Laos: The Hidden Gem

This entry is part 12 of 21 in the series Adventure Rider Issue #13

In issue #12 Ian Bowden recounted the first leg of his mammoth, three-country ride through Indochina with Britton Adventures. We left him bunked down in Vietnam and ready to cross the border to a new challenge. His story continues.

Finally. Laos.

I’d been told years before I would love riding the ex-French colony, and I did. The riding was the best I’d experienced in Asia, and the food, people, and landscape were first class.

We crossed the border from Vietnam to find a line of CRF250s and our eager Laotian crew waiting: Thongkhoon, Yee, and Quang. After greetings and a briefing we hit the road on a clear fine day – weather we enjoyed for the next 12 days.

Nong Khiaw

It didn’t take long to get into a rhythm and we were soon bounding along at a good pace with 280km to our destination, Nong Khiaw. The first thing we noticed was the roads were much quieter, which made sense. There were only seven million people living in Laos compared to the 90-odd million in Vietnam.

It turned out to be a long, hot day and we didn’t get to Nong Khiaw until after dark due to Mike getting a puncture, but the riding was great. The dirt sections were dusty, unlike the damp conditions we’d experienced in Vietnam, and that night quite a few Beer Laos were needed to lubricate the dry throats. Beer Lao is a nice drop and has won top awards in Asia.

We slept well in our riverside cottages.

Luang Prabang

We turned off the asphalt early the next day and had a taste of the country’s fantastic riding. The pace on the first ridge track through the jungle was hot, with our lead rider Thongkhoon setting a good pace until he overcooked it a bit and ran off into the scrub. There was no harm done, and after a few laughs we carried on, though Craig, Terry,and myself backed off a little to give him a bit more space. Not long after that I saw him slide to a quick stop to avoid a huge snake.

The ride was getting interesting.

We rode through mountain villages with dozens of smiling children running, yelling and waving at us. This carried on all day.

After another big day of mainly dirt, we arrived at beautiful Luang Prabang, and, needless to say, we needed a few ice-coldies on arrival. A great meal at a top local French restaurant, and a few ideas on what to do on the coming rest day, capped off a great run.

After breakfast the next morning it was decided to hire a river boat to cruise down the Mekong, then get a tuk tuk to pick us up and take us to the Kouang Si waterfalls. We took a bucket of Laos’ best on ice, and away we went. The cruise was great and scenery fantastic. It was a good relaxing day and we finished in another top restaurant – the food in this place was fantastic and some of the best I’d ever eaten.

The Plain Of Jars

The following day’s destination was Phonsavan, which lies in the heart of the most cluster-bombed province of the most bombed country on earth.

The bombing statistics of this landlocked country 30 years ago, during the so-called ‘secret war’, are mind-boggling. Laos was hit by an average of one B-52 payload every eight minutes, 24 hours a day, between 1964 and 1973 – that’s nine years! US bombers dropped more ordnance on Laos in this period than was dropped during the whole of the Second World War. Of the 260 million cluster ‘bombies’ that rained down, particularly on Xieng Khouang province, 80 million failed to explode, leaving a deadly legacy that’s still killing today. Deaths total some 13,000 to date. These people were killed digging in fields contaminated with live bombs. Laos hasn’t the resources to clean up this mess, but fortunately a lot of foreign countries are helping. We saw clean-up efforts going on and visited a UXO (unexploded ordnance) centre. After that we weren’t keen to go truffle hunting.The ride to Phonsavan was all bitumen, something like 280km of endless corners.

It was fantastic riding, and with so many corners we got dizzy – it was motorcycling heaven.

We arrived at the renowned Plain Of Jars later in the day.

The Plain Of Jars is a huge plateau where mysterious, huge, bottle-shaped stone pots were discovered. Many of the jars are still intact despite the heavy bombing, and it’s unknown what they were used for. Our guide gave us two theories, one for putting bodies in, and the other for storing rice whiskey.

Rice whiskey got our vote.

Toy run

We were up early the next day, ready for a big day’s riding on the dirt to the small town of Vieng Thong, well off the tourist trail. We’d been warned there could be delays due to explosives being used on the development road we were taking, and they were using explosives, alright.

We came across huge rocks blown apart on the road as we climbed into the cool mist-covered mountains, but there were no delays that morning, apart from a few stops to give gifts of toys to the village children on the way. They were very poor and didn’t have much, so they really appreciated this.

Gun rider

The riding in the morning was great but got even better in the afternoon as we dropped down from the mountains and into the dense foliage.

There were plenty of hoots of joy as we sped through the jungle until we rounded a corner mid-afternoon to find heavy machinery working. Lead rider Yee was busy looking for a way through and ignored a security guard with an AK47 trying to stop us. I just followed hoping not to get shot. We had to stop though, as there was no road. They don’t use red flags over there. AK47s are more effective.

After a few words we waited 45 minutes for the digger to clear a way down a steep bank and link back on to the track below.

Not long afterwards we popped out of the jungle and onto a nice bitumen road with sweeping curves that soon brought out the road racer in us, and there were no chicken strips on our dirt tyres when we arrived at Vieng Thong.

The only casualty on this day was a chicken I vaporised at high speed. They’re sillier than sheep! The count was mounting with four confessed so far. We’d had plenty of close calls with dogs, ducks,geese, and pigs, but the chickens weren’t faring well.

Scott’s backing-in

We had a 7.00am start the next morning to allow a deviation to the Konglor Cave. A very scenic road had us there mid-morning, and we had a short wait before getting kitted up with headlights and life jackets.

Then it was into long boats – with about 25mm of freeboard – fitted with long-shaft motors for an 8km blast in the dark through the very spectacular cave with a river running through it. It turned out to be well worth the deviation. I’d been to a couple of these limestone caves with rivers in Asia, and this one rated right up there.

We then had to backtrack some 30km to the turnoff to Lak Sao, the day’s destination.

A slippery section of polished tar had me and Terry backing off, recognising the slickness – Scott did not!

In hot pursuit of the Yee man (the name we gave Yee), and thinking he was a supermotard rider, he backed it in. The trouble was, it was on the deck skidding through the corner looking back at us.

Top marks to Scott for not giving up, though. He didn’t let go and still had his hand on the throttle when he stopped on the edge of a big drain. A stunned Scott was okay and so was the bike.

There were just a few minor scrapes to man and machine.

We continued on this scenic ride incident-free to the Phouthavong Hotel in Lak Sao.

Old campaigners

As we headed south the next morning it became warmer and dryer, and just as the riding on a rough dirt road was getting interesting we suddenly broke out onto a new asphalt road through an area which had been flooded to create a large hydro lake. It was very scenic, but the dirt road was ruined by progress.

Rounding a corner I was surprised by a large group of monkeys on the road. That’s not something we see at home.

We stayed on this road until we passed the dam then dropped down into another valley and back onto the dirt. It was red dust just like Australia – rough, rutty and bumpy, but great. Alison, a very accomplished rider who hadn’t done a lot of off-road work, eagerly took on board tips to cope with the terrain. She was soon standing up and going well. Not shy of using the throttle, she had the little four-stroke buzzing.

After a long 300km, two punctures and a loose muffler on dusty, rough, dirt roads in the heat, we arrived parched at Xepon.

The iced beers went down very quickly as we sat on the front steps of the hotel.

Ho Chi Minh Trail

After a good night’s sleep we were ready for the promised Ho Chi Minh Trail’s river crossings and jungle trails in the Bolaven Plateau region. Fortunately it was still dry, as rain would have made rivers and the trail impassable in places.

It didn’t disappoint. We had a fantastic full day of dry riding, slippery jungle trails, soft sand, mud, rickety wood-plank bridges and river crossings next to the remains of large bridges bombed in the secret war. A basic barge was used to cross one river that was too deep to ride. We passed through remote villages of friendly people, and we stopped often in these villages for drinks and a chat, and then had lunch in one.

What a day! It was the best riding to date, and was made up of a full day of serious off-road. Around 180km later we sat around a large table in the shade at the picturesque Tad Lor resort, washing the dust away with cold beers and reliving the day’s ride.

Southern Ho

A late start the next day kicked off with a leisurely ride to the waterfalls for a cooling dip. We then rode to Attapeu on good roads, and once we’d arrived there was an option to visit a small town 30km away where a Russian SAM missile was on display, and most took the option.

Our last day on the bikes dawned fine, which was great and meant we could ride our preferred option, the southern Ho Chi Minh Trail. This turned out to be the most challenging riding we’d done, and the best. We were on the trail at 8.00am and didn’t arrive in Pakse till 5.00pm. It was only 116km of serious dirt and 50km of road, so that gives some idea of the nature of the terrain.

The riding started easy enough, then we entered the jungle. It was damp and slippery under the tree canopy. The numerous river crossings were deep and, even though we walked the bikes through most of them, two bikes took in lungsfull and had to be dewatered.

One very deep crossing fortunately had a basic pull raft to get us across.

Others had derelict rafts that were unusable. There were plenty of deep, smelly, muddy ruts. It was awesome riding that suited the bikes well.

Again we passed through remote villages and often stopped to say hello or buy a drink at the small shops. The village children were always keen to see us.

After the last big crossing we pulled up for a late lunch in a village food stop with a dirt floor. It was very basic and simple, and the food they cooked for us was fantastic and very tasty. Fed and watered, we took on the last 30km of rough, dusty trails before getting onto the road for a 50km blast to Pakse.

We watched the sun set over the Mekong from our hotel bar.

The Mekong

Our final day in Laos was a rest day…sort of.

The itinerary said: ‘Relax in our minivan as we drive to Si Phan Don.’

Huh? Relax?

I needed a kidney belt as we bounced along a very undulating road. It bought home to me why we ride bikes in these countries and don’t travel in buses. I’ll never take that option if it can be avoided.

The day was interesting, visiting the 4000 Islands, a group of beautiful islands on the Mekong River, and nearby was the largest waterfall in Southeast Asia. We checked out the ruins of the old rail system that was used to get freight past the falls and had a lovely meal overlooking the Islands.

After lunch it was into a longboat to check out the rare freshwater dolphins found there, then it was a bouncy ride back to Pakse and a great meal at a rooftop restaurant overlooking the city to end our Laos tour.

We’d travelled 2200km on the bikes in Laos, riding the length of the country from north to south. It was fantastic riding and well worth the effort of making it happen. Did I mention how good the food was?

Our adventure wasn’t over yet though, we had one more country to go.

See the conclusion of this three-country tour in the next issue – Cambodia: Temple Central.