Chistmas was spent in Vientiane, the capital of Laos. The city contained lots of tourisity things to do but my favorite was the COPE Center, which contained lots of information about unexploded ordinance (UXO) all over Laos and the devastation they have caused to the rural communities. The COPE Center was established to help victims of these UXO by making prosthetic limbs to help with their recovery.
After we stuck around for a few days waiting for our Vietnam Visa applications to be processed, we decided to head north toward Vang Vieng. Vang Vieng had a nice mountain town feel even though it was filled with tourisits. There were a few crags around the town so Emily and I spent half a day climbing at the one closest to the city. The second half of the day was spent riding around on slick dirt roads through surrounding villages. The night was topped off by a 50,000kip ($6USD) hour long full body massage!
A six hour ride on mountian roads the next day took us to Luang Prabang. From there a slowboat would take us up to Huay Xai, home of the Gibbon Experience. (see my next blog post)
With the help of some locals I loaded both mine and Emilys motorbikes onto the tiny deck of the slowboat. The first days slowboat held around 60 people and trudged its way against the current and through small rapids on the Mekong River for 7 hours up to Pak Beng, the midway point to Huay Xai.
Upon arriving to Pak Beng the boat driver pulled up to a steep rocky, muddy 40 foot bank that only contained about 50 steps leading to the top. He motioned to me that the bikes were to go to the top of the steps. I stood there shocked not knowing if I was understanding what he was trying to tell me.
After a few minutes 6 locals walked up and motioned that they would carry our bikes up the ramp for 100,000 kip ($12USD) each! That price was more than it cost for the boat ride to Pak Beng! In the end I negotiated them down to 10,000kip for each person. It’s safe to say carrying the two bikes up the rocks and steps had been one of the most stressful parts of my trip so far.
To my disappointment the next morning, the ordeal had to be repeated and more money shelled out to carry the bikes back down the steps and onto the deck of the boat. What made it even worse was that the boat we rode in on the day before was parked right next to the new boat we were taking that day, so it was literally as simple as leaving the bikes on the boat overnight and rolling them 5 feet over to the new boat deck the next day.
Adam Across Asia 