Come Heaven And High Water

Don’t You Hate People Who Are Always Happy?

I apologise.

I can’t help it. I’m not doing it on purpose.

But as the days pass by I’m just getting happier.

I know it’s really annoying.

And I know it’s just a phase, and I’ll get over it. Something will happen.

But at the moment, every day I seem to love my life, my lifestyle, and this way of journeying more and more.

And to my surprise, I’m also loving the actual cycling part more and more too. That, I didn't expect.

I mean, I didn’t initially decide to cycle through Southeast Asia and beyond just because I particularly like cycling.

I’m not a cyclist, as such.

I mean, cycling’s fun, but so is travelling on a train.

I decided to cycle because it’s slow, and it’s a way to really connect with local people who don’t live anywhere near touristed areas, and normally have no contact with foreigners whatsoever.

That often makes the connection much less tarnished, more authentic.

Without wanting to generalise too much, when I go to an overtouristed area, like in Ao Nang in Thailand for example, the locals might either ignore me completely (which is fine, but there’s no connection), or they might be quite grumpy, because they often have to deal with hordes of culturally unaware (drunk?) tourists, or answer the same old questions a million times a day, or run the same old tours for never ending groups of people, who just keep coming, and coming, and coming.

But in places that have no tourists at all, the locals are generally super curious and open, if a little shy and afraid. They genuinely want to know about me, just as I want to know about them. Our lives are so different, but here we are together, with the chance to become friends for awhile, and maybe even for longer.

And that’s just one part of it.

Cycling’s also such a great impact-free way to get from one place to another. You know what I mean, it’s emissions free, except of course for the impact of the extra food and sweet drinks I have to guzzle to give me enough energy to do it.

It’s also completely flexible, which is an amazing bonus for someone like me.

Take tomorrow, for example. I really don’t know when I’ll get up in the morning (although I do know it won't be early), or what it’s gonna be like on the road, where I’m gonna cycle to, or where I’ll sleep. It all depends on how I’m feeling at the time, and on things beyond my control, such as the weather, the road, my bike, or where exactly there happens to be a decent place to sleep.

On a bus or train you pretty much have a plan for when you’re leaving, and where you’re going. Which is fine too, but different.

It’s actually really freeing to have a daily un-plan.

And the other thing about cycling is that you honestly don’t need to be fit either.

I didn’t train for this trip. I went on a couple of short bike trips with all my gear in Oz before I left, but that wasn’t to tune my body. It was just so I could get the hang of my new second hand bike, feel how much gear I could bring, and get a sense of how to pack the bike so it doesn’t wobble all over the place.

I was very unfit, cyclewise, when I left. All I’d been doing for pretty much nine whole months beforehand was hiking, or sitting on my skinny arse driving around Australia. All around it in fact, and through it as well, for good measure.

But then I just brought my bike and my gear over to Bali, loaded her up, and started riding. When I got tired I stopped. At first I got tired quickly, and then as time passed I just slowly got fitter.

Day by day my body’s adjusted and changed, all on its own, with no particular effort on my part. The roads have provided me with new challenges, as the hills get steeper or the roads worsen, and my mind and body slowly learn how to deal with all these different scenarios. I’ve had so many different types of road and weather conditions now that it all seems so familiar.

But I haven’t had real high-altitude mountains yet. Or super cold weather. That’s coming.

So after all this riding I’m now absolutely loving the cycling part. I feel so fit and comfy on the bike. I feel way more skilled at controlling it, and I know much more about how to get it working at its best.

I also feel supremely lucky that this whole Southeast Asian trip, which has been almost nine months long now, has really gone so incredibly smoothly, pretty much without a hitch.

Sure, the accident in Bangkok set me back, it took me some weeks to stop feeling pain in my shoulder, and for my face to heal. But even that dumb event could’ve been super tragic, if, rather than breaking my fall with my shoulder and cheekbone, I’d hit that hard concrete curb edge with something else. Like my temple, for example.

Yeah, it’s been an amazing journey so far.

And I also appreciate that anything can happen at anytime. We never know. But whatever does happen, I’ve still been such an incredibly lucky man to have experienced all of this so far.

And I don’t forget that fact for a second.

Over The Hills And Far Away

So because of the major flooding in the hills around Na Hin, the jungle road to the east remained closed, so I couldn’t journey to some places I thought I’d like to visit in that direction.

So instead, I climbed way up those big forested hills again, this time heading west, the way I’d come.

The cutest sun/rain shelter ever.

The forest was even more beautiful on this particular day, because it wasn’t pouring with rain, and the sun even peeked out for a bit.

These photos, from the top of the biggest hill, are looking south, across the wide expanses of the Nam Kading Protected Area, which also stretches way out to the north from here as well. The huge area consists of steep limestone karst cliffs, deep valleys, wild rivers, and large tracts of untouched rainforest, all accessible only on foot, and home to many endangered species.

It’s a precious, incredible place.

The area is the home of the gaur, which is like an Asian bison, as well as the sun bear, and a number of species of gibbon. Among many other things.

A gaur

Sun bear. Maybe she was the yeti on my roof for those 2 nights at Kong Lor!

Northern white-cheeked (and very cheeky) gibbon

Sorry, just in case you’re wondering, they’re not my pics

She’s a bloody livewire mate. The storms and flooding brought down power lines all over the place.

These stunt people were doing some re-wiring. The truck on the road at the back was tightening the power cable with a winch, and these guys, perched on top of the power poles, were using their body weight to keep the cable on track as it tightened up.

I honestly could hardly watch.

Hand made knives

And other murder weapons

People live in here

The Nam Kading River, chock-a-block, which has its source in the rain forested Protected Area of the same name that I’ve just been riding through.

I followed that river back to the Mekong, which is currently roaring, also at high water levels. The confluence of the rivers is at this spot, with the Mekong flowing right to left in the distance. It’s at least 1500km from here to the Mekong Delta, way down in Southern Vietnam.

And some of this water has come all the way from the river’s source in Tibet, over 3,000km upstream.

Buddha and his nagas

Home made beef jerky, at a stall

And the fish version

Other snacks, including pink century eggs, fermented eggs popular in Thailand and China, where they originated. They’re quite uniquely tasty, and extremely uneggish.

Today I was loving riding so much that despite all that hill climbing, I didn’t feel like stopping for ages. But after 100km I was ready to rest.

My dinner spot

Just outside my dinner spot

The long road northwest, my direction tomorrow

My guest house entrance

The Long Road To Vientiane

From Pak Kading, where I’d spent the night in a guest house run by a teenage boy who had his mates over for a party, with super loud Thai dance music, and where my room looked like the party had been there the previous night and no one had bothered cleaning it up (the floor was littered with old chips and bits of snacks, and the toilet was dirty), I headed out onto the bumpy dusty road towards the capital.

It was a really bad road for most of the day, even worse than yesterday.

Sometimes they put rocks in potholes, which may be fine for a truck, but they’re deadly for a bicycle

Back to the Mekong, on a surprisingly hot, sunny day

So dusty my camera’s eyes could hardly focus

Let alone mine

No comment

Sweet bedcover

Yay! Smooth concrete! But I kid you not, it only lasted about 50m. From potholed rocky dust to concrete and then back to potholed rocky dust, all in 50m. Why here? I can’t even fathom a guess.

The views were still beautiful though.

This was parked outside a guest house. Someone must’ve got off their fat ass and gone inside.

Sunset at the guesthouse

Rice cracker snack (delicious)

Vientiane

Just as I was leaving my guest house I got a message from Michael, someone I met through the cycling group Warmshowers, whom I’d contacted a couple of months ago about storing my bike at his place in Vientiane for awhile. He asked me what I was up to, and I said I just happened to be on my way to Vientiane right now. He invited me to stay with him and his wife Jenni while I was in town. What impeccable timing!

It was a pretty dodgy road for a lot of the way, until about 20km from the capital, where, finally, I had a smooth bitumen run to their pad.

Vientiane’s so much bigger than I remember it, it’s so spread out these days, but the city doesn’t really feel like a capital city somehow, as there’s very little high rise, and the city centre doesn’t really have a focal point. And even though the city lies on the beautiful Mekong, there’s a large flat floodplain between the actual water and the city, so it doesn’t really look as beautiful as some of the other towns on the river in this country.

The long road into town. New highrise, funded by Sino bucks

Vientiane has its own cute Arc de Triomphe, built over a long period from 1957 - 68, to commemorate the deaths of Laotian soldiers killed during World War II, and during the fight for independence against the French. It was initially named Anousavali, which means the “monument.” So creative.

At the time the US had provided funds and concrete to the Royalist government to build a new airport, but the government used it all to build the monument instead, earning the new creation the nickname, the “vertical runway.”

After the civil war between the royalists and the communists, the communist victors renamed the monument Patuxay, which is roughly translated as “door to victory.”

A pic of mine from 2017, when Lali, Sue, Mia and I spent some time in Laos. Definitely dry season, going by the colour of the sky.

Eventually I made it to Michael and Jenni’s. They’re the most amazing and beautifully hospitable couple, both working for an NGO in the aviation field. They’re Aussies from Perth, but haven’t lived in Oz for about 35 years, having spent many years working in PNG, Timor Leste (East Timor), and Nepal. They’ve been in Laos for about 9 months.

Jenni’s a lawyer, and has worked in logistics in natural disaster response, spending many years assisting recovery efforts in Nepal after the devastating earthquake in April 2015. After years of the country’s slow recovery from that event, and just as Nepal was getting back on its feet and preparing for a major government-funded tourism push to get foreigners back and raise desperately needed foreign currency, Covid hit.

So tragic. Just before then, many people had gone into major new debt, renovating their hotels and restaurants, or setting up new businesses in the tourism sector, preparing for an expected major influx of tourists. Of course, no tourists ever came, and it hit people hard.

Jenni was subsequently heavily involved in the repatriation of foreigners out of Nepal during Covid border closures, and in helping Nepalese citizens in many other countries (especially workers in the Middle East) get back home.

Michael’s an engineer and pilot, and has worked in helping PNG, Timor Leste, Nepal and Laos develop its own aviation industry, including setting up new airstrips, developing access to remote areas, and training aviation workers and pilots.

At the moment Michael and Jenni both work at the airport, Jenni’s teaching “aviation English” to workers there, as the international industry exclusively uses that language. Michael’s involved in training and helping to certify pilots, and ensuring their training planes are maintained and stay in the air.

We chatted a lot about their work, and about how difficult it is sometimes, particularly dealing with government and other bureaucrats, and with differences in culture, especially in the way people learn, and how they approach and carry out tasks.

Jenni told me that cultural understanding and sensitivity is absolutely crucial in affecting change, and to make improvements in the way systems operate. If people don’t respect you (because you haven’t gone to the trouble to learn about their cultural practices, including how you address people, and who you address first, etc.), you have no chance of really making any difference to their lives whatsoever, despite your good intentions, because they won't be interested in what you have to say.

Michael and Jenni’s imposing luxury pad. They didn’t choose it, it came with the job. But my Buddha, I’m not complaining, no siree, it’s like a five star hotel in there, particularly compared to where I’ve been staying lately.

The back streets by the river, near their house.

Michael and Jenni are Christians, I went with them to an international Anglican church service in a little building that’s also used for English, French and Lao language teaching. I met some lovely people, including a lot of Africans from Côte d’Ivoire and other French ex-colonies, as well as French and German expats.

Pastor Ian about to dish out the goods. I haven’t had wine in months, I was gonna ask for a few more but I didn’t want anyone to miss out.

We went out for bubble icecream. Yeah, soft serve icecream topped with tapioca balls. Michael and Jenni loving each other (and me). Right back at ya guys. Devastatingly, the soft serve machine had run out of icecream, and we didn’t want to wait. Well, some of us didn’t (Are you crazy?, I would’ve waited hours).

The floodplains along the Mekong

More empty cycle paths.

Silhouette of the Statue of King Anouvong, a famous and revered ruler of the Kingdom of Laos from the early 1800s. I climbed up to shake his hand, but he pulled it away at the last second. Trickster.

King Anou had a really tough time in his reign from 1805 - 1829, as he had to try and deal with the way more powerful Kingdom of Siam (Thailand) to the south. After a succession of military victories and royal decrees by the ruthless Thai king Thaksin, all of which negatively affected Lao people in a big way, the Lao King Anou finally spit the dummy, and led a rebellion.

He attacked northeastern Thailand with four separate armies, which was populated by ethnic Laotians anyway (and still is), and, whilst initially successful, Anou greatly underestimated the strength and superior firepower technology of the Thai army, who ended up roundly defeating him.

In retaliation, the Thais completely razed Vientiane, to the point where, when the French arrived 30 years later, they just found a bunch of ruins in the jungle. Unfun fact.

The French then organised for Vientiane to be rebuilt as the capital, mainly as a big fuckyou to the Thais, with whom they were having constant disagreements (in fact, France and Thailand even had a short war in 1940, which the French lost).

The Lao King Anou himself met a particularly grisly end. After his rebellion failed, he was placed in a large cage like an animal, and transported in the burning sun all the way down to Bangkok. For part of the way they threw some of his kids in the cage with him, for good measure. Once in Bangkok, his Thai victors tortured him by pounding parts of his body in a huge mortar and pestle, they boiled him up in a large cauldron, and then hoicked his body up on a hook, for all to see.

Ah yes. There’s more than one way to skin a cat.

That’ll teach you to mess with our gracious and benevolent Thai ruler.

When I read about such things it never ceases to amaze me how imaginatively brutal people can be. It’s such an effective and foolproof way to foster generations of deep resentment, and guarantee decades, even generations, of conflict.

Beautiful wat

Colonial clock tower and Nam Phou fountain

Yes! Tofu! Tofu larb, in fact, a traditional Isaan/Lao dish, normally made with pork, and washed down with delicious red rice and Thai red tea.

Also, could someone clean my iPad please? It's disgusting.

Wiry dreadlock

I myself could easily have come up with a name like this

Michael, Jenni and I went to a Chilean restaurant one night, of all things, it was so good. Beans, burritos, enchiladas, guacamole, you name it. And another day Jenni cooked an amazing 9-bean Newari dish (from the Kathmandu Valley). It was so unbelievably good that we all had to fight really hard over the 9 beans.

And Michael and I went out for beers and amazing food on yet another night.

All I wanted to do was eat, to replenish my very nutrient-depleted body. I don’t have an abundance of reserves at the best of times.

And so, I scrubbed every square millimetre of my body in a proper shower, actually used a washing machine to try and resurrect my clothes (with limited success), manually washed dishes for the first time in eons (besides my pink plastic plate and a bit of cutlery that is), got up to date on the boring administrative part of my life, and was then ready to leave Michael and Jenni’s warm and welcoming home, to head back into the real, way less polished world.

Another Day, Another Kingdom

And so I headed out of Vientiane, on the long ride out of town to the Friendship Bridge (there’s currently 4 Thai-Lao Friendship Bridges over the Mekong, with a fifth on its way).

The Mekong’s still chokka. It’s been raining heavily for a few hours every night lately.

I love the sarong school uniforms. They look nice, but I imagine they’re not that great for sliding tackles on the soccer field. Oh well, maybe they have sports uniforms.

Beautiful forest temple

Seeya Laos. You’ve been amazing. I’ll be back soon. You can’t get rid of me that easily.

St Vegas Casino is actually located in no woman’s land, after you exit Laos, but before you enter Thailand. Maybe that allows it to bypass anti-gambling laws, I’m not sure. I just love how, although relatively new, it looks like it was built decades ago.

And then, before I could say “khawp jai lai lai,” (thank you very much, in Lao), I was suddenly in Thailand.

It feels so different. There’s so much more money around, way more stuff in the shops, way more expensive housing and cars.

So now I’m on the southern side of the Mekong. I needed to get out of Laos as my visa had nearly expired, and so I’m riding a loop over the next couple of weeks, first following the Mekong west, and then heading inland, before heading back up and returning to Laos, to meet up with some really close friends visiting from Australia. Exciting!

One of many beautiful wats I saw along the river. There’s way more wats in Thailand than in Laos. In Laos, the atheist communist government, and strict government administrative and financial control of the church, has led to its much smaller influence there.

Way more cash to advertise church events here too.

Great old bus. I’ve been on many of these over the years, including on some old rattlers in Bangkok not that long ago, with Iain.

Old market shed

It’s really sad, but I was so happy to see a Lotus’s supermarket again. I admit it’s sort of the equivalent of a Coles or Woolies, but just pretend I didn't mention that. Yoghurt, herbal toothpaste and toiletries, even “bread” - it’s amazing how much you appreciate things when you haven’t had them for awhile.

The beautiful view from my guesthouse.

So, for a few days, I continued to follow the river.

I want some of these in my garden one day. Way more interesting than boring gnomes.

Beautiful woven goods and local produce.

Buddha with a riverside seat

This region is relatively undeveloped, and gets few local tourists, as well as pretty much no foreigners whatsoever. A lot of the housing is traditional wooden buildings or tiny shacks, people have little, but they have way more than their neighbours across the river, and more than enough to eat and to live modest lives.

There’s loads of forest about, and crops like bananas, rubber, and fruit trees.

They’ve got old bowsers here too, just like across the river

Roundabout naga

Looking across to Laos

Back to spaceship water tanks

You know, sometimes I’m so dumb. I really had no idea whatsoever about what sort of country I’d be riding in, coming out this way to ride this loop, which is just a route I created myself by looking at a map, and looking at a few locations along it that looked interesting. But I didn’t look at the terrain at all, and because it was mainly flat along the Lao side of the river, I just assumed it’d be the same here.

But as it turns out, it’s been hilly for long stretches, and sometimes quite steep. So even though I’m in northeastern Thailand, in an area known as Isaan, I’m not actually that far east, and, because of the terrain, it feels way more like northern Thailand than the huge flat plain that constitutes most of the rest of Isaan.

I’m actually cycling through the most southerly part of the hills and mountains that fill up the whole of northern Thailand, northern Laos and northern Vietnam. It’s stunning.

There’s amazing large stretches of thick green forest.

I didn’t realise organic charcoal was a thing.

Nope, it's not flatulence-induced detritus. Notice that the shape is suspiciously bike saddlesque. My hiking pants will never ever be the same again.

Tonight I’m parked right up on the river bank. Everything’s been flooded. There was lots of sediment around, but the locals have already cleared most of the debris.

This swing didn’t quite make it back from the floods in the same nick

I left my little cabin at 5pm to look for food. I was already too late. The few little food places around here had already closed, and there’s no real town anywhere near here. But I did find a little shop, and spent some time chatting with a mum and her young daughter about all sorts of things, mainly on Google Translate, which has an audio option for Thai. So unfortunately dinner was, surprise surprise, 4 minute noodles (2 x 2). Nevertheless, it was delicious, which everything is of course when you’re hungry.

It’s been really beautiful riding along this amazing full river for the last couple of weeks. As I head upstream, there’s more and more variation in the river, there’s islands, rapids, and the width of the the river is so changeable in different places. I never imagined the Mekong looking like this.

Staple meal, fried rice with veggies and eggs, almost always served with sliced cucumbers and a couple of small spring onions, as well as a broth of some unknown origin.

Shore shoring, after the floods

I hadn’t seen these type of religious buildings in Thailand before. Initially I thought they must be some kind of pizza oven for making sacred pizzas, but actually what they fire up in there is not pizza, but is way more sacred.

They’re actually crematoriums, and are often faced by a sala (a wall-less building for gatherings or teachings), where they hold funeral services.

The reason I discovered what they were was because a few days later I actually saw one in action, with the chimney still smoking, at the end of a funeral. It wasn’t appropriate for me to take pics, but there were a lot of people there, and a lot of monks.

Most of the buildings in the small towns have rusty old roofs like these.

Glorious hills, and an amazingly good road. Thailand’s so good that way.

It’s hot and steamy, there’s lots of water about, and the lotus flowers are going beautifully gangbusters.

Run-of-the-mill garbage containers. They’re everywhere, and are made of rubber, sometimes from recycled truck tyres.

Loopin De Loop

So, I’ve made it to Chiang Khan, an historic small town close to the western edge of my intended loop route.

The blue dot is where I am right now, hangin out in my super large old family room, in a lovely guest house in Chiang Khan.

The young couple who run the guest house, Nok and Peow, are so sweet and hospitable, and their young son Phun is so friendly and playful, and just comes in and out of my room at will, especially when he wants to take a piss, and can’t be bothered going across the laneway to his place.

This is a zoomed out version of my loop route, to give you a little more perspective.

The whole route is about a 600km trip, and it’s through completely untouristed parts of the country. I’ve never heard of most of the places, nor have I ever noticed them on any map.

Hopefully I’ve got enough time to get around the whole route before my dear amazing friends from Oz arrive in Vientiane and Luang Prabang in a couple of weeks. If not, I’ll just have to cut it short.

I’m so looking forward to hangin out with them, we’ve all been close friends for so many years, right from India days, way back in the 90s, and from when Carmen, Manu and I first moved to the north coast of NSW, at the turn of the Milennium. That seems a century away. And one of these amazing souls, Michael, I’ve known since middle school, when we were wide-eyed impressionable 12 year olds.

Yeah I know.

That far back.

These guys really are family to me.

It’s special.

As if my original family isn’t big enough already❤️

Oh and by the way, I just wanted to say a very big thank you to those of you who have supported my writing in many ways over the past year and a half. It makes me feel really good inside, and keeps me motivated to keep my virtual keyboard silently clicking. If you're new to reading this, you can make a donation anonymously (or not) by clicking on the link below. Beware that I reserve the right to use the cash for infinitely wide and possibly nefarious purposes, as I see fit.

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