Happy New Year!

The approach of Pi Mai, the Lao New Year, was incentive for us to head out of Phongsali (for fear of getting stuck) and make our way to Nam Khio to wait out the holiday paralysis and join the celebration. Luang Prabang is the center of Pi Mai celebrations, but apparently becomes packed and expensive so best avoided. Nam Khio on the other hand was a 26k detour from the main highway (I use that term loosely) and is nestled between the Nam Ou and huge thumbnail-shaped limestone mounds. It's idyllic and we managed to score yet another sweet place to stay- a river side bungalow with a deck and two hammocks.

We rode into town on day three of Pi Mai, the day of "purification," which is basically a gigantic water fight. There were crowds of kids in every village we passed waiting with all manner of water carrying vessel, from the squat toilet water scooper to the Super Soaker with the reserve backpack tank, poised to splash us without holding back a shred of delight. It was equally as fun for us. Getting drenched cooled things off and made the late afternoon ride all the more enjoyable. The road into town was fast and rolling and the views just keep getting better and better as the road neared the river and the walls of karst closed in. We spent a few days relaxing around town, swimming in the Nam Ou and exploring nearby caves. Two very entrepreneurial kids picked us up on the road and guided us through the first undeveloped site. The brother/sister pair led us across a stream, through thickets (holding back the bushes to clear the path) and up a jungle viney path to the mouth of an enormous hidden cave. They were the best guides we hired all trip until I stoked the fires of sibling rivalry and they had a slight falling out over splitting the one bill I had to pay them. We stealthily excused ourselves from the entanglement and made our way through the giant archways and deep caverns that were used as government outposts, banks, hospitals and bomb shelters during the war.

With Pi Mai still in full swing, we caught a ferry up river to Muang Ngoi with a group of citified teens sporting holiday appropriate "no alcohol" t-shirts. The river side village is only accessible by boat and we found out upon arrival that afternoon ferry service is only intermittent. Without much hope of making it back, we took to the trails and made our way through old growth forest, rice paddies turned cow pasture, and clusters of thatched homes on bamboo stilts. We made like the local mud loving water buffalo and took a cooling jungle dip before making a last stop at two caves sites with gushing crystal clear springs. Celebrations were in full swing by the time we made it back to town. Everyone had jumped over to the opposite bank and was bouncing to Thai pop in a drunken water soaked mass. We abandoned all hope of making it back to our bungalow, hopped on an over-stuffed homemade house boat, and joined the party.

Powered by Pho

It took us two days to make to the Laos border, passing through Lai Chau, Thang Phang, Muang Lay and finally ending up in Dien Bien. Warned by other cyclists, we opted to bus through the roughest sections of road. Except...we didn't. Due to some very grandiose dam construction plans that will fully submerge several villages, the road between Thang Phang and Muang Lay was a soupy quagmire of gooey red mud. Good thing I love mud because I have lots of tread and no fenders, so my bike and I were a moving ball of dirt. We made it through the best of the sloppiness and assumed it went on to our final destination, so we opted to hop a bus as suggested. By some stroke of crazy luck we rolled in to town with just enough time to find a hose and (when the electricity kicked back on in the nick of time) power wash ourselves and the bikes enough to be allowed to ride. Turns out the road cleared up 10k out of town and the pavement was smooth as silk the entire way. Something got lost in translation, but I'm not sure I would have done it any other way in the end. The entire region is mountainous and people mostly subsist on small plots on impossibly steep hillsides. The seasonal slash and burn practices mean that smoke gets stuck in the valleys making it hard to breath or catch the view. Taking the bus allowed us to skip past the fresh blazes and the long climbs through them that would have meant sucking in lung fulls of the ash that was constantly falling from the sky.

We caught the 5am bus out of Dien Bien with an interesting bunch of Westerners. The border road was in the middle of reconstruction, or maybe construction...either way, our bus was stopped for a couple of hours while bulldozers destroyed and recreated a cliff side ledge for our passage. The trip was otherwise seamless and the road completely skipable. No regrets there either. We arrived in Laos severely strapped for cash and a 100k from the nearest ATM, so we made a quick exit from our drop off point at Muang Khua and headed along the Nam Ou river to Oudamxi. Despite the lingering smoke the ride was gorgeous and it made me fall instantly in love with Laos. I can safely speak in general terms and say that there is no traffic here. I've made it half way through the country and could probably keep a daily finger count of the number of cars that pass. People are incredibly friendly and we get non-stop enthusiastic greetings and waves from just about everyone we pass. The kids are especially with a friendly "sabaai-dii." We head out before dawn every morning to get as many miles in during the coolest hours of the day as possible. Even at that hour there is no chance of missing the goings-on of village life here. That's perhaps the best part of traveling by bike anywhere. What makes it so great here is that Laotians don't seem to give a care whatsoever about odd looking foreigners passing through on odd modes of transportation that look like hermit shells on wheels. Nobody jumps in the road or attempts to screw with us when we pass, there isn't any yelling of things we don't quite understand but can pretty solidly interpret as unfriendly. We enter into plenty of clumsy but jovial conversations when we sit around to make food stops. The food is fantastic of course, and my favorite mid-ride meal at this point is pho. Most villages have a stand serving their version of rice noodle soup. We stop to lap up an aqueous meal or two en-route and stash a bag of sticky rice in our packs for snacking.

The smoke remained heavy through Oudamxi, so we opted to head for higher ground and spent a few days in Phongsali. The town was spared during the war and still retains inflections of Yunnanese influences. Unfortunately, the smoke made its way up there too and smudged out what would have been epic views. The bus ride up (yep, more haenous road) was an adventure alone. We were put on a rogue overflow mini bus, which meant that our lunch stop was a pull over spot along a road side stream trickle instead of a jam packed bus stand. Everyone piled out and headed for the bushes to do their bizz, washed and cooled off in the trickle, and then copped a squat in clusters of at least 5 strangers to share a meal. The road was all boulders and loess, so after nine hours of bouncing along while sweating profusely we arrived blanketed in layers of yellow, gray and red dust to match the changing shades of the road.

Sapa

Another of my favorite places for sure. Sapa is a hill station in northwestern Vietnam sought for its cooler weather and killer views. Hill tribes of H'mong and Dao reside in the valleys flanking the city, drawing the local women (fully adorned in their traditional garb) to the streets to sell locally made jewelry, purses and embroidery. The plan was to stay just a few days, but Sapa's instant charm, aided by the huge score on a cheap room with million dollar top-floor views, was enough to suck us in for a solid week of exploration. Once again the bikes served as an ideal mode for self made adventure. Like any tourist hot spot there are aspects of Sapa that are borderline "Disneyified." A few of the closest villages have been paved over with staircases to ease the conveyor belt of westerners curious to take a peek at local life and buy imported trinkets hawked as local goods. Luckily it took little effort to meander into less manicured surroundings. We strolled out to Sinchai village exploring random trails, dodging water buffalo on the munch and winding our way through terraced fields mid-plow. The place was buzzing with babies. Seemingly everything from chickens and goats, to pigs and people had just given birth to a gaggle of offspring. It was a grand tour of local life highlighted by the kiddies of course- nimbly scaling rocky staircases on stilts to show off, laughing wildly while flinging mud at each other (good game), and wee ones toddling up to us toothless and pantsless to give enthusiastic waves hello. Exploration near Sapa was all about the timing. The clouds rolled in and burned off with chaotic unpredictability. The freedom of the bikes let us take full advantage of the ideal weather pockets. With the exception of one very wet and stormy descent from the Golden Stream Love Waterfall (yep)/ Silver Falls excursion, we managed to ride through some of the most incredible scenery by jumping out the door at the first hint of clear skies. The descent from Sapa into the Tay valley wove along a slender one-lane road overlooking endless rice terraces etched into the hillsides. The view opened up like a Dr. Suessian jigsaw puzzle-concentric waves of green stacked from the base to tip of every basin in sight and spilling out as far as the eye can see. Needless to say this was an ideal place to tool around and increasingly peel away at the touristic veneer by striking out by foot, bike and moto.
For the first time on the trip we found ourselves in the company of other bike tourists and made the fortunate acquaintance of Felix, a German cyclist traveling in the opposite direction, who gifted us with a hard to find map of Laos. We spent a few last lively nights in the good company of other travelers before saying reluctant goodbyes to Sapa and finally setting off for Vietnam's highest pass and new adventures on the other side.