On Monday night we were awakened by the sound of thundering rain on our bungalow roof at the Lingngum Resort. Would we be able to ride to Vientiane in the morning??
At 6 am things were damp and grey but the rain had stopped so we set out to ride the 95k to Vientiane, capital of Lao. Brilliant green paddy fields, only one Parker Mountain type mountain, and many, many little kids yelling, helloooo!. The sky kept threatening rain which was a blessing as it meant the sun wasn't beating down on our heads. At 70k we stopped at one of the kazillion watermelon stands that lined the road and sucked back two of the sweetest, juiciest melons ever. Watermelon man shook out his dusty straw mat for us to sit on under a tarpaulin and hacked up the fruit. Then brought over his family for us to meet.
Arrived in Vientiane around 2:30 pm, feeling quite pleased with ourselves and quite hot and dirty. The Lanni Guest House welcomed us with ice cold water in the room frig, high ceiling with lovely fan, big screened windows with wooden shutters and a terrace that wrapped around the second floor looking out over the garden and neighboring wat,. It's an old French villa, very 1930’s, with padded doors (!), an armoire to actually HANG CLOTHES in. If I may digress: most people here seem to keep clothes in big plastic boxes or chests and whatever needs hanging gets hung on the verandah or in the garden. After hitting the local ‘falong’ supermarket which had things like wine and cheese, we retired to the balcony. Heaven. Vientiane is spread out along the Mekong, a slow dusty place, with wide boulevards, many one-way streets, and many streets undergoing major surgery so it's easy to get lost which we did with astonishing regularity. We did manage to find a few of the patisseries and cafes that are a legacy of the French. Vive la France!
We went to the National Museum to look at dusty badly reproduced photos of the 'secret war' waged by the American imperialists. There was a diorama of the caves where the Pathet Lao hid out from the US carpet bombing. Honestly, it looked like green blobs of clay with a pencil hole poked in each blob! True to form, they said they closed at noon for one hour, but at 11:30 am when I arrived to join Nat they didn't want to let me in because 'we are closing now'. When I explained that I was meeting my husband and would be quick they relented.
Our next adventure was the great search for a pharmacy. Nat had come down with a bad head cold so I set off in search of something called ‘Tiffy’. We think it’s a decongestant; we’ve used it before when feeling cold-y; costs about .30 cents /4 pills and available at pharmacies, corner stores, just about everywhere. So off I go in search of the nearest pharmacy. It seems Vientiane only has 2 pharmacies, both located at the southern end of town, near the hospital. This I discover after hiking to the hospital and asking at least 5 people. Also getting 5 different sets of directions to the pharmacies. Finally , as I gave up and headed home, I passed a corner stall selling cigarettes and skin whitener ( 2 very popular products), so I asked the shopkeeper, ‘Tiffy?’ No she replied, but she pointed up the street to the next little stall. Sure enough, there were boxes and boxes of the stuff. Hallellulia.
After three days of wine/cheese, we rode the 23 k south to the Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge , passing through immigration w/out paying the $10 US departure tax; we’re old? we’re on bikes? they forgot? The lead up to the bridge is a circuitous one , designed to get drivers from driving on the right back to driving on the left. In any case, there was not another soul on the bridge. Once over the bridge we found the bus station in Nong Khai , and a bus that would take us to Udon Thani where we would hopefully find another bus to Phitsanoluk. We were shepherded on to the bus by a couple of guys and a woman who seemed to be in charge of everything. Much waving of arms, shouting, laughing, with the end result that our bikes and panniers were stowed, we were seated with cold bottles of water in about 3 minutes. By noon we were in Udon Thani, where I was taken to the ticket desk by an elderly moto-taxi guy. Got 2 tickets for the noon bus, tried to explain that the bikes were coming (I’d left Nat to deal w. all that out on the roadway). Ticket lady couldn’t understand why I wanted 2 tickets and had 2 bikes until I pointed to my wedding ring and remembered how to say ‘2 people’ in thai. I then look up to see a procession approaching; first there’s someone I’ve never seen riding my bike with a big grin on his face, then there’s Nat, then there’s a couple of guys carrying panniers. So once again, we were shepherded onto the bus for the 8 hour ride west to Phitsanoluk. And a great ride it was, too. No air con, but lots of room, comfy seats, plenty of rest stops. Got to Phitsanoluk at dusk. ‘No problem, ‘ I said. ‘I was here with Jane 2 years ago. I’ll find the hotel Jane and I stayed at.’ Well, Phits. seems to have expanded since I was there and in no time we were totally lost in a big city with lots of traffic. ‘ Where’s the river?’, I kept asking. But before we found the river we found a big modern hotel and Nat said he was going no farther. The hotel took us in, bikes and all: we had a room on the 9th floor ( w. elevator), a roof top pool and garden and a dinner buffet. Also TV with BBC, ABC, CNN and the movie channel. Happiness...
Friday, March 2, we headed out to Sukhothai, ancient capital of Siam, and now a national historic site, with many temples and wats and one really good restaurant. It’s only 60k from Phits. and flat as a pancake but it seems they were re-paving the road so by the time we got to Sukhothai we were covered in red mud! Our guest house host took one look and said, ‘Go shower, you can check in later!’ He was French guy, cyclist, married to a Thai, with a lovely collection of wooden Buddhas, kneeling, reclining, praying, many of which he said he had bought at the river market in Mae Sot. Had a lovely lazy day on Saturday, cycling among the ruins, and bumping into this middle-aged couple staying at our guest house. They both wore the same safari vests ( lots of pockets), the same khaki pants, the same sensible shoes, and the exact same checked cotton neck scarf . They were visiting the ruins in a tuk-tuk and she had a sheaf of papers and a clipboard. Archaeologists? HIstorians? Twins? Part of a BBC Masterpiece Theatre? I never got up the nerve to approach them; they seemed entirely focused on whatever it was they were doing. More fun to make up stories anyway.
Sunday morning we zipped off to the Sukhothai bus station where we caught a mini-van ( bikes tied on top) to Mae Sot. Three hours later we were home, getting ready to start the second photo workshop at the Mae Tao Clinic on Monday.
End of Lao Adventures with Nat and Susan
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