Tour de Laab

Merry Christmas, friends and family! We are of course not up to our current location in posts, so this one is a non-chronological exception. Christmas is not a very big deal here, but since we crossed back into Thailand a few days ago, we've been surprised by the number of public Christmas displays - of the tree and lights variety. No creches or mangers or anything else of the sort. Aside from a few market stalls selling Santa hats and Mr/Mrs Claus clothing, it doesn't seem to be a commercial power. I think it's just a popular seasonal decoration. On the 24th, we took a 50k detour to the town of Thailand's most holy wat (temple). Wat Phra Tat Phanom apparently houses a piece of the Buddha's breastbone. (It did not house any inkling of Christmas decorations, thankfully.) From the roof of our hotel, we could see the illuminated golden wat to one side, and the Mekong river behind us. The hotel was much nicer than usual, thanks to the ironclad dictates o...

Communist roadsigns  With the vagaries of Lao public transportation looming before us, the alarm stridently broke our sleep so we could arrive at the bus terminal forty five minutes before it's reported eight am departure. Any misplaced optimism regarding road conditions withered when the blinds were opened, showing persistent fog that toyed with coalescing to rain. After depositing the key with the still sleeping doorman, we grabbed sticky rice, pork jerky / bacon, bananas, peanuts, tiny oranges and fried, mildly sweetened dough balls for the day's meals.  Good morning from Phongsali The muddy rut leading to the bus station convinced me that if we were unable to take the bus, we would stay in Phongsali or turn around before descending the 1000 meters to the Nam Ou. Fortunately, the ticket office, completely abandoned yesterday afternoon, had a teenager selling tickets who confirmed that the bus could take bikes. Sure enough, the portly bus driver turned porter ch...

Lao coffee (with a splash of condensed milk), squid sauce, mango smoothie From Luang namtha we rode a relaxed 60 kilometers east along easy rolling hills. Truck traffic picked up as we passed the turnoff to the China border crossing at Boten, but otherwise the road was peaceful and remote, and best of all, nicely paved. We took advantage of trucking infrastructure and stopped for the night at a guesthouse for Chinese truckers in the middle of nowhere, outside the miniscule village of Namotay. Our next big destination was Phongsali, a long ways to the north. From Namotay, we could ride to Phongsali in three very long days on the main road, or in two shorter days via a dirt road shortcut. Recent experience made us wary of dirt - we had, in fact, promised ourselves to attempt no further long dirt days - but the shortcut was tempting. We decided to discuss our options over dinner.  Dinner near Namotay Unfortunately, our village was too small to have any restaurants....

We seem to have trouble sleeping past the six am roosters, so despite not setting a alarm we found ourselves in the muang long market during the morning rush. Breakfast of sticky rice, pork laab, steamed red bean buns, bananas and peanuts stretched into the mid morning before our tired legs managed the spirit to propel us towards Muang Sing. What seemed like a relatively easy, fairly flat 50km ride east ended up being an appropriate coda to yesterday's death march. While still dirt, the presence of heavy truck traffic left the jostling rocky road bed exposed and intermittently raised large clouds of dust. Although the rolling river valley covered in Chinese banana plantations had it's upsides, no tears were shed when the pavement signalling the Muang Sing city limits materialized out of the dirt. Surprises abound at the village market This mostly uninhabited corner of Laos is tucked into a large bend in Mekong, bordered by even more rural Myanmar on the west and th...