Vientiane > Luang Prabang 383 km

February 02, 2015

Vientiane > Luang Prabang 383 km

[Originally posted Feb 2, 2015]

8:50pm. Lamache Restaurant, overlooking the Mighty Mekong River. A soft breeze blows through the palm trees, music drifts across the river and Katy puts in another order for mango with sticky rice. We brought a couple extra mangoes from the market because we like our sticky rice extra mangoey. Which is different than mangooey. It’s hard to believe that at some point these fairytale dinners in mystical places will come to a crashing halt.

For the last five days our home has been Highway 13. Our wheels have pointed north, from Vientiane through the tourist infected town of Vang Vieng where tattooed and bikini strapped twenty something years olds stumble down the street looking for another beer, up through the endless Dr. Seuss inspired jungle-infested mountains and to the UNESCO World Heritage City of Luang Prabang. Highway 13 is the largest highway in Laos, but in a country of 6.8 million people, where rivers have always been and always will be, the major form of transportation, the highway feels unimportant.

There are no lanes, no paint in the road, no shoulders, no medians. It’s just a strip of pavement, smooth at best, bumpy and laden with dirt filled potholes on average, and getting a new layer of smoking hot black tar that sticks to our tires at worst. On Highway 13, children rule the road. Four and five year olds cross the street without looking, their 2 year old siblings on their backs. Boys roll old bike tires down the road, carefully navigating the tires every turn with a small stick. Little girls scream sabaidee as soon as they see us approaching, and immediately a crowd of children turn their heads and start waving. Older children are sent off to find firewood, bananas, rice and other items from the hills.

After the children, the animals have next priority. Chicks squeak and chirp as they follow their mother hens carelessly across the road. Bamboo chimes hang from the necks of cattle; they wander aimlessly because they don’t know where they are going and unsure when they will get there. Unlike the cows of India, these cows move out of the way if we head straight at them. It’s indicative of the Laos people in general, they are quiet and shy whereas the Indians are loud and in-your-face.

The road has felt empty, ten and fifteen minutes will pass before we see a car, motorbike or our tourist van plying the road between cities. The tourists will invariably wave, and we’ll think to ourselves you’re missing the best part. Gas stations are rare, most gas is stored in 50 gallon drums along the side of the road allowing motorbikes to refuel without getting off the highway.

The road is a snake. It winds. Most of the time, we can only see 50 feet ahead of us. So when we are climbing our second or third pass of the week we are left to imagine how much longer we will have to climb. Our legs have felt weak, having not ridden in the past 4 weeks, but the 20,000 vertical feet we conquered in the past five days are getting us back in shape. It’s not often that I can see noticeable quad muscle growth in just a week’s time.

Two days ago, after a demanding 8,000 vertical feet, we came within 3kilometers of our destination and I stopped, asking Katy if she would rather walk. My legs were shaking and I could have fallen asleep in the middle of the road. I went to bed that night at 5:30, cause when your body wants rest, your body wants rest.

For the past two hours we’ve been grazing. First on the menu was some Mekong River fish, about the size of my head. Stuffed with lemongrass, slits on all sides and drizzled with other herbs and butter, it is stuck between a splint of bamboo, tied shut and put on the coals to cook. When done, it gets a side of eggplant and spicy peppers and served on a bamboo leaf. You know you’re enjoying Laos food at its best when you have a fish head in one hand, juices and oil are running down your chin, your lips tingle from the peppers, and a pair of chopsticks are in the other hand. Mmm.