March 9, 2013

We were completely unmotivated to leave Vientiane early. It might have had something to do with staying up very later or having a few beers, but maybe not. We didn’t end up leaving Ian’s house until 1030am. We then had to stop by Three Sisters for one last noodle dish, finishing lunch around 1130am. On the way out of town, we stopped by the Patuxai Arch and the That Luang Stupa for a few photos. We finally made it out of town a little after noon.

Saying goodbye to Ian

The Patuxai Arch

An Alaskan and the Stupa

The ride out was not really interesting, because we were just cycling through industrial suburbs of the city. After a while we ended up on Highway 10 which was a more quiet meandering road than Highway 13, which is the main route north.

We started looking for a guesthouse after about 20 miles. We followed a sign on the main road and after a kilometer or so, found a brand new looking building with nobody around and the gate locked. We kind of stared at each other and the gate for a minute, thinking about what to do when a girl on a motorbike drove up and let us in.

Another man drove up a short time later and told us the price was 30,000 kip, but raised it to 50,000 kip when he found out we wanted to sleep there all night long. Then he raised it to 80,000 kip. What should have been a pretty simple transaction took well over five minutes with the man and the girl chattering back and forth (flashbacks to Vietnam), and for some reason seemed to be very confusing for them. Clearly, we were getting ripped off, but we were not in the mood to find another place to stay, we agreed to the price. Now the man wanted us to eat chicken at his house. We said no, and he said yes chicken, and we said no and went inside.

Sometimes we joke, but with some seriousness, that we like to stay at crappier places just because it gives us some extra motivation to get up and get going early the next day. This was a “motivating motel”.

We spent the remainder of the evening doing some much needed laundry in the sink and reading. I had a bit of an encounter with a couple local kids and their kitten. Animal cruelty seems to be everywhere in Asia, and these children were no exception when they picked up the kitten by it’s hind leg to swing it around. I really didn’t know how to react to the situation. The kids and I don’t speak the same language and I couldn’t take the kitten away for very long before they had to leave, so I just tried to set an example of being nice. I couldn’t handle watching the poor kitten get harassed, so we left to find dinner in the market.

February 26, 2013

The bus arrived at the Vientiane station a little after 5am. It took us about 20 minutes to get the bikes back together and get on the road. The bus station is a couple kilometers outside of town so we road in as the sun was rising.

We had breakfast at a nice café and waited until the Chinese embassy opened at 9am. We arrived along with a few other foreigners and chatted about the visa process. Everyone else was there for round two or more after finding out they were missing some critical piece of paper. A French guy told us that they were put through the ringer a bit more than other folks apparently because of a row resulting from a controversial state visit to France by a certain regional leader in exile…

The embassy opened at 9am and we handed over our applications and our photographs. We read that they would want two copies of the applications, which we had, but they actually only wanted one. The official quickly looked through all our paperwork, gave us a receipt, instructions to go to the Chinese bank for payment and told us we could pick up our passports on Friday morning. We walked out a little stunned as the whole process only took about 3 minutes. Now we wait, and hope that our applications are in order.

We found the bank on the main road into town and made our payment ($140 each since we’re American, $32 for everyone else).

We found a nice guesthouse and spent the hottest part of the day inside relaxing. For dinner we went to an Indian restaurant and ordered a feast.

Birthday feast

After dinner, we went bowling. We used to go bowling in the winter in Anchorage, so it seemed appropriate. It was so much fun, but we were both a little out of practice. The best part was the bowling alley here played the same American dance music as back home. Because it was Chan’s birthday, I let him win all three games.

Goofy shoes

Like a pro

Laying down another strike

We fell asleep quickly and early as we hadn’t slept well on the bus. Around 2am, we are both awoken by a dog, directly outside our window, howling. The guesthouse owners had about 5 or 6 dogs that they fed and kept in the courtyard. The howling lasted a few minutes before a staff member came out and started hushing the dog. The dog then started running around the courtyard howling. The person was eventually able to quiet the animal down to only have it start humping another dog. The humping continued until we both fell back asleep. Then for the remainder of the night, the dog started howling every half hour or so until 5am, with someone continuously and futilely shushing it. It was by far the worst night sleep we’ve had on the trip. Although the place was really nice in every other way, we had to find another place where we could sleep!

February 24, 2013

We already knew that we wouldn’t find breakfast in this weird little town so we starting riding right away. Chandler was already hungry (he is usually hungry, or almost hungry) so we stopped at a mini-bus station a few kilometers down the road and he finally got some meat on a stick, which is so common throughout SE Asia. This was a whole chicken leg BBQ’d and tied to a stick. He passed on the skewered BBQ beetles, though they were a steal at 5000 kip ($0.60) for a baker’s dozen of them. Chandler gave the chicken a thumbs up while munching away at it as he rode along. We were also able to catch a big accomplishment on camera, 2000 miles ridden!

Chandler's 1st breakfast

2000 miles!

Soon enough we came upon a road sign pointing out a nearby attraction, dinosaur footprints. We followed the arrow off onto dirt road that led us to the river where a number of people were bathing. It wasn’t clear where we were supposed to go, but a friendly man clearly realized why two goofy looking white folks were wandered down his road and pointed up the river. We took turns staying with the bikes while the other went to look at the prints. Someone had spray painted red circles around the prints, otherwise I never would have noticed them. But upon further inspections, it was clear that they were in fact footprints of some sort. Chandler assumed they were velosaraptors, but most of his paleontological knowledge is from multiple viewings of Jurassic Park (AND he read the book), but there wasn’t any information on display, so who knows what made the prints.

Looking for dino prints

Dinosaur prints

Back on the bikes, the road condition quickly deteriorated and we were in the middle of road construction. Not only are crappy roads rough to ride on, but it is very mentally draining weaving around holes and oncoming traffic also weaving around holes. I wasn’t going to make it very far without something to eat and pulled off at the first restaurant. We had our usual breakfast of omelets and steamed rice (no coffee, so a pepsi was offered and accepted, $2.50 total) and were now more ready to tackle the construction.

Lao surveyors

The construction lasted for about 20 miles when we reached a town with a guesthouse. It was hot out and the sun was broiling me alive. I made a comment to Chandler about stopping for the day, but he didn’t think I was serious. At 130pm, with 20 miles left, we hit another town with guesthouses. I made another attempt to stop for the day. At this point, we got into a bit of a disagreement. I wanted to take a break until it wasn’t so hot. Chandler wanted to either stay where we were in the little crossroads town or continue to Savannakhet. He didn’t want to take a long break and end up riding into a city as the sun was setting. Somehow it was decided we would get something cold to drink and figure out what we would do then, stay or continue. I pulled up to a place, but they only served beer. I was so hot, miserable and pissed off I continued to ride right out of town. I was pretty far ahead of him when I felt something hit my arm hard. I looked down and might have given off a girly little shriek, stopped and waited for Chandler to get the thing off me.

My attacker

That helped lighten the mood. We found a store with a cooler off the road right away and had a cold drinks and some ice cream. We were both feeling much better and ready to finish the ride to Savannakhet. We rolled into town a little more than an hour later. We found a guesthouse, took showers and checked our email. We were both happy to be in a larger city, it had been a week since we had access to the internet.

Finally made it to town

We set out for dinner pretty quickly after getting settled. The café we originally wanted to go to was closed, so we wandered around for awhile. We read that Savannakhet was quiet and not very touristy, but this was a bit of an understatement. The place was really quiet with parts of town feeling abandoned. Our Lonely Planet was outdated with most of the places listed to eat, not there anymore. We ended up at a French restaurant, which we later found out was the most expensive in town. It was worth it though. We got rolls with real butter and a big fresh salad. I had a bunch of small vegetarian morsels like stuffed tomatoes and a potato croquette, Chandler had tender beef served in a wine sauce. The meals were awesome, total bill $19. Budget blown, but feeling great we ended the evening with a walk along the Mekong River as the sun set.

Sunset