Going Tribal 3

Muang Kham

The next day I rode along the plain for awhile, and then got back into the hills, and eventually to another plain.

Photogenic hills

Cemetery

Traditional Tai Dam house

Amazing roadside stalls. Loads to eat, but I skipped the som, the fruits that look like little tomatoes.

Displaying their wares. The metal in all these is worth quite a lot of cash around here. Unfortunately that provides an incentive for poor locals to go and dig them up, with sometimes horrific consequences.

Lunch. Some sort of gluggy rice thingy with bits of onion in it, onion pastry balls, and delicious mango.

Downtown Muang Kham

The view from the back of my guest house

The view of  the back of my guest house

Tham Piew

In the arvo I rode about 8 clicks out of town to check out a cave, Tham Piew, which was the site of a particularly horrible event during the American War.

Army base

Pretty farmhouse

Riding through little villages and farms to the caves

Half moon run

Rice silo. The silo is made of bamboo, and then covered in buffalo dung to insulate it.

Beautiful spot for a staghorn

Buddha shrine close to the entrance of the cave

View from the cave entrance

Due to the almost constant carpet bombing of this district by the US airforce during the war, local villagers and Pathet Lao troops were always trying to find safe places to be for long periods of time, as it was so dangerous in the villages.

Caves were a good option, because they were safe from aerial bombardment.

The whole population of some local villages moved to Tham Piew, as the bombing was so constant.

But on Novermber 24, 1968, a US serviceman in a fighter plane fired a missile right into the cave entrance. It went in deep, exploded, and every single person inside died.

There were 374 victims in just that one attack.

These days, November 24 is an annual day of mourning in the whole of Laos.

The cave used to be extensive, but access to much of it has been destroyed, surprise surprise.

Families have erected small rock memorials inside, which they light incense on.

It was so sad to be there, knowing that my own government was carrying out attacks like this at the time, probably paid for by my dad's taxes. So I went for a walk in the bush, and reflected on how fucked up humans can be sometimes.

I was grateful to Mother Earth, because she did her normal healing thing.

At the museum in Muang Kham I watched a vid about what happened at Tham Piew, where one of the guys who had to remove the bodies of the victims was interviewed. He was still visibly traumatised by the event, of course. Those images and feelings would never ever leave you I guess.

Big Climbs

Today I broke another of my own personal cycling records. Not that I'm particularly into the numbers thing, in fact I don't even have a little bike speedo or odometer thingy, but up here it's sorta necessary to work out your elevation differences when you're planning your routes, as the roads are so steep, and the distances can be long.

So I know I climbed nearly 1300m today, and some of it was so bloody steep. But thankfully the road was actually relatively good, with not too many gravel patches, and I didn't need to get off and push my bike once.

Great to see some green rice fields (even if it's dry season and they're irrigated).

I check my eggs at the stalls these days. Three times I've bought the eggs with the little steamed almost-hatched chooks inside.

Yeah, dog on the menu. Really.

I stocked up on food before I left town, predicting there wouldn't be much in the food department for the next couple of days - no shops or eating places, just small villages. Better be self sufficient, just in case. I also have my emergency two minute noodles packs and my cooker, if need be.

So before I left town I bought mandarins, sticky rice, boiled eggs, deep fried bananas, and these sweet cassava balls.

I was right, there was nothing much around, and I won't reach a larger town for a couple of days.

It was a killer of a climb, but I took it slowly. That's my secret. As long as I respect my body, and rest when I need to, and don't try and cover impossibly huge distances in one stretch, I'm fine.

You can see the haze from the crop and grass burnoffs at lower altitudes. As I climbed higher the air got clearer.

Interesting

The views were amazing.

By mid arvo I'd had my fill of riding, and asked the family living in this beautiful house if I could pitch my tent in their field across the road. Of course they graciously said yes. It was the love heart that made me stop there.

I found a patch of shade, lay my sarong on the ground, and crashed out. Siestas are the best invention ever.

One of the young men started burning off around the property

I had loads and loads of companions on my patch for the night.

One of a few puppies that visited, as well the adult dog pack that looked after me.

Piggy on the edge

My alarm clock

Home sweet home

There were mountains of kids, all but one were girls. The best thing ever is that noone's got phones around here, and there's no range up here anyway. There's loads of gatherings, chatting, laughing, and music instead. Just like it should be. Pretty much every village I've passed through lately has had something or other going on.

The kids played piggy in the middle, throwing a tiny little cloth bag filled with seeds at each other. They laughed their heads off the whole time, and they all looked after the really little ones.

I played guitar for them for ages. When they got bored of that they played on a hugely steep hill that was basically a cliff, running around the steep edge like mountain goats.

In Another World

It really has been a beautiful experience up here in the tall tribal hills of northern Laos.

It's like being in another world, a world that existed centuries ago.

Life is so much slower.

And so is my riding, when I'm climbing the crazy long long steep hills.

It's tough physically, but my body's doing really well. It loves this healthy, wholesome lifestyle. Getting loads of physical exercise, being outside all day, eating pretty much only local home grown and home made produce is all manna for the soul.

I've got a few days more riding to get to Sam Neua, the next town of any decent size, and, of course, I've got mountains of hills to climb and descend before I get there.

And then it'll be back to the hills of Vietnam, and the elegant craziness of Hanoi❤️

http://buymeacoffee.com/krolesh9