November 30, 2016
Week 88: Vieng Phou Kha: across Nam Ha Biodiversity area, not as exiting as it sounds.
“That’s never a good sign” Patrick says. We are starting the final push up the first hill and there is a passing lane. At 21km, the last two kilometers are a 10% grade.
Today is a short day, setting us up for the long push to the Thai border. We still wake up early, it is hard to sleep-in when you fall asleep at 9:00 the night before. We have breakfast at the same bakery and stock-up on some goodies like baguettes, cake and a cinnamon roll. As we are enjoying our breakfast coffee a motorcycle with sirens and two cops on it passes and behind it are at least a hundred local cyclists going at breakneck speed. That’s going to cause a crash…..
We pack-up and hit the road. The town we stayed in is the “new” Luang Namtha, about 7km down the road is the old town. Our old Lonely Planet says the old town has more to offer to the tourist, but as we ride through it appears all the backpackers hostels and restaurants are now in the new town. The road today takes us through the Nam Ha Biodiversity Area. It must be a work in progress because there are an awful lot of clear cutting on the hillsides and rubber tree plantations along the roadside. The road surface has deteriorated in sections with no asphalt. “We know now what has happened to the asphalt” Rachel says as we pass by a house we notice that the broken asphalt has been used to create a path from the road to the house. We pass through several small villages with full body waving and shouting children. Sabadee! Sabadee! Sabadee!
Vieng Phou Kha at about 60 kilometers is the only larger town between Luang Namtha and Huay Xay on the border, a distance of about 180km. We heard from Don and Tina, the Canadian cyclists, that there is a small guesthouse in Ban Don Chai at about another 60k’s, but it is a very basic deal with no running water. Our plan is to do 60 today and try to push all the way to Huay Xay tomorrow. If the road stays like today, with elevation changes from 650 meters to 1050 meters, losing and regaining 250 meters, we should be able to make that. Otherwise, there were plenty of empty pick-up trucks on the road to hitch a ride if we can’t make it before dark.
Just before Vieng Phou Kha we pass a large Chinese looking hotel. We are tempted to stop, but maps.me shows a couple more guesthouses near the river and we want to go as far as possible today. The two guesthouses across the river are both dumps. One appears closed, the other has small bamboo cottages with gaps in the floor and walls. We decide to backtrack up the hill when we see a third guesthouse on the north side of the river just after the bridge. It is much nicer with good rooms, clean and a hot shower for 80,000kip. The place is called Suy Nam Couk Guesthouse, it is behind a small restaurant, coming from the opposite direction as us you would not be able to see the sign unless you are looking over your shoulder. We get a room and go for some Pho for lunch. A friendly Lao man who has a brother in Kansas comes over to talk to us in broken English. He appears to have been enjoying Beer Lao for a while, but he explains he has six daughters and two houses in this town. He buys another beer and shares it with us.
After lunch, we shop for snacks and milk for our breakfast cereal. We cannot find milk, all they have is soy milk and flavored yogurt so that will have to do. At our final shop we buy two bags of salted Lays chips, it appears the shop is brand new and this is the lady’s first sale. She uses our 10,000kip bill to bless all corners of the room.
For dinner we walk back down the road and have noodles wrapped in lettuce leaves, a barbecued fish and some very tough barbecued meat on sticks. It’ll have to do.
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Today's ride: 61 km (38 miles)
Total: 25,308 km (15,716 miles)
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