day 38 - Viang Kham to Vieng Thong

Sunday, 1 December 2013

We set off from Viang Kham at 7.30am this morning after a filling breakfast of noodle soup and rice. Even on a Sunday morning, the town was busy with activity. Men were fixing fishing nets, women were weaving or cleaning and there were a couple of small restaurants open for us to eat at. 

Our plan was to cycle to Vieng Thong which we expected to be a reasonable sized town with a few places to stay. We anticipated it would be roughly 100km, as we'd come to realise that the distances marked out on our map weren't entirely accurate. Like the day before, we started with some long, slow climbs where we felt we weren't making much progress. After about 30km, we were 1050m high and we rode along a ridge for a while in beautiful sunshine. We might have been thinking about woollen jumpers and thermals the day before, but now we were thinking of ice cream. We began our descent towards the valley and found a restaurant in a town called Pak Xeng where we met a French man who had just come from Vieng Thong via motorbike. By that stage, we had done 55km and our legs were beginning to feel tired. He told us Vieng Thong was another 80km away and that he hadn't seen anywhere to stay in between. As there was a guesthouse in Pak Xeng, we were optimistic that we would find some basic accommodation on the way. 

(After a misty day yesterday, it was great to be able to see our surroundings. 

This was the view looking back to Viang Kham)

(This woman was almost bent double carrying bamboo. 

The child with her hid beside her as we passed by)

(We passed many abandoned roadside stalls on the outskirts of villages and wondered if they are only used at certain times of the year)

(Beautiful riding along a flat ridge. Bugs and butterflies flying everywhere)

(Great views looking out over west Laos)

  

We continued to ride through small villages where the children waved and shouted hello. We were beginning to hear the term 'falang' a lot more, which we believe means westerner. As we'd approach a village, we would hear "oh, falang!" and the patter of feet as children ran out of their house to see who was coming. We're unsure why we didn't hear locals calling us this in the lowlands - perhaps the people in these villages didn't expect us to understand. 

(Well maintained gardens and veggie patches in this village. 

The river was teeming with fish and their silver scales sparkled in the sunlight)

Some of the villages were located very high in the mountains and we wondered why they would choose to live in such tough, remote areas. There were fires burning on the roadside where people gathered around to keep warm. We thought it was likely that these people were from the Hmong tribe that had migrated south from China, hundreds of years ago where they had been persecuted. As they moved south, they entered lowlands that were already settled and so were forced to make their homes in higher regions where farming was more difficult. This meant they had to adapt from rice farming to learning how to hunt in the forests instead. We've read that the Hmong aspire to having independence and that this is one of the reasons why they fought with the Americans during the Vietnam War - in the hope that they would end up with some territory of their own. 

(The road towards Vieng Thong. 

A pity about the power lines but the steep mountainside was pretty picturesque)

(A bit of traffic on the road)

An hour after lunch, we crossed into a new province, where we were happy to find the roads had improved and the roadside markers with the Roman script had reappeared. Vieng Thong was 45km away and we decided to aim for it. Unfortunately we were still climbing and making very very slow progress. At 5pm, with an hour of daylight left and still 30km to go, we stopped for a final stretch and some snacks. At the 20km mark, we rode through the dark into a small town where we asked if they had a guesthouse but we were directed to Vieng Thong. It was pitch black and while the hill climbs were hard, coming down the hills we grew numb with cold and couldn't travel fast as our bike lights only lit up a few feet in front of us. 

As the road markers counted down to Vieng Thong, we were so relieved to pull into the town. It was 8pm and we found a street lined with a few guesthouses without difficulty. At the first two, we couldn't find anyone to show us a room but thanks to another traveller, we found the owner of another guesthouse and we were shown a big clean room with a wonderful hot shower. With 6 layers of clothing on, we went out for a quick dinner and then fell into bed, very very very happy to be in Vieng Thong.