Eastbound: Entering Laos

Current location: Phongsali, Laos

On that day, legend has it that Ho Chi Minh, surrounded by his staff in his command post at Muong Phan, half-way between Dien Bien Phu and Tuan Ciao, took off his tropical helmet, turned it over and putting his fist in it said," The French are here." And slowly running his finger around the edge he quietly said in a sly manner " and we are here."

I stopped at Dien Bien Phu to have some maintenance done on my bike and to learn something about the events that led to the end of the First Indochina War.

Besides the Victory Monument towering over the city, some remains of artillery and a few rotting tank carcasses, not much was to be learned by touring the city, so I ended up reading about it online. (I won't go into details, but those interested in military history might want to check out wikipedia articles on the largest airborne operation since WWII, and the ass-whoop of Dien Bien Phu.)

And on a similar note, I had three mechanics tell me that the sound that my engine was making was totally normal and I should just ride on. I wasn't completely satisfied with their assurances and couldn't shake the feeling that I was riding on a time bomb.

But as there was nothing to be done to the sound I loaded my stuff on the bike and headed for the border.

Crossing the border was no problem at all and I was soon making good time towards Muang Khua on a brand new road. I reached my destination just before nightfall and stayed the night.
The next day I started towards Phongsali.

The French guys had emailed me before I left Vietnam to warn me about the roads in Laos, but besides a few bridge construction sites and a landslide or two I'd been riding on either paved roads or solid, levelled dirt and could go all out almost all the time.
But when I took the turn towards Phongsali at Pak Nam Noi, I understood what they were talking about.

During the next 7 hours I had my spinal discs thoroughly tested, my bike developed a range of new rattling sounds, I had to have the chain tightened twice and had my first crash. And I only did roughly 170 kilometres. That's 25 clicks an hour folks.
And when I did reach Phongsali, I developed a vicious diarrhea which had me running to the toilet every hour or so for about 18 hours.
Good times...

Once I'm on top of my game again I plan to do a bit of trekking to go see some of the hill tribes before loading the bike on a boat back to Muang Khua (I don't think either of us would survive another go on the roads), and head towards civilization and hopefully some rock climbing in either Luang Prabang or Vang Vieng.

Victory Monument.

The centre of DBP, as seen from Victory Monument hill.

I rode into a hairpin a tad too fast and as I applied the brakes I was suddenly on loose sand.
Had that bush not been there I would've ended up rolling down a pretty steep hill.