On your bike you always have to expect the unexpected. Thankfully, I also think I have a bit
of luck, or at least that is what they tell me. I had my day perfectly planned. I left Pakse early, 7am. In fact it was so unusually early for me that I stopped for
a nice long breakfast at the local market. I was on my way to Wat Phu,
a ruined Khmer temple complex more than a 1,000 years old, 30
kilometers south of Pakse and then headed south to the 4,000 islands. It was on the west side of the Mekong,
and the main highway was on the left.
I was told however, that I could stay on the west side and make my way
south on tiny back roads and take a ferry when they ended. This I had researched at a travel agent
in town before I left, as there was no sign of roads or ferries on Google
maps.
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| Wat Phu 10 km south of Champasak ,Laos |
I rolled up to
the Wat and to my surprise there was another tour bike parked outside. I wanted to leave a little note asking
if he was going north or south, but I thought I would find him inside the
Wat. Yes, I automatically assumed
it was a male cyclist (no clean underwear hanging off the back on the bike)! I was thrilled to see another tour cyclist
as I haven’t run into many, despite the fact that the few that I have seen say
this highway is swarming with them!
Sure enough
inside the Wat complex I found him, identifiable by the bike shoes and the
front handle bar bag being used as a “man purse”. Hartmut was a retired German cyclist who had ridden north
from Bangkok, into Northern Laos, and was making his way down to Cambodia, and
then Phu Coc, a Vietnamese island off the Cambodian coast. He was going south and so we decided to
ride together for the day. He had
been told information contrary to mine about the route. He believed there was
no way to get down south on the west side of the river. I trusted my travels agent, a Belgium
man who seemed like he knew the area since he ran eco tours. If traveling solo, I would have
explored the west side, but I didn’t want to take a companion on a wild goose
chase, and so I complied and back tracked, and headed down south on the east
side of the Mekong. This meant, we
had to take a small ferry across which was10 kilometers north on the road. No big deal. The “ferry” was a small catamaran style boat made out of
wood with a little motor. It took
us a whole 5 minutes to cross the river.
On the other side, we started to pedal south.
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| River crossing number 1 on the "catamaran style" boat |
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| The Mekong River...wide, brown, but beautiful |
Prior to
crossing the river, we had lunch and Hartmut seemed like a nice enough man, an
experienced cyclist, and spoke, what I consider perfect English, although he denies that
fact. In fact in the first 5
minutes he asked me to slow down,….As you know I talk fast regardless of the
language, especially when I’m excited, and believe me, I was excited to have a
riding companion for a day! We
compared our bikes. He told me I
had a very “sportif” style. Coming
from the world of road biking, I know that. He asked me where my mirrors were, and I told him I turn my
head…..later I discovered why he needed to huge rearview mirrors (he loves to
ride in the middle of the road where the tarmac is smoother and I kept to the
shoulder). He rides anywhere from
80 to 100 kilometers a day, which, seemed compatible. However, I had in mind that I wanted to make it as close as
I could to 4,000 islands so that the following day could be a rest day, with
maybe just 20 kilometers to make it over to the islands. That meant we’d already rode 35 and I
needed to go about another 80.
As soon as we
were on the east side of the river, Hartmut spotted a sign for a town that was
20 kilometers away and I knew that wasn’t going to do it for me. I wanted to go farther. As we got closer, I let him know that I
wanted to do more kilometers. I
thought he would have said, “ok, I’ll stay here!” , but he didn’t mind. We
agreed to cycle another 30 and then start looking for guesthouses. Right around 25 kilometers we passed
several, but I kept saying, “keep pedaling, there will be more just
ahead!” Those were the famous last
words, because there weren’t any just ahead. We pedaled and pedaled, and soon
the chatting dissipated, and turned into that awkward silence. I was almost dusk, we didn’t have much
day light left and there was no sign of another town. We stopped to about a gas station, and a Chinese boy living
in the area told us yes there was one, 5 kilometers down the road. We kept
pedaling, reached 5 kilometers and no guesthouse. We stopped and asked again, making the sleeping symbol with
our hands to some locals, who pointed further down the road. Optimistically, I tried to ask them how
far. This is a great question to
try to ask. You can use your
fingers and say 1km, 2km, 5 km,….and to each number you make, they always nod
their head and say yes!
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| Happy cyclists eating ice cream....little did we know there wouldn't be a hotel later on down the road! |
Again we
pedaled on….no guesthouse. Now
Hartmut started getting a little concerned. In times like these, I think just keep pedaling,
something will come. He wasn’t so sure about that and wanted
to stop to think about our options.
We decided that we would pedal until just after the sun went down. If we didn’t see anything, we’d pull
over on the shoulder and hitch hike.
Of course, I was still certain we’d find a place, but we didn’t. So we pulled over and he sent me to go
ask a guy at the gas station if they’d take us in their truck to the next
hotel, while Hartmut was on the side of the road with his thumb out. What a duo!
I couldn’t get
the guys at the gas station to understand that I wanted them to drive us with
their pick-up. I even drew a
picture of a bike in a pick-up, it was no use, we just didn’t understand each
other. At that time, I looked over
at Hartmut, and he had flagged down an empty truck that would take us to a
hotel. He wanted me in the
cab and he would stay in the back with the bikes, but I insisted we were in
this together, and rode in the back with him. At this point we couldn’t stop
laughing, well, it was more like me.
I think Hartmut was regretting cycling with me because on his own, he
would have stopped about 50 kilometers back. Like others have told me, he said, “Melissa, you are a lucky
girl! Any later and we wouldn’t
have had luck hitch hiking in the dark.”
I guess we’ll never know what would have happened, but I really hadn’t
gotten too worried in this situation, I knew something would come about. As it
turns out, we had cycled about 120 kilometers that day, 80 together, and for
the last 50 there hadn’t been any hotels. Amazing! I hadn’t had a day like that in a long time, where
accommodation is so limited it created problems for your route.
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| Here we are in the back of the flat bed truck, we surrender! |
About 10
minutes after riding in the back of the truck, the driver stopped, got out, and
asked us if we wanted to continue straight for 14 kilometers, or turn right for
3 for a hotel. His house was to
the right, so we decided that was the better option for all of us. It was a dirt road to the right, lots
of bumps on our bottoms, and banging of the bikes. We were looking forward to the hotel as we pulled into a
small town. What we didn’t realize
was the guesthouse 3 kilometers away included a ferry crossing, back to the
west side of the river. I pulled out my map, and believe it or not, realized
that the town on the other side of the river and the ferry crossing were where were
at present, was the same ferry crossing and town the Belgium travel agent
assured me I’d find. Imagine
that!!!!! Now, I felt much better
and less responsible for the hotel mishap. Hartmut knew he couldn’t blame me entirely for our hotel
problem, only partially.
In the back of
the truck, I thought I was going to wake up early and back track the route we
had driven. That is only correct,
if you are on a bike tour, you can’t hop in a motorized vehicle. However, now that it involved a ferry
crossing, dirt road, and a 15 plus kilometer ride in the opposite direction, I
quickly forgot about that option.
Cheating? Maybe we had cheated by hopping in the truck, but let me tell
you, it makes for one heck of a story, a lot of laughs, and a memorable experience
we never would have had if we had stopped early. To tell you the truth, I think we bonded a bit because of
it.
We unloaded our
bikes off the back and headed down to the “ferry”. It was unloading vehicles at the time. You should have seen the size of the
trucks coming off the ferry that was nothing more than wooden planks floating
on top of a motor engine.
Amazing! The dock consisted
of two planks of wood straddling the sand and the ferry. Most trucks needed to
get a “running start” in order to make it up the steep slope of the dock. The simple infrastructure here in SE
Asia is fascinating, and actually works!
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| On the start rating, this place had a point of a star,......maybe! |
From the other
side of the river we could hear loud music blasting from the tiny little town
and we thought we had better get the guesthouse on the other side of town. Little did we know there was only one
option. It was further from the
music, but by no means was it the “nice, luxurious” hotel that Hartmut was
hoping for and had seen earlier on the main road. The music turned out to be a huge town festival with all
sorts of stalls, rides, food booths, and a concert venue. But the main attraction was US! Everyone starred at us as we walked up
and down the main drag trying to find a place to eat dinner. Kids, couples, old people….they all
starred and giggled at us, I could hear the saying pfalang repeatedly, which means
foreigners. It was like they had
never seen westerners before.
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| How much stuff can two cyclists have??? Observe the full size bottles on the table, they belong to Hartmut |
After dinner,
while the party was going strong, we had a fun time back at the hotel comparing
all the things in our panniers.
Hartmut had 5, like I previously had before sending my camping and
winter gear to New Zealand.
Therefore, I automatically assumed that he had cookware and camping
gear, but he didn’t. He attributed
the bulk to technology, but I can tell you exactly what it was. Here you have a solo older married bike
tour cyclist and a solo single young woman. Who would you expect to have more toiletries? Me, right, especially with the curly
hair?!? WRONG! Oh, my, his
toiletry bag weighed more than my laptop.
He had a variety of beauty products and their size was the real
deal. Whereas I have mini ones
that I keep refilling when I can.
Body lotion, I don’t have any, but Hartmut has a huge bottle of Nivea
mens lotion. Baby wipes,…I ran out
a long time ago and haven’t seen a small packs for awhile. He has a new jumbo size pack (and gave
me several to have in a zoploc)! I
can’t criticize him because I loved using the herbal shampoo and body wash, and
lathered up in body lotion after showering. I was spoiled!
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| Surprised the ferry didn't sink! |
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| Another ferry crossing...I did 7 in total over the 3 days |
The next
morning Hartmut and I took the ferry back to the other side of the river. Indeed the road did end at this town,
as I was told. We rode south, a
good 40 kilometers before encountering another hotel and the starting point to
explore the Mekong and the 4,000 islands.
We hopped from one island to the next riding their dirt tracks until we
came to the last two in the south, Don Dhet and Don Khon. We decided to call it a day on Don
Dhet, after taking 4 different ferries and riding about 60 kilometers on what
was suppose to be my “rest day”.
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| That was the wides the road was on the islands, made passing a water buffalo difficult |
This area is
delightful! They call it 4,000
islands because literally the Mekong is so wide here and dotted with tiny
little islands in all directions.
Some are no more than branches growing out of the water, but the largest
stretch about 15 kilometers north to south. There are only dirt tracks for moving about and car ferries
to two of the islands, which is why they have remained so remote and calm. Yes, there are backpackers, but everyone
is pretty relaxed and the weather is perfect for lounging. Hartmut decided to stay for a few more
days. Me? I rested for the afternoon and this
morning I did a bit more sightseeing visiting a waterfall on the southern-most
island. Then I departed for
mainland, the east side of the Mekong and headed to the Cambodia border. I stopped at Khonepha Pheng, the
largest waterfall by volume in SE Asia, just before hitting the border. The border was an uneventful crossing,
no corruption here, at least to the visible eye.
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| 4,000 Islands...you see what I mean, some are branches sticking out of the water |
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| One of the waterfalls I visited |
Now I’m in
Stung Trung, 60 kilometers south of the border, spending my first night in
Cambodia. Just as I had started to
feel really comfortable in Laos and could communicate quite well with the
people and had figured out the food and prices, I of course have to enter a new
country. From my first
impressions, Cambodia seems equally as pleasant and calm as Laos, maybe just a
bit more sparsely populated. The
prices seemed to have dropped on food and accommodation both and to my surprise
there is a double currency system here.
I went to the ATM to get Cambodian Riel and it spit out all US
dollars. They don’t seem to mind
which you use for payment and give you a fair amount for the change.
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| Khonepra Pheng Waterfall, Laos (touching Cambodia) |
Right now I’m
just cutting through Cambodia. I will
explore it more coming from Ho Chi Minh city and the Mekong Delta as I make my
way to Pnohm Penh with a friend over the holidays. I’m just shy of 10,000 kilometers as I approach my 4th month
anniversary of The Loong Way Home and enjoying every meter of the trip. The smile doesn’t disappear, indeed I’m
one lucky girl!
