are reading this you’d have already received several by now as none of the following will be news to you.
Spent last year in Australia valiantly trying to drink the country dry. As Richard was a wine sommelier in his pre cycling life, we felt it was our duty to ensure we visited as many wineries as possible. The Australian’s, well known for their generosity & hospitality, outshone their well deserved reputation at the wineries and not only never asked us for a wine tasting fee but also frequently gave us a bottle or two to take with us. We had to buy a trailer to carry all the wine! Still can’t forget being in the desert one night & thinking we’d crack open a bottle only to find that out of the 9 bottles we had, every single one was cork sealed. It’s pretty rare these days in Australia to find a cork sealed wine bottle as they’re been brainwashed into thinking screw tops are better, though they’ve poncified the word, using “Stelvin” instead. All the wines were a bit too nice to subject them the old student tactics of getting a cork out (or into) the bottle so we had to go dry for a few nights. If you’re wondering how come a sommelier travels without a cork screw – it was nicked when we were in China and we figured Aus & NZ are so obsessed with screw tops that a new one wouldn’t be necessary.
Then we went to New Zealand and spent 5 months getting soaked by the rain (love the Kiwi summers) and trying to avoid getting caught wild camping as the anti sentiment to “freedom camping” has flared out of all proportion with fines usually ranging between $200-$500.
Then cycled through Borneo which was wild although devastating to see the extent to which the palm plantations have spread. Then back to Malaysia, Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, all previously covered countries of course but with some new areas that we hadn’t previously cycled. Myanmar was a highlight despite being over run with tourists (especially French) and unique in Asia (apart from Japan) for the cleanliness of it’s toilets. Other things we liked (especially as cyclists) was the fact that there is drinking water everywhere. They fill large pottery jugs on the roadside so we never had any problems finding water to drink (as Richard always jokes, cars run on petrol, cyclists run on water) and we asked daily at cafe's if they could fill our thermos flask with hot water and although we always offered to pay, no one ever accepted the offer. Also, really cute is the way they attract a waiter to the table, making a sort of squeaking sound mixed with a loud kissing noise!
We entered Laos from Chiang Khong, Thailand. We’d cycled into the town on voting day and the wat’s (Buddhist temples) were full of people coming to vote. The usual way to make the crossing over the Mekong to Huay Xai is via a longboat but we decided we didn’t want the struggle of getting our heavily laden bikes onto one of those so decided to take the vehicle ferry instead. Glad to say the Lonely Planet guide was it’s usual outstanding reliable self as it stated that the vehicle ferry didn’t run on Sundays yet no one seemed aware of that fact and lorries were lined up awaiting it’s arrival. Although they wouldn’t sell us a ticket at the office (telling us to take a longboat instead) and despite the vehement hand signals and shaking heads that the ferry men frantically signalled at us, we pushed our bikes through the mud & ankle deep water onto the ferry and negotiated the price after they realised we weren’t going to budge. They wanted 200 Baht (about USD6.50) for both of us and the bikes but we got them down to 100 Baht. They seemed pretty pleased with themselves with that amount and we figured they’d just scored a bit of beer and cigarette money. We were pretty pleased with ourselves too as we’d been quoted 40 Baht pp plus 40 Baht per bike by the longboats so we saved ourselves 60 baht and a lot of hassle.
The vehicle boat doesn’t go to the normal landing point where the immigration controls are and we just cycled up the slope with no one asking to see our passports. They’re not used to farang (foreigners) taking the vehicle ferry as it’s usually used for the lorries going to China so that’s probably why no one stopped us as we cycled up the slope and halted on the corner to decide what to do. Then again it was Laos – how likely was it that anyone would stop us! I wanted to cycle the couple of kms to the immigration office, Richard waned to stop for a Beerlao. It didn’t take much persuasion. Over our beer Richard suggested we just skip getting our visa and go the following morning, I didn’t like the idea at all but decided it wasn’t worth the argument but warned him if we got into trouble he would have to deal with it. The next morning we cycled into town and Richard went first while I watched the bike. He was gone eons and I was just beginning to worry when he turned up and waved his passport triumphantly. So I went into the office, filled out the paperwork, handed over my photo and passport and waited. Eventually I was called up and a female officer pointed at my Thai exit stamp and asked why it was dated yesterday. She wouldn’t accept any excuses and angrily told me I had to go back to Thailand. So I went back to Richard, had a go and then went down to the boat pier and caught a boat back to Thailand. I was cursing as there’s a 500 Baht a day penalty for outstaying your visa in Thailand but the Thai officials were as sweet as pie when I explained the situation and just changed the date & initialled the changes and I caught the boat back to Laos. The officer I had been dealing had vanished when I got back and the only remaining official wanted me to redo all the paperwork and submit another photos but I was feeling belligerent & refused so he did it for me & after the 4th request for a photo shrugged his shoulders and passed the paperwork to someone else to complete. After a lot more waiting a visa was issued. But who’d have thought the Laos’s would have been such sticklers!
On Monday we go back to China, though an area that we haven’t been to before (as though that’s hard with a country the size of China!), the Yunnan province. The Chinese government has made it very hard now to get a Chinese visa so we had had a bit of a struggle getting the visa. Hoping that they don’t turn us back at the border as there have been rumours on some of the forums that that’s been happening to cyclists. Sadly we won’t be able to go to Tibet either as that is now completely closed to independent travellers – the only way would be to go on a group tour which is not the way we travel (and would be horribly expensive – we are not that rich!) We also have to head back to ShenZhen as we left our winter tent, sleeping bag and other equipment there & can’t really tackle the Himalayas without it. Then pop into HK hopefully to get a new Chinese visa – if it’s still a good place to get a Chinese visa – everything seems to be changing so rapidly and frequently when it comes to China & it’s regulations. After that it’s heading west to Central Asia – yes we can finally say we’re on our way home!
Apologies for the slackness in sending news and super thanks to everyone who’s kept in touch and shown us such huge kindness on the way – we miss you all.
Peace & Respect always
The Velomads
