Water fight anyone? Sorry, its not optional. It s been the Laos New Year for the past 3 days which has meant a massive nationwide water fight. The place just goes crazy and any attempt to leave your guest house after mid day results in getting drenched.
Bataille d’eau? Pardon, mais ce n est pas optionel. Les 3 dernieres journees ont ete la celebration de la Nouvelle Annee Boudiste; ce qui pour nous ‘falangs’ se resume a une grande bataille d eau nationale. Tout devient fou, et il est impossible de faire + de 200m sans etre completement trempe.
We weren’t put of by this though and obtained some water guns ourselves and joined in with vigour. Marie joined in with such vigour that she broke her gun and had to replace the water canister with a plastic bottle – who would have thought she could have been such a vicous militia.
Excellente occasion pour faire la fete nous nous sommes armes de pistolets a eau et avons join la fete avec vigueur. Marie a join avec tant de vigueur qu elle a cassee son pistolet et a du remplacer la reserve d eau avec une bouteille en plastic – qui aurait cru qu elle aurait ete une militante si viscieuse (ahah! mon francais est du tonerre! Je suis sur que c est plein de fautes d orthographe mais je ne les vois meme pas!).
All day waterfighting leaves you knackered though, and here Marie does her best not to fall asleep at the night market. The markets are awesome places to get a feed, a vegetarian buffet is less than a dollar, and it s a great place to do a bit of people watching
Lutter toute la journee reste une activite fatiguante, et la Marie fait de son mieu pour ne pas s endormir au marche de nuit. Les marches sont des supers endroits pour manger (buffet vegetarien pour moins d 1$) et pour rencontrer/regarder les gens.
The ride to Luang Prabang has by far been the most interesting part of the trip (aside from the hills). There are villages like this one where the locals still hunt with muskets that look like they should easily be in a museum. While the landscape is the most amazing collection of rugged hills and impenetrable jungle.
La route jusqu a Luand Prabang a ete, de loin, la partie la plus interessante de notre voyage (hormis les cotes). Il y a de nombreux villages comme celui-ci ou les locaux chassent toujours avec des mousqets qui pourraient entrer un musee. Le paysage est une collection impressionante de montagnes accidentees et de jungle impenetrable.
The villages still live entirely off the land, and this requires a massive burn off every year. This means entire hill sides are burn off in a controlled manner to make way for crops and to fertiliser the soil with the ash. But for cyclists this means riding through fires that lick at the side of the road and cause dense clouds of choking smoke. This photo was taken in the midday day sun, but the smoke is so thick that it felt like dusk.
Les villages subviennent a leurs besoins avec ce que les allentours ont a offrir. Les flancs de montagne sont souvent en feu pour enrichir les sols et rendre les terres cultivables. Pour les cyclistes ca veut dire pedaler a travers des de denses nuages de fumee etouffante. Cette photo a ete prise au milieu d une journee ensoleillee, mais la fumee est si dense qu on ce serai dit a la tombee de la nuit.
So after a long rest in Vientiane, waiting for our Chinese visa and eating copious amounts of croissants and coffee, we decided we had better get back on our bikes and shed the extra Kgs our bellies were starting to put on. And this is when we hit our first real hill. The hills you can see in the background of this photo are dwarfed by the hills we had to ride over.
Apres plusieurs jours de repos a Vientiane, en attente de nos visas chinois en mangeant de nombreux croissants et buvant des cafes, nous avons decider qu il fallait mieu remonter sur nos velos pour perdre les kilos extras que nos ventres commencaient a prendre. Et voila notre 1ere grande cote. Les montagnes que vous pouvez voir en arriere plan sont une rigolade en comparaison de celles qu il nous a fallu surmonter les 3 derniers jours.
But what goes up…must come down, which made for some good games of follow the leader as we raced down the hills.
Mais tout ce qui monte… doit descendre, course et rigolade!
So we cycled for 5 days to get to Luang Prabang, the last 3 days left us broken from the physical exhaustion of up down up down. Just to put the hills in context, one of them ran continuously up for 20km!!! and that was just the start of the day, we still had to do another 55km to do to find a guest house.
Nous avons pedaller pendant 5jours pour rejoindre Luang Prabang. Les 3 derniers jours de cotes et descentes nous ont casses. Un matin nous avons commence la journee par une cote de 20kilometres, puis 55 autres de cotes et descentes pour rejoindre le prochain hotel.
After being sick, and battling through some rain storms in Southern Laos we decided to cheat and caught a bus. So we caught a bus from Pakse to Savannaket. As you can see from the photo, we were knackered and felt we deserved the rest. Before we bussed we tried to hitch, which was closer to hijacking cars as no one wanted to stop for us in the rain storms. Our most interesting ride was in the back of a ute full of monks.
Apres tomber malade et pedaler sous la pluie moussonale(?) du Laos nous avons decide de tricher et de sauter a bord d un bus de Pakse a Savannaket. Comme vous pouvez le voir sur la photos nous sommes fatigues et avions besoin d un peu de repos. Avant de prendre le bus nous avons essayes de faire du stop, qui en realite etait un peu plus proche d une attaque terroriste sur les voitures. Notre meilleure voyage a ete a l arriere d un pickup conduit par un groupe de moines.
The blaring karaoke on the bus was simply too addictive though, so once we were on the bus we decided to head all the way to the Laos capital, Vientiane. Note Marie in tyhe red scarf being particularly keen to part take in the singing (she claims she was using it to try and learn the language).
La video de karaoke du bus ete simplement trop accrochante, donc une fois dans le bus nous avons decide d aller jusqu a la capitale du Laos, Vientiane. Note Marie a l avant du bus etant particulierement interessee a prendre parti dans le chant (elle pretant utiliser cette technique pour apprendre la langue).
In total we bussed nearly 400km, but other cyclists have since told us that we missed little as the terrain in this part of the country was particularly dull (no offense intended for those from Southern Laos).
Au final nous avons pris le bus pour pres de 400km (seulement 8heures de route), mais d autres cyclistes nous ont dit depuis que nous n avons rien manque comme le sud du Laos est particulierement ennuyeux (sans offences).
So we made it to Laos, and things have been a slight challenge since. Marie has come down sick, and is now on her fifth day of being unwell, so send her some love (email/telepathically/bank deposits of cash etct etc are all accepted forms of love) so we can get back on the road. Until then I will just spend my time eating large quantities of food in an attempt to beef up my little chicken legs.
Here on State Highway 7, the only road connecting Cambodia and Laos, things got pretty hectic. As you can see traffic was backed up for miles, well not really, but we started to feel like we were the only people left in the country. The border crossing to Laos was so low key that if you blinked, you’d miss it. In fact I think you probably could have driven right past without stopping as no one had guns and there was only a single guard from either country.
Cambodia has a bit of a dubious record with corruption, I couldn’t help but take this shot. On a serious note though everyone seems to want a piece of the pie here. The Aussies, French, Japanese, Americans, Chinese and Russians all displayed examples of having their fingers caught in the honey pot. I’m sure NZ is at it too, we just didn’t see any examples of it.
The Chinese friendship bridge is a classic example of “aid”. The chinese built a highway of considerable length of which this bridge was apart of. In exchange though the Chinese were given foresty rights to the forest on either side of the road.
After leaving Phnom Penh we decided to take a few back roads as we headed north. The roads quickly deteriated to tracks, and it got even narrower than in this shot. On the first day out we clocked up a respectable 105km on dirt roads to Kempong Cham, although our backsides protested at the rough terrain. Day two on the dirt roads saw us tackling a signposted distance of 70km, our cycling computer recorded 90km for the day – suggesting we mave have been teporarily misplaced (because navigators never admit to being lost).
Robbing banks wasn’t on the itiniary, but as the roads deteriated, the dust clouds grew until we started to have a certain orange glow to our skin. A kind local offered us these face masks, ironically the road returned to tar seal about a kilometre down the road.
While on the back roads we got to meet some of the locals. In this particular village we stopped for a short drinks break, which turned into a full on mango eating session as the entire village came out and plied us with freshly picked mangoes. We ended up leaving the village weighed down with a large bag of things.
