27 June, Tha Khek to
Savannakhet, 139km (a)The sweet sweet music of
pounding rain greeted my ears this morning. I could sleep
in, have a day off the bike. My last dream of the morning
concerned Freds dissatisfaction with our lodgings;
in my reverie I convinced him that it wasnt such a
bad place to stay after all, and it was only one more
night... Suddenly, I was being shaken awake. "I
think its letting up. Do you want to ride?"
--came the unwelcome voice of my overanxious riding
partner. What I thought was an unambiguous "NO"
didnt convince him however, and soon hed
coaxed me out of bed and through the rain to a sleazy
little breakfast joint/grocery store on Tha Kheks
dilapidated fountain square, built by the French some
eighty years ago, and mostly neglected ever since.
Two falangs and their Lao colleagues were seated at a
table next to us. They turned out to be Americans,
working for an NGO out of Vietnam, something to do with
bio-diversity. Some sort of conference was going on all
weekend, explaining the buildup of sports utility
vehicles in our hotels parking lot. One of the
Americans had met Kim, the Danish cyclist, in Northern
Laos, thus confirming our suspicions that Laos can get
very small very fast.
While I munched on my baguette stuffed with fried eggs
("Lao McMuffin") Fred continued to work me,
trying to persuade me to ride.
"Its still raining, Fred," I said.
"Yeah, but I think its letting up."
"Why are you so keen on getting to Savannakhet
anyway?"
"I dont like it here."
"Well, Ive got news for you. Savannakhet
probably looks a lot like this." I made a sweeping
gesture towards the trash-strewn plaza. I hated to
disappoint him, but for some reason Fred has developed an
"end of the rainbow" kind of mentality, in
which the next, as yet unseen, destination is always more
appealing than the present one. Was he expecting
Savannakhet to look like Zurich?
Despite my whining, Fred did manage to get me onto my
bike and pedal out of town under bleakly drizzling skies.
Within five minutes we were covered in mud, picking our
way out of town down a road resembling a minefield.
Things improved a little when we got back to Highway 13,
but my energy was severely wanting. The kilometers seemed
to be clicking off especially slowly today, dampened by
the drizzle and a persistent headwind. Would I be able to
make it the 140 kilometers to Savannakhet, or would we
have to flag down a bus at some point? I hated feeling so
weak
The route became fairly hilly and the jungle closed
in. The only villages we saw were extremely primitive,
just haphazard collections of tumbledown huts. No place
seemed to have electricity. At a seven-eleven stop, we
watched the shopkeeper dig a deeper hole for his precious
chunk of ice. He seemed perplexed when we turned down his
offer of a gritty chunk of the stuff. And then there were
the kids, the filthiest little creatures weve seen
anywhere, usually naked from the waist down, their bodies
and t-shirts positively encrusted. Instead of the
friendly "sabai-dis" weve
grown accustomed to hearing, here we were greeted with
the less welcoming "falang." We promised
ourselves wed learn the Lao term for
"peasant" as a rejoinder.
Ponies started to appear, the first wed seen in
Laos. Some grazed by the roadside while others pulled
cartloads of people or goods. All of them, like their
bovine and human counterparts, were painfully scrawny.
A huge commotion was going on in one village we passed
through. A pig being slaughtered was apparently far more
interesting to the local kids than two falang cyclists. I
stopped to take a picture, and when I came back across
the road Fred was amiably chatting with someone in a
white pickup truck. It was Lys brother, Sak, on his
way to Vientiane with a part for a friends car. He
told us it was another hundred kilometers to Savannakhet,
and that the road was anything but flat. "You guys
sure are brave to do this on bikes," he commented
with a disbelieving shake of his head before speeding
off.
After another hour or so of demoralizing riding, we
reached a crest and realized how much we had climbed. In
front of us the road dropped into a broad valley, and
from here on in the riding was much better. Our morale
and energy returned, and Savannakhet no longer seemed an
unattainable goal.
Our refreshment stops were numerous, from a sullen
place in the highlands to a friendly noodle shop/gambling
den in a lively highway strip, run by the village sissy.
His black-and-red striped outfit matched his streaked
hair and heavily made-up face. We ate his excellent pho
as we watched the travelling broom salesman come through
town in his heavily-laden truck. Nearly every household
bought at least one. From the sorry look of the broom-nub
formerly employed by our host(ess), it had been quite a
while since the broom man had last passed through these
parts.
From our last refreshment stop a decidedly
unfriendly place where we drank up most of their
suppliesit was still over forty kilometers to our
goal. But either the wind changed, the road continued to
descend, or we found untapped energy reserves. We cranked
all the way into town. Rustic rattan hovels gave way to
more prosperous-looking wooden homes, and the occasional
car (often a Mercedes) graced the road. People rode
alongside us on their motorcycles, wanting to practice
their few phrases of English. A little further on and we
were in the heart of Savannakhets industrial
corridor. I realized I was wrong in assuming that all of
Laos industry was concentrated on the road between
Vientiane and Nong Khai (where one finds the
nations brewery and the only soft drink bottling
plant in the land). Indeed, Savannakhet looks more
happening than the capital in many ways. Lots of new
buildings going up, signs announcing joint ventures with
Korea, Thailand, Vietnam and China.
Finding the towns relatively abandoned center
proved a little difficult, but after only a few wrong
turns we were pedaling through the crumbling remnants of
French colonial glory. Like almost every other town
weve seen in Laos, Savannakhet seems to be frozen
in time, though not at any specific era. At the
pretentiously-named Auberge du Paradis (where Ly had
recommended we stay) a guy leaned out the window from
upstairs, a falang, telling us the place was fully
booked. He was part of a Danish team building the road
south to Pakse, and they had taken over the whole hotel.
So we made the rounds, systematically visiting each of
Savans premier lodging establishments. The best
deal by far seemed to be the Nanhai Hotel, owned and
operated by Chinese. Rather than committing right away,
we continued on to the decidedly less fabulous
Phonepaseuth, where a brash young girl sexy in a
plump sort of waysurprised us by speaking perfect
American English. She said her name was Tina and that
shed spent four years in Maryland. Did she know our
friends Ly and Caroline from France? We thought this
might be the swimming pool they come to every day
"Oh, you mean the ones with red hair who come on
bicycles every day? Theyre at the pool now, right
across the street."
After commenting on our dirt-encrusted, malodorous
states, les soeurs Phouthavy accompanied us back
to the Chinese place and then on to their ancestral home
down an abysmally surfaced road. After brief
introductions to their mom whom I havent seen
in eight yearsand their frail, toothless
octogenarian grandfather, we made our way by foot to what
we instantly came to call "Les Champs Elysees"
of Savannakhet a scruffy boulevard with former
pretentions of grandeur. Fred and I gulped down
noodles with vegetables and juice freshly squeezed by a
Spice Girl lookalike. ("Lao Spice" we call her,
and she has since become a local landmark for us).
Since it was Saturday night, we felt obliged to get a
glimpse of Savannakhets fabled nightlife. And the
girls reluctantly accompanied us to the Lucky Bar, where
everyone was watching television when we entered. But as
soon as they saw us, the tv was switched off and the band
struck up, playing syrupy Lao-Viet pop. Seated around us
in the dark were tables and tables full of bar girls, who
would no doubt have hassled us if Ly and Caroline
werent accompanying us. The next place we visited
was a little more happening, but by then it was nearing
eleven p.m. (bars close here at 11:30) and all four of us
felt ready for bed.