8 Years in Thailand: Part 2 - Bike Trip (Oct 2014) - Nan (Thailand), Huay Gon, Xaynabouri (Laos)

Trip Dates - October 22 - Nov 2, 2014.

Part 2, Bike trip to Laos.

Again, the general idea of the route we took was-

North from Bangkok, West across the border in Nan province, West through North/Central Laos, turned South after reaching Luang Prabang, down to the capital of Vientiene, then continued South through North-Eastern Thailand (Esaan) towards Bangkok.

* I give the trip a bit more detail at the end of the article :) *

Some interesting things I would recommend noting before taking a trip in Laos…

*Population/Geography: Laos’ population has only just reached 7 million people, and its largest city has just over 120,000 inhabitants (the Provincial capital of Suwannaket). All terms like “city” and “town” in Laos will be on Laos scale. A “Baan” (Village, the smallest Thai designation) in Thailand might have up to or more than 1,000 people, may have a 7-11 convenience store, a temple (or 5), it will definitely have at least one restaurant, and at least one type of public transport to/from the town. A “Baan” in Laos however, might be only 8 houses, without electricity and possibly without piped water, situated loosely around a central water source (river or a well). Depending on the time of day, you might not even see a single person. All this to say; if you’re in a tight spot, even if you can speak Thai/Thai-Esaan/Laos language, asking for the next “town” in Laos might not bring what you were hoping for…

**Language: If you can get someone to speak slowly, knowing Thai language well will give you enough to be able to understand basic Laos. People in Northern Laos however, don’t speak Laos, they more often speak tribal dialects (VERY diverse area) or they speak Chinese. I live alone in Esaan, I speak Thai decently, I can read and write quite well, and I would say I only understand the most basic of stuff while traveling anywhere in Laos that is not near a Thai border. Along the Thai border it is a very different story, you can just speak Thai normally as all the people there spend their evenings watching Thai TV (Soap Operas) which they can pick up across the river. Also, most higher education learning materials will be printed in Thai, so if you can write in Thai, and get someone to sit with you long enough to have a written conversation, you might be able to work things out this way, if you so desire :)

***Currency: Laos Kip, pronounced like its written, exchanges at 8,000 Kip for 1 $USD. In 4 years it has not varied enough to make much difference, but this is 8,000 to 1 $USD as of October 2014.

Hotel prices in Laos are actually, on average, higher than in Thailand, as well as prices of food! If you are eating only the most basic and local cuisine, then yes it will still be super cheap. Cheap as in you can easily get full for less than $1. Of course, you have to be up for eating the most basic food too.

****Food: Several times, I had a large plate of Laos Som Tam, A Gra-Thip of Sticky Rice (the bamboo container rice is kept in), some raw vegetables on the side, and a cup of their filtered water, for 5,000 Kip (20 Baht). Aside from Som Tam, Laos people also eat chicken/pig bone/cow bone soup with vegetables, and a chili paste eaten like a dip for raw and/or steamed vegetables; this is what they eat pretty much every day. The fermented fish is used in almost every recipe, and the smell will either make you hungry, or turned off to Laos food very quickly. (After about 2 years I finally got used to it, and now I can’t get enough of it! I never choose to order regular Som Tam Thai for myself again!)

In the cities you can find much, much, more, but we were in the countryside. So if you want to eat local, if you can stomach it (a lot of it is raw, what isn’t raw you may also have to worry about the precautions taken for cleanliness while it was cooked), then yes you will eat for very cheap! Here, I can recommend several awesome variations of the standard fare:

Bla Raa Bong - another spicy dip made with shredded meat from the fermented fish, and again, chillies, salt, and garlic.

Jaew Hawn - Laos style hot-pot, a clay bowl filled with Laos herbs, every edible part of a pig, and white rice noodles.

Tam Makaam - Laos style Som Tam made with young Tamarind, extremely sour, amazing!

Tam Gluay - Som Tam made with unripe bananas, wonderfully bitter, a bit sweet, and again very sour.

and my favorite from this trip…

Jaew Bee Ngua - salty, very spicy dip, with shallots, lemon grass/lime juice, garlic, and the special ingredient of Cow Bile!

Laos people love to eat huge bowls of Viet style noodles, they are expensive (by comparison), at about 3$ per bowl, but good luck eating the whole bowl alone!

We had the Jaew Bee with Grilled Pig Brain, and we enjoyed this dish with the father of some students we met playing by the side of the road in front of our first night’s home stay (250 Baht). He invited us in after hearing us speak Thai (I assume…), and we had an awesome chat while finishing a large Gra-Thip of Sticky rice, rice from his own field, the cow bile dip, the pig brains, some salad, and a few bottles of wonderfully sweet Beer Laos.

In my opinion, the best beer in Asia. Made from Luk Deu-ai, a local type of cereal, similar to oatmeal, this lager does not use wheat/barley, the beer has quite a sweet flavor, and it is is also cheap! The best beer for less money! And! BeerLaos also makes the only dark beer I have seen in SouthEast Asia. Less common, but keep your eyes open!

If you do not want to eat local food, then you might be surprised at how much it costs for just a very simple stir-fried dish. A normal plate of fried vegetables over rice in Thailand is 30 baht, 35-40 for a larger portion, and in Laos it was minimum 10,000 Kip, but usually 15,000 Kip (60 Baht). Fried Rice, Pad See Eew, Pad Kee Mao, Pad Krapow, any of the common single-dish stir-fried meals in Thailand, ranged from 50-80 Baht. Still, yes, its only 2$ for a meal, in the long run the cost of the Laos visa and the cost of the room are always much more than food, but just be aware that they see fried dishes, I am meaning Thai stir-fry dishes, as food for people with a bit more money. Its kind of a cool thing to eat these fast-food style dishes now, I see less and less people eating family style when they go to their local street side restaurants/street carts, and Laos people know this.

I did have though, on this trip, the single best Pad Pak Ruam ever (translates as “Fried-Vegetables-Mixed”)! The simple stir-fried vegetable mix of spinach, carrots, baby corn, young tomatoes, fish sauce, sugar, oyster sauce, chilies, and garlic, available at every Ahaan Thaam Sung (translates to “Food-Follow-Order”) street stall in Thai, Laos, and Cambodia… we found one lady who must have just mastered this recipe. It was definitely the first time that I have ordered back-to-back dishes of the same simple recipe, I couldn’t believe her skills! So while Laos cooking is much more basic than most Thai food, in no way should you expect to have to “deal with” a week of Laos food.

(I don’t want to sound mean here at all! Its just a very valid fear that, after living in Thailand this long, after being lucky enough to eat Thai food/Esaan Food/Southern Thai food whenever I want, when traveling to other countries its an immediate and real concern that my sights are set unreasonably high. The flavors of Thai food are dangerously delicious! I make no move to deny - I am ridiculously spoiled here when it comes to food.) …

Finally, for general things to know when traveling in Laos, there seems to be a minimum price of 5,000 Kip (20 Baht) for any single, small item, anywhere. Paying 1,000 Kip to use a washroom is the only exception I can think of. You might pick up 1 guava at the market, “Ha Pan Kip,” (“ha” - five, “pan,” - thousand) ask to pay in Baht, it will be “Sao Baht” (“sao” - twenty). Later, you might buy a whole kilo of guavas for the same price; 5,000 Kip :) Bottle of water, that will be “Sao Baht.” Adding some extra tomatoes to your dish, you might hear, “Perm Eek Sao Baht,” (‘perm,” - add, “eek,” - more :) )…

I did try to pay with Baht more often than not, as opposed to changing money that I was unsure of finishing, so maybe it was just merchants trying to make an extra cut off of tourism. I have heard plenty of Thai people joking about “Sao Baht, Sao Baht” when traveling in Laos too though, so it does seem to be just a set minimum price for any market item.

If you want to change all your money into Kip, be ready to receive some fresh 100,000 Kip notes, and be ready for no one to have change for them. They definitely can! They have just all agreed, unspoken, smiling agreement, to not do it. All the 100,000 notes seemed to be in perfect condition, while it was hard to find a note of any other denomination that wasn’t heavily worn and/or slightly torn.

Not that I’ve lived in Laos, or been there long enough to say anything that really matters, it is just a funny observation - I didn’t actually see a single Laos person use the 100,000 note, every time I have been to Laos, every time I saw a hundred, it was in the hand of a foreigner :)

Anyways, use the 100,000’s to pay for your hotel room, and 50,000’s seem to be acceptable for use at most market stalls…

Oh, Remember! The 5,000 and 50,000 are both red, and the 1,000 and 10,000 are both blue. I have a good friend who can’t seem to make himself mind the difference, and not one, but two Thai drivers of Tuk-Tuk vehicles have driven off with huge smiles when my friend paid 32 $USD for a 5 minute ride.

ok, enough poking fun at tourists who don’t care about travel details…

———————————————— Oct. 26th-27th, 2014.

The 5th day of the trip, just crossed the border into Laos, we continued to stick to side roads wherever possible - and today, twice we took roads that we wish we hadn’t. Both of these were in the 100km stretch from Hongsa, Laos, to Xaynabouri, Laos. Very dangerous roads through the hills, only wide enough for motorcycles to pass each other. Of course trucks tried to use this road as well, a route full of blind hairpin turns, very steep as well, making it a very, very, dangerous decision. The only benefit was, like the two previous days as eel, it was filled with stunningly beautiful scenery at every turn! The green hills were so awesome, no power lines, just the occasional river and then unbroken trees for literally as far as you could, sometimes in every direction! The only thing that kept me going, thats for sure. The pair of us were very lucky to only have 1 crash during these 10 days of riding…

The best place of the whole trip for the specific looking-out-across-the-hills thing, was the stretch before reaching the central town of Amphoe Chalerm Pra Kiet, Nan Province, Thailand. Heading West from Tung Chang towards Chalerm, there is a stretch of about 500 meters where it is almost a sheer drop off on BOTH sides of the road! I don’t know how the road does not erode away, maybe it will crumble soon enough… so go while its still sturdy! It was actually breath-taking. Speaking of breath, we were so out of breath by this point due to the size of the hills needing to be climbed to reach said double sheer drop offs, it may have partially due to hallucinations from thirst, but anyways; I remember it as one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. SO green, endlessly green, so many different shades between the trees, normal grass, the fields of rice (the combination of sticky rice and jasmine rice which together have SO many different shades of green already), its hard to describe.

It was one of those lucky moments too where, when in the middle of a great minute in life, the fluffy white clouds which have filled the sky, giving you a nice bit of shade and break from the sun’s heat, part perfectly, just at the right time, to give the added effect of endless shadows over the wide landscape beneath your vision, the kind of snap shot that National Geographic photographers seem to know how to find so well.

Im sure what I saw that day is part of some calendar somewhere, a proud shot displaying the raw beauty that Northern Thai people still imagine their entire homeland to be. These forests have been, and still are being today, cut down at a rapid rate. Really these sights are becoming more and more rare (through all the world! Thailand is definitely a minor case in this matter, just a very relative case to me. In Madagascar they are already gone, in all the Amazon countries they will be gone soon…Canada, USA, ah… China!), remember that those trips of your dreams (and mine) may not be there for much longer! Take an hour today to dream about one, plan it out tonight, buy your ticket tomorrow, and get out there!

———————————

Bike riding in Thailand and Laos can find you traveling over VERY nice roads, brand new, not a pothole in sight, OR they might be washed out remnants of a 20 year old cement unfinished road (money gone to fund a party for the governor or what have you), and now the reinforcing bars that were once useful in holding the road together are now sticking out at extremely hazardous angles waiting for the next unwary bike tire… I think its fun to take both types (my town of Chumpuang has both extremes), also all the un-paved varieties in between, but its best to be ready for poor road conditions. The first 2 days in Laos were mostly the poor conditions part.

A road with hills measuring grades of 12 degrees will usually be marked (are all marked, but maybe the signs have fallen over), and after leaving this area you might wish for grades of ONLY 12 degrees! Every single hill was 9, many were 12, some were 15, and we even passed a few marked at 21 degrees. On the old trail (I won’t even call it a ‘road,’ we had the misfortune of getting directions from a very confident and very incorrect individual on the way), we even came over one hill that my GPS said was 25 degrees!

I don’t even know how a road could be made that steep, how the trucks could even get up there, maybe it was just made by hands and shovels… anyways, take my word for it, these were quite unsafe hills. No need to complain further about how difficult they were to climb, but I almost preferred climbing! The descents were so steep that my brakes were screaming almost immediately, I use disk brakes and I could smell them burning, and even while braking I still easily reached 60kph descending. Very dangerous… Luckily these are unpopulated areas, otherwise it would literally be suicidal to frequent these roads. We saw about 1 car per hour, 1 motorbike every 10 minutes. So not many people to crash into, but the flip-side means that there won’t be many people to help in an emergency either.

I’m by no means a professional biker, I don’t have much experience riding with super strong riders, but it would be so impressive to hear of anybody making more than 30-40km per day in this section of Laos roads.

Fun to ride across a country border, its actually quite a distance between the Thai checkpoint and the Laos, usually they are easy walking distance apart.

We made it by this back way, the ‘only’ way, recommended by a lovely but quite wrong (more later) old man, to the lovely little town of Na Poong. I would guess about 500 inhabitants, they had their own health clinic, they had a small bus stop (4 local buses per day), and they had 2 restaurants (1 of them was still open at 830pm).

2km back down the road however, at the bottom of the steepest of today’s hills, my friend took quite a spill. I remember seeing my speedometer at 52kph, then I was braking and praying, holding my breath and gritting my teeth as I hit unexpected gravel at the bottom of a decently paved super-steep slope - the gravel turned into rocks and sand, I slid a bit but managed to keep my balance and the road evened out… my friend was not so lucky. His bike was also heavier, making his sliding even harder to control. I anxiously and quickly looked back over my shoulder and watched him complete two horrible barrel rolls, smack the ground face first, and slide into the bushes. His helmet had cracked completely through, front to back, and he made it through with only a bruised nose, a black eye, and some light to medium scrapes from his fingertips all the way up to his shoulder. So lucky, and so thankful to the helmet for doing its job!! He was quite sore for a week, but nothing more! Very thankful…

This was the hill my buddy slid out on, I had actually taken a photo of this hill before we descended, it was so steep and that curve there made me nervous... Yep. Learning experiences...

We waited a few minutes, checked that everything was ok, and my friend actually got back on his bike and with the help of the adrenaline I’m sure, he made it to Nah Poong. I had some awesome chats with the little kids who brought us antiseptic and cotton balls, it was easy to laugh with them as they each had on the t-shirt of a different super hero, and it ended up turning into a great way to get our minds off of thinking about really how badly my friend could have been hurt.

We had two plates of Som Tam Laos (Laos style Papaya Salad), a Bla Raa Tod (a fermented fish fried with chillies and red onions), and Kaow Neow (sticky rice). By this point it was 830pm, quite too dark to go anywhere (these roads had VERY few working lights, but actually even these surprised me as the power was off when we arrived, we just thought there weren’t any lights to begin with…we didn’t see a working light on until the next day’s ride). We asked the lady for a hotel recommendation, and she just smiled. She wondered how we thought Na Poong would have accommodation, and she recommended us what Im sure was a nice place back in the town of Hongsa, the town we had just left.

A few minutes talking, wondering if she would allow us to sleep on the floor of the restaurant, and we decided there was nothing to do but go back. Luckily we had lights on our bikes, very awesome too the fact that my friend was up for riding again, so we rode the 18km back onnnn, WHAT? What did we see at the intersection?? A nice smooth road!?? Yep, the old man who ‘showed us the way’ earlier that afternoon either failed to mention, or was unaware, that there was a fine new road NEXT to, not through, the hills we braved that afternoon. Most other places on this trip we purposely took the smaller roads, safer due to less traffic and definitely more peaceful, more preferable in pretty much every way, EXCEPT this one. We couldn’t believe we went through so much danger unnecessarily, and tried not to be annoyed at the nice old man’s terrible recommendation…

We made it back, easily found a hotel in Hongsa (there were TONS of options, at least 20 hotels/bungalows in an unbroken row entering town, places for all the Chinese and Burmese workers at the huge unfinished power plant down the road, coming into town to enjoy their weekends/days off.) We stayed in quite a nice room for 80,000 Kip (320 Baht), and my friend enjoyed the chance to sleep in the next morning.

The huge power plant nearly completed, in the town of Hongsa. Thanks to this project, there is a huge road, the first big road in the area. The road comes from the capital in Central Laos, and will continue to Luang Prabang in the North. Due to the low population of Laos however, it was common to have 15 minutes without seeing a single vehicle either direction.

The next day we rode back, definitely choosing the nice, wide road this time, made it to Nah Poong in no time at all by comparison with the previous day. We had more Som Tam to thank the lady for looking after us the night before, but unfortunately discovered that the nice road did end in Nah Poong. The only option onwards, the next 90km, would be back to the 1 lane super dangerous and super steep hill local road. We even debated turning back to Hongsa, even all the way back to Thailand, to find a different way around to Luang Prabang, but just then one of the 4 daily buses to Xayabouri passed us. It was a minibus with a roof rack, and we paid 120,000 Kip each (480 Baht) to get from Nah Poong to Xayabouri.

The views on this road were Stunning. Absolutely Gorgeous. I wished the entire way that I had the nerve, the energy, and the bravery, to bike what we were riding through. I felt like we had somehow cheated, but kept my mouth shut in light of my buddy’s bloody arm and sore neck. It will still be there for a long time to come, I can always go back… This trip was really a learning experience after all, I have never done a full trip like this. No point in having hard feelings over someone else’s lack of preparation when I myself was not fully ready either… but! I was jealous of anyone who could make it unsupported through this area, it would be a hard trip but VERY well worth the effort!! Did I mention how beautiful the scenery was yet?

Actually, sitting there in the bus bouncing through these turns gave me time to think about the individual lives of many of the people we passed. It was rare to see a power line, several of the towns obviously had no running water, and my favorite sight, yes I’m saying this, in no perverted way, was seeing one entire village bathing together in the river.

It made me think of SO many things that would be improved in my life experiences if I was more comfortable being naked. I thought of all the times I’ve been nervous about my own body, whether it was my own lack of confidence while changing in the school locker room, whether it was my inability to relax around any cute girls really from the time I was 10 years old, all the way into university, or whether its just the annoyance of having to deal with temptation in my own mind still to stop from thinking what others look like naked, what they might think of how I look when naked… So many things times of discomfort I can think about would greatly be improved if people from my culture were more confident with personal nudity.

I had the good fortune the next day in Luang Prabang to meet a Wonderful couple from Finland, fortunate for the point of this discussion as well as many many others (mostly unrelated to nudity :) ). I know that Finnish people enjoy a great Sauna culture, they always have to have their Saunas close by wherever they live, (from the USA, to Kenya, to Laos, and obviously every family in Finland itself), and they do not separate genders or ages when they all enter the Sauna together. This couple was very cool, very chill, very ready (they definitely spoke English as well as I do :) ) to have an honest talk about any subject in the world. At this moment, one of the things on my mind was the personal nudity thing, so I asked them many questions… And yes, I think I see many areas in which Northern European’s lives are improved, and conversely many areas in which North American’s lives suffer, from people’s personal comfort in the presence of another’s nudity.

This could definitely be a huge discussion, as of course there are cultures that even go much further than North America, like the Middle East, where females cover their entire bodies completely whenever in a public setting. And not that there isn’t also a wide degree of difference family by family, around the entire world, when it comes to how parents choose to raise their children. I would like to hear (intelligent) reasons for and against what I have said, but for the point of writing about the bike trip I will say no more on this subject.

SO, we arrived at the Xayaburi bus terminal, (picture below), and from there it was a quick jog to any one of several hotels in the area. The bus terminal is actually about 3 km to the North of the town of Xayabouri, but where we stayed, quite near the bus station, was much more quiet and welcoming. For 50,000 Kip a night (200 Baht), we had a Fan room with the standard furnishings, Queen bed, TV, Hot water heater, Hot shower-water heater, 2 bottles of water, clean floor. I don’t remember the name of the place, but it was a lovely family of 4 ladies running their own restaurant in front, very obvious as you come South from the Bus Terminal, reaching the first (probably only) intersection. Turn right (West), and proceed 50 meters, the Hotel is on the Left Hand side.

One thing to watch out for, the chef at the restaurant showed us a menu of all single-order dishes (of which we each ordered one plate), but then made each of the dishes into portion sizes to share. The price was 3 times more than what was shown in the menu, yes the plates of food were huge, so I can’t say we were overcharged… but just be ready in case something needs clarification. Beer Laos here also seemed to be the sweetest, maybe there was a brewery nearby, and 2 large bottles for 40 Baht each made it a great time as we sat, alone, listening to the DJ (a 13 year old boy) play for us all his favorite Thai songs (songs that my friend knew by heart as they were all songs that his father listened to :) Other parts of Laos are starting to develop quickly, but in the North, where we were anyways, was still awesomely traditional, easy-going, and wonderfully undeveloped. We were escorted back to our room by flashlight as, again, the power is cut off at night.) An ok day, ended by a super great countryside night!

Final part of this trip, continued in the next article…

Love! and Peace! Thanks for reading.

A lot of notes:

In Thailand… In Laos…

J = Jangwat (Province) K = Kwaeng (Province)

M = Meuang (Provincial Capital - Large Town) N = Nakorn (Provincial Capital - Large Town)

A = Ampoe (District - Moderate Sized Towns) M = Meuang (Town - Medium to Small Town)

T = Tambon (Sub-District - Small Towns) B = Baan (Village - Small Neighbourhood)

and the Meuang Luang, the Capital City, is Bangkok and the Nakorn Luang, is Vientiene

(be ready! The Laos Capital on maps is spelled by French Colonists, its really pronounced “Wieng Jan!”

Oh, and Laos is pronounced “Lao”… NO “s” sound!)

* Locations along the way, in more detail, as referenced above after paragraph 3.*

I rode alone from my house in Chumpuang, Nakon Ratchasima to the Korat Provincial Train station (100km).

Train (North Eastern line, BKK-NK) from Nakon Ratchasima town to Bangkok. (Six hours)

Met up with my friend in Bangkok, the normal train, 2nd class seats with a fan, was 316 Baht + 90 B for a Bike.

Train (Northern line, BKK-CM) from Bangkok, disembarking at Den Chai, in Phrae Province. (Ten hours)

Rode from Den Chai into Nan, then further North, on to the Huay Kon border crossing (300km).

- Crossed into Laos.

Rode to Luangprabang by way of Hongsa, Saynabouri (Xayaburi), and Nan. (230km)

Parted ways with my friend, rode on alone.

Rode South by way of Vang Vieng to the Laos capital of Vientiane. (300km)

- Crossed into Thailand.

Train from Nongkhai Province to Bua Yai, Nakon Ratchasima. (Five hours)

Rode back to my house from Bua Yai. (60km)

Total Distance, Approx. 1000 km.

* Now, finally, details for people using this article for future bike trips of their own! *

Riding Hitching/Bus

Day

1 - Phrae Train Station to

Wat Pra Tat Cho Hae (Easy 39km), A. Mae Lai to A. Rong Kwang (19km)

riding on Route 1022,

then to A. Mae Lai - (Easy 23km) (Hitched due to Rain)

2 - Rong Kwang into J. Nan, on to A. Wieng Sa (Medium 36km)

A. Wieng Sa, turn North towards M. Nan (Easy 26km)

Route 101, from Intersection to M. Nan - (Easy 26km)

3 - M. Nan to T. Pa Leo Luang, (Easy 22km) T. Pa to A. Santisuk (Crazy! 10km)

then A. Santisuk via Route 1169 (Hitched due to Injury)

to A. Pua via route Route 1081 (Medium 37km)

4 - A. Pua to A. Tung Chang (Medium 39km),

on to T. Pon (Medium 12km). T. Pon to A. Chalerm Pra Kiet (Crazy! 16km)

(Hitched due to lack of ability to climb SUCH hills :) )

A. Chalerm Pra Kiet over into LAOS,

Finally, border to M. Chieng Ngen (Medium 7km)

5 - M. Chieng Ngen to N. Hongsa (Hard 24km),

then Hongsa to M. Na Poong (Crazy! 18km) M. Na Poong to Xayabouri (Crazy! 90km)

(Hitched due to lack of ability, but really personal safety!)

Part 3, Xayabouri back to Thailand - the next article!

I LOVE Laos style Som Tam, made with Red Onions! They also use the tomatoes a bit earlier (less ripe) from the vine, making the dish that much more sour. As always, fermented fish (Bla-Ra, in Laos Bla-Daek), and a cool addition of Wing Bean on the side!