87. A short cut across Isaan

While the Mekong, the twelfth longest river in the world, finds a very gently downward sloping path southwards to Vientiane from Luang Prabang, Route 13, the main (only) highway embarks on a schizophrenic rampage over nearby mountains and only comes to its senses in the non-sensical town of Vang Vieng, where a golden triangle of backpackers, corrupt police and drug dealers meet on inner tubes to float downstream. Two young Australians had been the first victims of the year in separate incidents in the weeks before we passed through the party town.

Noodles!

Almost looks like the Sally Gap here... with a bit more altitude

The village had been pronounced as developed just two days previously!

Route 13, Laos

Siesta time in Thailand

Unfortunately Ellie picked up something on the day we left Luang Prabang and was sick on and off for the few days riding to Vientiane. Midway on our ascent to the mountain village of Kiewkacham on the first day out of Luang Prabang, Ellie went pale and we spent the night camping beside a local washing spot, just off the road, while Ellie returned her breakfast and lunch to mother earth. The next morning we slowly made it up to the summit and rested for the afternoon in a $5 guesthouse. We rode almost 100 km to Kasi the next day before Ellie came down again and the following morning at 6 a.m. I took up the offer that a passing tour group of Canadian cyclists had made the evening before about some antibiotics (our Chinese Cipro apparently not being very effective in South East Asia). The following days we passed through Vang Vieng before trading slopes for potholes as we rode the badly rutted highway towards the capital. South of Phon Hong a pedalling Greek orthodox priest appeared from the opposite direction. Yann left his home in Slovenia three years ago and his beard put mine to shame. We chatted about the joys of Rohloffs and our routes ahead until it got too hot. Why do cyclists always stand out in the midday sun for a chat?

Where's the ark? On the road to Udon Thani

After a couple of day's rest in Vientiane where we swatted mozzies and tried to see how many alternative cuisines we could fit into our meals after a couple of months of mostly noode soup. We managed four: Korean, Turkish, French, and Italian (if doughy pizza can be described as such). On the last day of our 30-day visa for Laos we rode up to the not particularly friendly Friendship Bridge and checked out of Laos and into Thailand. Straightaway things seemed a little more like home - cycling on the left-hand side of the road and buying apples from an enormous Tesco's supermarket just a couple of kilometres from the border. The culture shock (and the fact that the temperature had suddenly jumped to 36 celcius) had Ellie taking a nap in the hammock provided to us at a roadside cafe on the way to the region's capital of Udon Thani. Our idea was to make a shortcut through the northeastern region of Isaan and back into southern Laos before we cross into Cambodia.

Arriving into Sakon Nakhon a couple of days ago, Ellie decided it was time to continue our global cycling survey of local healthcare facilities. Ellie had a fairly consistent pain in her stomach for the past few days and the doctor at the hospital diagnosed an ulcer and prescribed medication after we received embarassingly fast service and seemed to be put into the express line of full waiting rooms. One hour and four euros later and we left. We've spent the last couple of days standing in the aisles of Tesco's admiring all the products on offer , watching some astoundingly bad TV shows and walking around the quiet city of Sakon.

Arriving into Sakon Nakhon

Camera goes crazy outside Sakon Nakhon hospital

Wat Phra That Choeng Chum, Sakon Nakhon

Sakon Nakhon, Thailand

Pedalled: 56,626 km

86. The land of a million elephants (...and 2 million hills)

In fact, these days there are far less elephants wandering around Laos than the 14th century when Prince Fa Ngum bestowed his kingdom with the wildly exaggerated quota of pachyderms to instill fear in his covetous neighbours. So far we've only spotted two specimens, as we caught a fleeting glimpse of two large rear ends and a mahout balanced precariously atop, swerve around a mountain bend in the back of an articulated truck and disappear down the twists and turns of a mountain road. We couldn't see their faces but I'm sure the experience for these large passengers wasn't dissimilar to the quesy-faced bus passengers we saw as a diesel drenching behemoth groaned past and began another slalom event.

The past fortnight has been characterised by hills. Generally spending our mornings going very slowly up them before enjoying an all too brief descent. The landscape of forest and cultivated hillslopes with only the occasional friendly roadside village dotting an otherwise remote and sparsely populated area in this region. As relentless as our central American baseline of the Guatemalan highlands by which we measure degrees of vertical improbability, the newly paved Laotian thoroughfares are at least generally well graded and traffic-less and have been a pleasure to ride on. Supplies available in the villages are generally only the most important, warm beer and canned mackeral, the lack of commerce clearly showing the dependence of the people on the surrounding forest. Over 70 per cent of the non-rice food consumed in rural Laos comes from the forest.

As in similar areas throughout the world, an increasing imbalance is occuring in the exploitation of natural resources and deforestation threatens to change a way of life. The difficulty between creating opportunities for robust rural livelihoods and conserving the foundation (the forest) that many of these livelihoods depend on is a difficult one. The presence of powerful forces in the rapidly developing economies surrounding Laos, particularly Thailand, China and Vietnam, has seen a huge influx of expertise in areas such as road and dam building, and a similarly huge outflux of raw materials, especially tropical hardwood.

Tourism is another recent industry in Laos. More cautiously welcomed perhaps since all the flaws and lesions of neighbouring Thailand's experience of the industry as a reminder of the pitfalls as well as the prosperity that tourism can bring. A conscious attempt at preventing cultural erosion is evident in the signs as well as the guidebooks, appealing to visitors to respect the unique and fragile culture they are witnessing, is admirable but hardly sufficient. This morning in Luang Prabang we rose before dawn to watch the monks from the many monasteries collect alms along the streets from the devout. As the highest grade sticky rice and ripe bananas were put into the monk's collection bowls, crowds of tourists (from both near and far), poked their camera lenses and flashes into the monk's faces, surrounding the procession like paparazzi and left both of us with a feeling of saddness and violation. Last night the English-speaking owner of the guesthouse we're in here in Luang Prabang talked about the changes, positive and negative, that he has witnessed in his native city and while he has invested in the industry he fears the impact that the outside will have on the way of life here.

After our sobering visit to the alms collection this morning, our faith was restored in fellow travelers when we were invited to a breakfast of coffee and sandwiches with a Dutch-Canadian couple in their sixties who reminisced about their own experiences, beginning in rural Zambia in the early 70s. The allure of Laos, with its quiet rural roads and the very friendly demeanor of many people, has drawn us in and we're really enjoying our time here. Ten years ago I'd spent a couple of months here on an internship with Concern, an Irish NGO that has since left the country due to financial constraints but we did manage to see some of the legacy of their work in Hua Phan province and most importantly managed to find a water pump that they had put in place with which to fill our water bottles.

Luang Prabang, Laos
Pedalled: 55,967 km

85. Goodbyeeeeeee Vietnam, hello Laos

After an extended stay in Hanoi due to Ellie getting a cold in time for Christmas and then giving it to me, it was almost 2012 before we left Vietnam's historical capital for the quiet roads of the Red River delta. By New Year's Eve we had made it to Ninh Binh but the city had little enthusiasm for any celebrations for the Gregorian New Year and was saving itself for the Tet festival later this month. Despite a valiant effort we were back home in bed and lights out before the New Year arrived.

 Hanoi

 Bun cha in Hanoi

From Ninh Binh our westerly route traversed karst peaks before leaving the flat coastal plain and climbing into the hills to Cuc Phuong national park. On our map of Southeast Asia the mountains ripple northwestwards, all the way to the Himilayas. Cuc Phuong is an island of tranquility and respect for furry things and we spent a day visiting the endangered primates and turtle conservation centres before pedaling and walking around the park. By night we camped near the entrance and woke each morning to the siren-like howls of the gibbons waking up in the rescue centre. On our second morning I climbed out of the tent and into the fetid pit latrine that is being slowly reclaimed by the forest and conducted the morning's ablutions only to discover some internal bleeding. Alarmed and confident that my days were numbered as the rare tropical disease that I'd contracted was going to dissolve my organs, it was decided that a trip back to Hanoi's medical facilities was a good idea before continuing our journey into the remoter corners of Laos. Leaving our bikes and gear with the staff at the park, we bussed it back to Hanoi, where a French-accented doctor diagnosed a large internal hemorrhoid as the culprit and explained that many a foreigner's digestive tract succumbs to the fibre-less white rice diet.

Getting back to our bikes was a test of will against the Vietnamese public transport systems. Our bus ride proceeding smoothly but we were foiled at the last hurdle when a pair of motorbike taxi highwaymen tried to swindle us before abandoning us by the roadside several kilometres from the park's entrance. Lots of shouting and loss of face all-round saw us back on the bikes and dropped to the entrance, both of us delighted to see our bikes again. Such incidents are unfortunately very common in Vietnam with travellers frequently being overcharged obscene amounts as well as being threatened or actually evicted from the bus or motorbike unless a substantial sum is paid. The following morning after the gibbons told us it was time to pack our tent and head off into the cold drizzle we chatted with a German lady who quite matter-of-factly told us how she had gotten lost in the forest three days previously whilst out for a short walk and spent two nights surviving on water from leaves and her own urine (although this is a diuretic in case you want to try this at home) before eventually finding her way back to a trail.

Three days riding brought us up to the remote and quiet border crossing at Na Meo, during which time our faith was once again restored in humanity by the friendly locals we met along the way. Our days were still loud however, with the ear-splitting horns a feature of every moving vehicle, and even the children's shrieks of hello seemed disproportionately loud to their small bodies. After months of Sino-Vietnamese traffic, we crossed into tranquil Laos and spent our first day riding steep hills and along valleys with dried-out paddy fields surrounding bucolic villages while people smiled and said sabaidee to us amidst the background noise of ducklings, chickens and piglets.

On the Ho Chi Minh Highway: drying cassava

At Cuc Phuong rescue centre

Into Laos

Vieng Xai was our first stop in the land of a million elephants (although only two thousand have survived). A visit to the communist Pathet Lao's base in the limestone cliffs provided a memorable introduction to Laos. The revolutionaries had sheltered here during the nine year bombardment that began in the early 60s when the US Air Force and it's CIA owned private company Air America waged an aerial war in Laos that earned the country the sad statistic of being the most bombed country in the world per capita, with over 2 million tons of munitions being dropped during the covert campaign. The terrible legacy of the war lives on in the form of unexploded ordnance, particularly cluster bombs, that has claimed 12,000 casualties since 1973 in Laos.

Another hill or two and we reached the provincial capital of Sam Neua yesterday, still shrouded by a cold grey sky that has hung over us for the past several weeks and daytime temperatures only barely making it into the double digits at times. The local police volleyball team were celebrating a recent victory with Beer Lao and grilled goat yesterday evening at a bamboo shack and we were invited to join the party, while today involved washing clothes and trawling the market for supplies for our onward journey.

Noodles

Sam Neua, Laos
Pedaled: 55,354 km

84. On the Red River: Christmas in Hanoi

The last days in Guangxi took us along national road G322, cruising through a landscape of rolling cane fields by day and camping under a couple of solitary stars by night, punctuated by short and friendly encounters with people harvesting the cane or manning the food stalls. Twenty kilometres before the rather lively border town of Ping Xiang, we were stopped by the roadside when a Japanese cyclist, Naotsugu, rolled up behind us. He'd passed us by two days previously but he didn't spot us and for some reason I hesitated to shout, and he sailed on by. Somewhere along the road we'd overtaken him and today our paths crossed again. We rode on together to town and shared a room for our final night in China.

By midday on Sunday 18th December, we'd covered the final 20 km to the frontier and passed through the impressive colonial-era archway at Youyiguan Pass that had separated French-ruled Indochina from the Middle Kingdom. An imposing modern metal edifice marked the official end of our stay in China and at the last checkpoint the stone-faced guard turned and looked at us as we pushed our bikes into Vietnam and gave a warm smile and a child-like wave. Another friendly official processed us into Vietnam and we rolled down to the frenetic border town of Dong Dang, with motorbikes ferrying large cardboard boxes that were stacked precariously on the pillion seat and screamed downhill in a kamikaze attack on pedestrians and free-range fowl.

Before steering towards the capital of Hanoi, we decided to spend a couple of days exploring the hills and backroads around Langson province and we headed northeast to That Khe along Highway 4. Built during the colonial period and closely following the border with China, Route Coloniale Quatre was the lifeline linking the garrison towns from the coast, to Langson and up to Cao Bang and later became the site of important battles between the French forces and the Viet Minh in the late 40s and early 50s. The most important of these happened on 3rd September 1949 when a convoy of French forces (the term French including in this instance North and West Africans, pro-French Vietnamese and foreign legion units as well as French themselves) was attacked by the Viet Minh guerrillas who had been perfecting their ambush strategies along the mutilated limestone landscape and densely forested slopes in the previous 24 months. The 100-truck convoy was attacked on the last leg of its route to Cao Bang and over half of the vehicles were destroyed. When relief troops arrived the following day, only four wounded soldiers were found alive.

The RC 4 ambush was just the climax of many ambushes on this road but it marked a turning point in French tactics that led to bases being established that were supplied by air rather than the treacherous land routes, but ultimately were to fail too, most famously at the battle of Dien Bien Phu where the Viet Minh demonstrated to the rest of the watching world that it was possible for guerrilla units to transform themselves into regular army units and take on colonial forces and achieve victory, albeit with vital support from a newly Communist China.

Last days in Guangxi province 

 Leaving China at Youyiguan Pass border gate into Vietnam

On Highway 4, first day in Vietnam 

Getting Christmas dinner ready 

After a couple of quiet and relatively peaceful days in the hills of Langson, we left our room in the industrial city of Thai Nguyen yesterday morning with tender heads after having been invited by a group of men to dinner at their table the previous evening. Through an almost impenetrable language barrier we toasted our thimble-sized ceramic cups of free-flowing rice wine to anything and everything whilst feasting on a wide-ranging assortment of fried crustaceans, pork, tofu and vegetables. It didn't help our empty stomachs and gradually fading heads that rice is apparently reserved for the post-toasting phase of the meal when the damage has already been done. Concentration was quickly forced back, however, on the busy ride into Hanoi with ear-splitting horns on overtaking trucks and buses keeping us focused on the narrow road as motorbikes weaved past in an endless stream of dust and bedlam and the occasional English vulgarity. Traffic ground to a halt on the outskirts of the city and our two wheels once again proved themselves at being much more versatile and efficient as we steered our way through the gridlock and over the Red River on Long Bien bridge and into the mayhem of the colonial-era Old Quarter streets where we are taking a few days off.

On the streets of Hanoi...

Merry Christmas!

Hanoi, Vietnam
Pedalled: 54,828 kilometres