This section from Vieng Phu Kha to Luang Namtha is the forty-third instalment of my bicycle loop through South-East Asia from Yunnan – if all goes according to plan. Titled “Slap the Belgian!”, it is simultaneously published on Crazyguyonabike.com, where you’ll find a map with the itinerary and many other bicycle diaries by me and others. I hope you’ll enjoy.
One of the things I forgot about Laos is that rural people (which is pretty much everyone outside Vientiane) wake up to the lovely sound of news and other government propaganda. The voices and music starts squealing from 6 am through old-school conical loudspeakers mounted on electricity poles all around town. It also doesn’t quite stop until 7.30 or even 8 am, that’s how much news there is. Well I guess if you’re Lao, everything is news.
Accompanied by the annoying sound, I drag my sleepy self across the road to the same Welcome Home restaurant. I realise most food in town won’t be much better in quality and at least this one has an English menu. I’d told the owner last night I wanted Lao-style noodles and an omelet around 7am, but when I arrived, she was nowhere to be seen. I re-place my order with someone else and half an hour later, the owner arrives to verify my order. She then trots off to the market and comes back with the necessary ingredients.
My gut is rattling like an old skeleton in jail when the food finally arrives around 8 am. It is not very exquisite, but the omelet with tomato and cucumber hits the spot quite rightly. I feel relatively filled when I finally hit the road at 8.30 am. I was really aiming for 7.30 but hey – this is Lao time.
It’s not even such a disaster that I’m on the road a little while later than expected: I spend the first 45 minutes riding through pea-soup thick fog before it finally gives way to a bright blue sky. I take off my fleece sweater (the first time I’ve worn it while riding since Honghe in China) and start pedalling harder.
The road and the views are much like yesterday’s minus the heavy climbs. In fact there are two 150m climbs that I even fail to spot, that’s how short they are. Nothing much happens, except for the odd Chinese caravan. I’ve now managed to read some of the signs on the back of the cars. One read “老挝泰国跨国自驾” (Laos-Thailand cross-border self-driving). I figure this is a motorist club whose members make outings in their own private cars. They exhibit relatively few of the Chinese driver vices I’ve got so used to: very little honking and actually pretty decent and civilised driving. Of course, there’s always the rotten egg in the basket.
Somewhere in between, I get hungry again and my eye falls on a little shack that sells stuff. I’m lucky to find the shopkeeper around, sporting a baby like everyone else in this country. I ask how much a 150 ml Lactasoy is (because it’s the closest thing to food you can buy in rural Laos). It’s 2000 so I order 3 for a total of 6000 kip. Then I spot the more convenient, less wasteful 300 ml cartons. They turn out to be 5000 each so I get two. Only after I hand over the money I realise it was cheaper to get the smaller ones. Where’s the logic? Have I been ripped off? Who will tell.
I arrive at the junction where I get the choice between the very tempting Boten (China’s border crossing) and Luang Namtha. Shortly after, I start seeing a series of little towns, guesthouses and restaurants. I figure this must be Luang Namtha, but I don’t see anything remotely backpacky – and I’m really in for something Western, food-wise. I’m a bit disappointed to see that Luang Namtha is no more than this, but after another five kilometres of villages, the actual backpacker district appears… and before I know it, I’ve passed it. It really consists of a handful of guesthouses and restaurants.
Not wanting to look utterly stupid (getting a good price is all down to looking like you’re familiar with the price, at least in many places it is), I turn back via a back road and settle on the restaurant that is patronised by the most foreigners. I get a fried chicken laab, some peanuts and french fries. I give the food a 2/5 which is pretty good for Laos.
Upon my invitation, a man with an Australian accent but who turns out to be a Kiwi and his Chinese wife perch themselves on a seat next to me. It was either them or the pretty but annoying-sounding American woman who’s forcing herself onto other people by invading in their other-language discussions and diverting them to her own life. Turns out I made a good choice, these people live in China too, are utterly fun to talk to and the man turns out to be a bicycle mechanic. He can surely give me some instructions for replacing my broken spoke.
I learn that it’s entirely unnecessary to take off the tyre and the tube, but if you manage to unscrew the spoke from the nipple without losing it, you can just remove the chain rings and put a new spoke in. We replace the spoke in a matter of minutes.
A bit later, a few Belgians roll in (including Danny who owns the Rim Bar in Chiang Khong, and a young couple on a motorbike tour through Vietnam) so we all end up getting nicely buzzed at the night market over fried chicken, duck, sticky rice and papaya salad. Somewhere in the process I realise that I’ve forgotten my sponge-bag in Vieng Phou Kha and that the hotel closes its doors early so we have to climb onto the balcony to get home.
