November 25, 2016
to Nong Khiaw: down the Nam Ou River
"Three bikes one one boat, three bikes on another boat" the man says while we wait to load up on the boat. "No" we all say almost at the same time. Katie holds up fingers and says, "four in one boat, two in the other boat". Besides our four bikes there are two others from Switzerland.
We wake to the music and propaganda lecture that sounds as if the loud speaker is just outside our window. We have breakfast of banana pancakes at the same restaurant we had lunch and dinner yesterday, even though the server was very unfriendly the food was good. We go back to our room where we wait until about 8:30, then load up and head to the boat dock.
Patrick has a flat tire so we walk the bikes to the dock. Rachel buys the ticket 120,000 kip each and 30,000 kip for the bikes. While we wait for loading Patrick fixes the tire. The bikes went on first in the back, took a fair amount of juggling to get them in place. Then the bags are shuttled and stacked and we take seats at the front of the boat. The seat is a low board and we face each other.
The scenery is beautiful and mid way there are karst mountains. The Chinese are constructing a dam and we wonder how this will affect the boat ride in the future. About an hour out from the final destination, we pull over to a very backpacker touristy area. All the signs are in English. Boats need to jockey for position to the dock. As our boat was pushed back another boat clipped our bikes with a casualty of a brake lever on Rachel's bike. Maybe this is why they only wanted 3 bikes on the boat. Patrick argues with the driver about him being responsible. It's difficult to know how bad the damage to the brake is going to be. The driver comes back with an English speaking man who pops the lever back into place, this makes the damage look better but uncertain if this did more damage.
We arrive at the dock only there is no plank across the water. Katie has flip flops and goes across so she can shuttle gear to land. Then there are steps, to further shuttle gear. Originally we planned to go to the area across the river that was said to be the backpackers area. When we got to the bridge, Patrick spotted the nice looking Nong Khiaw View guesthouse with balcony and this side of the town had hardware shops. Patrick wants to find epoxy glue to try and fix the plastic brake lever housing. This is the second time we have one of these break. The first time happened early in the trip while still in Europe. After some back-and-forth email arguing with Crane Creek they did send free replacement levers to Capetown. This time a dab of epoxy glue will hopefully fix it long enough to find a bike store.
We meet some backpackers at our guesthouse who have been here for a while and they recommend Coco's restaurant for dinner. We meet Jo and Katie there and enjoy a good Thai yellow curry and a pork dish.
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Today's ride: 1 km (1 miles)
Total: 25,017 km (15,536 miles)
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