Nong Khiaw

We spent 4 days in Nong Khiaw , a very nice place where we met fellow bikers Alan from Canada and Tony from England, we kept meeting up in the same bar in the centre of the Village which was nice it started to feel like a local pub!. The village had a very nice vibe to it and was worth staying for a few days

 We visited a cave where the locals hid from the relentless bombing from the USA during the secret war. There was a small museum as well which was full of bombs ( used obviously ) The photos explain it better

 Fiona took one for the the team by climbing up a Hill to get some great photos whilst I slept, ( I need beauty sleep more than she does ) . 

The bar we met in seems to be the meeting place for all the over privileged back packers from around the world, most of them were rude to the staff and generally obnoxious. 

 We also met some Aussies at our hotel doing a guided tour, two mates and a daughter of one of them, had great crack with them. 

 We left on Monday not looking forward to the craziness and intended to stop again back on the way to Luang prabang but we seemed to be on a roll so we just went for it, 90 miles took us about 4 1/2 hours, I was broken when we got back here but a least we have a bed that doesn't feel like it has a solid wood mattress to help us recover for the next part. 

 Shout out to the yamahas, ideal for the shit roads and so far so good. Heading south on Friday on what we have been told is the worst road ever, excellent

On the road

Jungle

Bombs

These guys have had a hard life

Bombs being used in the stairs   

Heading to the cave, very hot

Shrapnel all over the wall

View from our Hotel

Fionas walk, some scary warnings

Superb

BTW she fell on the way down, glad i didn't go because i would have fell harder

Street scene

Alan from Canada

View from the bridge

Still flying the flag

No idea

En route back to Luang Prabang

Having a well deserved Vino

One for my former colleagues

Breaks every rule in my rule book anyway

Nice cafe 

And one for Eric

video time , part 1 of Thailand

So I'm back on the laptop and manged to put the proper link of the video on, enjoy

New bikes and terrible roads

A day trying to book various flights, it started yesterday and got partially abandoned. The frustrations are unbelievable, first the WiFi in the hotel is up and down all the time, to save ourselves from scammers we have a vpn activated and it doesn't cope with the flaky Internet, I ended up switching the vpn off and tethering to my phone. Then Halifax have played a blinder, refusing to accept my payments for larger sums, then they just informed me my Credit card will change to Visa from March which means it will be no use to me as I have no way of getting a new card, I don't even know where we will be, remember our Chase cards will be useless from next month as well. The Banks don't give a fuck about their decisions. 

We have most flights booked now after a very tense morning on the laptop, we are meant to be enjoying travel not stressing on the computer. This is the part I don't like, anyway off to the bank to see if I can get another couple of million to last us until tomorrow 

Another day another frustrating day asking the bank WTF is going on , according to them it should be no problem.

Picked up the bikes , Yamaha PG 1 , actually quite cool for 115cc and seem to have more power. We went to a local waterfall along with several thousand tourists, I was underwhelmed, especially with the roads , what roads ? A 10 metre splash of tarmac in amongst the gravel and of course the local minibus drivers are totally stupid ( as are the European tourists driving with shorts and bikinis on, I suppose they can get a skin graft when they get home 

.

It was an education, I will say the old part of luang Pranang is very nice and you can get nice wine and whisky at not stupid prices. On the road back from the waterfalls I stopped to get a photo, somebody nudged me as they passed on their scooter the result of which it flew out my hands and smashed the screen. Not a happy day.

We headed north towards long khiaw about 100 miles, we set off early but we had a contingency if it was too far. The roads as soon as we left luang prabang got busy with mainly Chinese trucks and local  vans and also the road would be good for 200 metres then disappeared into gravel and massive potholes. It was and felt really dodgy. After 60 odd miles and more than 4 hours we had had enough and stopped in a small town called Nam thouam and got a room for 190,000 kip, around 8 pounds, it's not the ritz but it's OK and my legs and shoulders and back could take no more. Very impressed with the wee Yamahas though . Tomorrow hopefully we will keep on keeping on .

After a pleasant evening watching the trucks bounce down the main street we set of for Nong Khiaw around 30 miles, the first 15 were as expected really bad but the last 15 were only bad. Almost 2 hours, we stopped at a backpacker cafe and got talking to a Canadian French guy, his female travel partner ( not sure if it was more than that ) was Dutch and had a Guzzi V7 at home! 

Got booked into our digs and went for a wander, loads of tourists which was a surprise as we were the only ones last night . This place reminds me of the news films fron the late 60s when the USA were fighting in Vietnam

waterfall 

.New bikes

Shit roads 

Where my camera got toasted 

watching the trucks ruin the road

petrol stop

nong khiaw 

not sure

they teach them young here

Sidecar racer of the future 

Nice

mainn st 

laos bagpipes 

Happy 

Laos

We got up which was a good start to the Saturday and had our last breakfast at the small cafe up the road. Then got our stuff together and got a taxi to the airport.  We were an hour early for check in which was fine, we sat outside and watched the craziness. When we checked in we had to sign a disclaimer to say if we got refused entry to Laos because we didn't have visa it was our fault, oh well.

Eventually we boarded a bit later, total chaos as they started boarding a maynamar flight at the same time , a bus to the plane which was a turbo prop where the luggage was stored behind the pilots in a cage, interesting! It was a nice flight flying low enough to see the land and jungles we might crash in !  we got a soft drink and offered a snack eat your heart out BA  ( but we had just pigged out on a burger at the airport.)

We landed an hour later and the visa thing wasn't a problem, we had to fill out a form and give them a photo ( lucky we had one ) give them 40usd each and then we went through passport control. Easier than we thought, after that we got a sim card and took out some money. You can only get loation Kip in laos, the good news was they took Baht and USD.

Then we got a taxi which turned out to be shared with a large family, Fi and I ended up in the boot with the luggage, I was happy when we got dropped off but not so happy when we found out it wasn't our hotel! To be fair the guy from the wrong hotel went and got a truck taxi thing who ended up dropping us in the vicinity of our Hotel, very tired and sweaty when we got there , no suitcases on wheels just carrying big bags on our backs. My initial intro to Laos ,not so good.

As always a day flying doesn't cheer me up but after a wash and an hours rest we felt ready to go out. A really nice restaurant near us and after a meal and a beer and a blether with a couple from France who we invited to share a table ( they were getting turned away as it was full )

We withdrew 2 million Kip from the bank which was around £70, and the bill came to several hundred thousand  Kip, I left the lassie a tip but she said it was too much, nice, I still left a tip which I'm sure was a few pence. The area we are staying in seems quite upmarket, when we got a ride into town I was thinking "my god" but it's really quite nice. We ended up in a bar where we had a singleton whisky and a French red wine respectively.

Awakened at 4am by the monks banging a big drum next door, it sounded like someone was kicking a door in and just before I got up to go outside and tell them to Shut the fuck up I realised what it was.

Sunday today and a wander then a tut tut ride to the bike shop to introduce ourselves (200,000 kip fare around £7 including him waiting half an hour) , we pick the bikes up on Tuesday for the next riveting adventure. 

Leaving Chiang Mai

Me, crabbit in the back of the 2nd Taxi

 the Wat where the 4am Monks live next door 

In the restaurant 

off to the bike shop

our driver

seemingly from the 1500's

really nice area