Day Three

I finally got some internet access so here's the update for day three.

Today we arrived in Phonsavan, but not without some hard work and a bit of drama too.  Phonsavan is home to the mysterious Plain of Jars and the Mines Advisory Group (MAG) office.  MAG is working with locals and other organisations to clear land for local farmers to use and lift themselves out of poverty.  There is not enough safe useable land in Laos as a result of the Unexploded Ordinance (UXOs) left over from the Vietnam war.  By clearing more land, farmers can produce more, sell more and earn more.  We visited the MAG office on arrival where we saw samples of the UXOs they are pulling up from the ground as well as reading several stories on the effect that MAG is having on the local community.

Now back to the cycling.  We left right after breakfast and cycled for a steady 40km or so with a couple of breaks in between.  The ride started out with us having to negotiate the local rush hour with trucks, buses, tuk tuks, scooters and other bikes, not to mention the pedestrians.  It didn't take long for us to be on the highway and out of the mad rush.  The terrain was up and down for a large part of the way, and then it started climbing.  The views were spectacular even though it was hard going, not to mention the seemingly endless number of dogs, chickens, pigs, kids and anything else you can imagine that kept coming out onto the roads.  It was all part of the fun.  Anyway, one of our stops was just before a massive hill.  The guide told us that it was only 3km to climb and we'd be at the top.  The 3km mark came and went and we were still climbing.  By this stage we were all thinking "it must be around the next bend". Suffice to say, we were thinking that for the next 3km.  We were all very tired at the top, but most of us made it which is great.  At this point, my finger was very sore and our guide had already organised a bamboo splint for me to use as the splint I was using just wasn't doing the job.  It's looking quite swollen, but i managed to bend it a bit.

We put the bikes on the trucks and jumped in the vans for a lengthy drive through the mountains to get us to the other side.  It's a good thing we did because the hills did not stop and the roads became quite bad.  If we'd kept riding, we'd still have been riding now.  We stopped for a lunch break and a little more driving before we jumped on the bikes again.  This time, we had a lot of downhill sections which made it quite fun.  However, it also made it a little dangerous, especially when it started to rain a bit.  This resulted in our second injury in as many days and it wasn't me this time.  Bryce was going around the bend a little too hot and it looks like the bike slid out and then threw him over the other side.  He damaged his elbow pretty badly as well as having several grazes and cuts.  His wounds were seen to and he was taken to the hospital as a precaution.  The cuts in his elbow were pretty deep as the road was quite rocky.  Thankfully, he's ok and didn't need any stitches.  we finished our riding section and headed to the hotel for a hard earned hot shower nice meal.

I'll leave you with a picture of the view from our lunch stop and the current state of my finger.  Tomorrow we visit the Plain of Jars, a small monastery and some bomb craters and trenches from the war in this region.

Day Two

We started off the day today setting up our bikes for the first ride of what we have begun to call the Tour de Laos.  We began the day with a 30km cycle to the Kuang Si Waterfalls.  These are an amazing set of small waterfalls that are fed by a much larger, much more impressive waterfall.  There are several pools that you can go swimming in so we took the opportunity to do just that.  In one of the pools there is a knotted rope attached to a tree so that you can swing from it and jump into the pool.  Of course I had to give it a go.  On my 3rd go, my hands were slipping from the rope so I held on tighter, but kept slipping.  By the time I hit the water my hand was hurting so I swam towards the edge to get out.  As I was swimming, I looked at my hand to see why it was hurting and found a rather badly dislocated middle finger on my left hand.  I got out of the pool and headed over to some of the group that was sitting nearby and announced that I needed a medic.  Someone suggested that it needed to be pulled back out, but no-one was that keen to do it, so i did it myself.  They helped me bandage it up and use my ring finger as a splint.  The result is the picture you see below.  It would have been great to have a picture before I pulled it out, but you'll just have to take my word on it that it was impressive.

All of this excitement happened before lunch!! We had lunch at the waterfall and then spent some time taking photos.  At the site of the waterfall is also a bear sanctuary.  These beautiful sun bears are being saved from ending up on dinner plates around Asia.  The organisation, free the bears (http://www.freethebears.org.au), was started by an Australian woman named Mary Hutton.  We spent some time watching the bears have their lunch and taking some photos of them.  We then jumped back on our bikes to head back to the hotel; another 30km.  We freshened up and then went into town for dinner at a nice little bar where one of our group, Simon, was playing his ukulele and Alicia was singing.  It was a nice night and the food was great.  I ate Luang Prabangers & Mash.  It was the traditional dish as we know it, but the sausages were typical of this area of Laos.  The place itself didn't really have any traditional Laotian food though, which was a little disappointing.

Tomorrow is probably going to be one of the toughest days as there are lots of big hills.  It is also the day that we leave Luang Prabang and ride towards Phonsavan.  As my finger is now throbbing and I have a big day tomorrow, I'm going to sign-off.  No guarantee that I'll have Internet access tomorrow so I'll update the blog again when I do.  I'll leave you with an image of Luang Prabang (it's off in the distance) from the top of the highest hill we climbed today.

Day One

Today was a very busy day.  We left the hotel in Bangkok at 7am to catch our Bangkok Air flight to Luang Prabang.  It was an exciting time as it was the first time that the whole group got to meet each other.  They are an interesting and fun group of people.  Our flight to Luang Prabang was on a small propeller plane seating about 100 people.  We got here in one piece.  The views from the plane as we were landing were great.  You could see the forest extend for what seemed to be forever (pictures below). The airport in Luang Prabang is very small and it felt a bit like stepping back in time as all the decor felt like it was from the 70s. Nonetheless it felt very welcoming. To give you an idea of how small the airport is, there is only one baggage carousel and for some reason it is still labelled with the number 1.  We cleared customs and met our tour guide who got us to the hotel.

The hotel we are staying is called the Villa Santi Resort and yes, it is as nice as it sounds which was a welcomed surprised.  We had a quick dip in the pool before heading out to tour a few of the Buddhist temples.  Laos has a strong Buddhist following and women need to have their shoulders and knees covered or they cannot enter them.  We were told that there are temples that the women cannot enter at all.  We visited one temple in particular that was on the top of a big hill that we had to climb a lot of steps to get to.  The view from up there was great and well worth the climb (photos are on the camera so will have to wait until I get them off).  Apologies that I haven't mentioned the names of any of the temples.  The simple reason is that I don't remember them and they don't had out flyers with information about the temples.

Following the climb down from the temple, we headed off to the famous Laos night markets.  There are heaps of stalls that the vendors set up and take down each night it seems.  There is so much colour and craft at the stalls, but it does get a bit repetitive.  Not wanting to spend all my money on the first night and the first place we'd been to, I was controlled.  It also helped that the market vendors are nothing like their counterparts in other Asian countries I've been to.  Not once did I get hounded to buy something and every time I stopped to look at something, the vendor would politely say hello or "sabaidi".  When you did want to buy something, you didn't even feel compelled to haggle.  Most things are quite cheap here. Finally, we all had dinner as a group and some kicked on for what I presume will be a long night.  Given tomorrow is our first day of riding, I thought I'd be a good boy and give it a miss.  Don't want to go too hard too early. :-)

Day Zero

We've arrived in Bangkok for a stop over after a fairly uneventful flight.  We leave for Luang Prabang in the morning.  I've met two of my fellow riders so far, Finn and Kath from Adelaide.  I'll meet the rest of the team in the morning.  I also discovered that I am the only one from Melbourne.  I'm not really sure how to feel about that.  On the one hand, it's good that Melbourne is at leave represented, but on the other hand, it's a little disappointing that there weren't more people.

Nothing much to report today.  I've had a night cap with Finn and now it's time for bed.  We have an early start in the morning.  Up at 6am and leaving for the airport at 7am.

Hopefully I'll have access again tomorrow and will update then.

Last training run

This weekend just gone was my last big training ride before the big trip.  Five colleagues and I rode the 75km round trip on Melbourne's Eastlink from Ringwood to Frankston.  The event was being held as a fundraiser for Hanover, an organisation working to prevent homelessness and lift people out of poverty.  Despite the heavy rain at the beginning of the ride, it was a very enjoyable day and wonderful to see so many riders in one place.  I've included below the statistics from the ride.  Interestingly, it didn't log the sections in the two tunnels right at the end which is why it only shows 70.96km.

Only 3 more days to go!!!