by Chris Tharp
Before I knew it, the French had departed, and I was back on my bike, which now ran with full force and gusto. I crossed the bridge for what would be the last time, and sped straight up toward the Nakai Plateau.
As I climbed up the rise, the semi-paved road gave way to rough dirt and rocks. According to what I had read and those I had talked to, it would stay this way for the next 80 kilometers or so. This slowed my progress, as I had to watch out for large and sharp stone shards protruding from the roadway. I had also entered a construction zone, since every two minutes a cement or dump truck—coming from or going to the dam site—blasted by, kicking up enough dust to bury a small town. I wrapped my scarf around my face and firmly placed my sunglass around my head, braving the huge rust-colored dirt clouds that regularly obscured my view and took over the whole road. A red and white sign warned me in Lao and English of the obvious hazard:
BEWARE THE TREUKS IN-OUT
I climbed further up the plateau, switching back through lush jungle, punctuated by small rice and tobacco farms. Despite the onslaught of trucks, I was making good progress and the bike was running well. Even the hated footbrake felt as if it might hold for the rest of the trip.
Eventually the road stopped winding and climbing, and I rolled into a proper town, or what passes for one in remote Laos. Was this Nakai? Had I reached the day’s goal? The roads were dirt and the whole place was covered in reddish dust. It had the feel a frontier boomtown—a result of the work the dam project had brought, to be sure. As I entered the town I noticed a large billboard with writing in both Lao and English:
Welcome to Oudoumsouk
I once again checked the pitiful map supplied by the guidebook, and was unable to locate any town called Oudoumsouk. Believing I had yet to reach Nakai, I pressed on down the stony dirt road.
It wasn’t until it was after dark and a good twenty kilometers up the rough track that I realized my mistake. The night before, around the campfire at the Travel Lodge, an American I met was loudly carrying on about his recent trip on The Loop. I was a bit drunk, more than exhausted, and not paying him the strict attention probably warranted.
“Once you get to the top of the plateau,” he said, “you’ll come to Nakai. Only the locals call it by another name. This happens a lot in Laos. The government has its official names, and the locals have theirs.”
So it was now dark and getting quite chilly, and I had overshot my town by over an hour. The next real settlement was at least sixty kilometers further down a dangerous and unforgiving stretch of road. I would have to turn back.
When I rode back into what I now thought to be Nakai, I was badly in need of some food and beer, not to mention a place to stay. I didn’t see any guesthouses in the town, though I knew that there was at least one. What I did see, parked outside of a small restaurant, was a fully decked-out 350cc Yamaha dirt bike. Most locals rode little 100cc’ers like the one under my ass, so I quickly surmised that this bike must belong to a foreigner.
I parked my bike and walked into makeshift restaurant. A Westerner sat alone at a table. He was decked out in dirt-bike armor and busily typing away on an expensive-looking laptop. This was in a place lit by a fluorescent light bulb and with a dirt floor. I approached and discarded formalities.
“Where’s Nakai?”
“You’re in it, man. You’re here. Now sit your ass down and grab a beer.”
His name was Don, and he was American. Like me, he was an expat, but instead of shivering in Korea and teaching English to college freshmen, he spent most of his time on his sailboat in Malaysia. Don was living the dream. He had made enough money to pack it all up, wave goodbye to his friends, buy a boat, and sail halfway around the world. He was in his mid-fifties and sported a dirty blond ponytail, which, with his dirt-bike getup, took a good fifteen years off his appearance.
I ordered that beer and Don immediately set out to show me his laptop. Using state-of-the-art satellite technology, Don was able to log on to the Internet in the most undeveloped areas of Laos, in places where some people had never even seen a computer (this was a few years before the proliferation of wifi). But the real reason Don brought such equipment along had little to do with email or checking his stocks: He was making maps.
“Maps?”
“Yeah, man, I make maps. You could call it a hobby, though I hope to cash in on it one day. I spend four months out of the year riding through Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, filling in the map using GPS.”
“Sounds cool.”
“I’m telling you man, no one has even begun to do this stuff. All of these little villages and dirt tracks, I’m plotting them all within thirty feet. I’ve been at it for years now. I’m currently working on the whole of the Ho Chi Minh trail.”
“You sound dedicated.”
“I am. It’s all I do when I’m not kicking back on my boat in Penang with my Malaysian girlfriend. You know Cambodia?”
“Yeah, I’ve been there once.”
“Well get this. I’ve FINISHED mapping the whole country. Cambodia’s done, man. Finito.”
“Wow.”
“So what the hell are you doing all the way up here in Nakai?”
I told him about The Loop.
“Where you headed to tomorrow?”
“Lak Sao.”
“You’re gonna try to make it down the rest of this road, all the way to Lak Sao, on a 100cc scooter? You’ll never make it, man! I’d turn my ass back if I was you.”
“I know I can do it. These little bikes are tougher than you may think,” I replied.
“Listen, man, that road is a massive construction zone. This dam project is a big deal. It’s being financed by the World Bank. The road is nothing but potholes and rocks and dirt and dumptrucks roaring by every thirty seconds. And that guidebook is telling backpackers to come ride up here? They’re out of their fucking minds.”
We let it rest at that. After a hearty dinner of rice, soup, and impossibly tough mystery meat, Don and I drank a couple more beers, and then he showed me the way to the guesthouse, a sprawling complex around the corner from the restaurant. It was mainly being used to house workers on the dam project. I got a room and fell into a deep sleep.
Day 2
When I left the guesthouse in the morning, Don’s bike was already gone. He was probably halfway to the Vietnamese border, mapping dried riverbeds and counting chickens. I was hungry, so I stopped at a restaurant with a sign in English, usually a strong hint that their menu will be in the same tongue. I was lucky—I could indeed read the menu—so I ordered a bowl of noodle soup that did not take two hours to get to my table. It came right away, actually, as did the two cups of thick coffee that charged me up for an uncertain day’s ride.
Day two on The Loop started like day one, with breathtaking scenery, a happy motorbike, and the full-body thrill that always comes with cruising down the unknown road in an exotic land. I passed through more rice fields and thick forests. The trees cast their cool shadows over the road and the truck traffic was minimal. The morning sun warmed my back, and everything was bright and good. Of course this bliss was doomed to end, and it did so abruptly, in the form of a large rock in the middle of the road.
Crack!
My back tire hit it with full force, blasting out all of the air and kicking the rock straight up into the chain, which responded by jumping from the sprocket. In less than a second, my peaceful morning cruise was transformed into a roadside stall-out in the middle of nowhere. So I did what I had learned to do the day before in such situations: I grabbed the handlebars and pushed. Within ten minutes, I forced the bike into a tiny village called Ban Nongboham. The area was dotted with these villages—clusters of wooden, thatched-roof huts—surrounded by fields with crops. All of the buildings are built on stilts, as the rainy season is serious business in these parts.
As I strained into the village, I came across an open-faced hut with a woman inside. She stood behind a dusty counter with some rudimentary goods for sale: a few cans of o
range Fanta, some pink rolls of toilet paper, glass bottles containing gasoline, and unidentifiable foodstuffs packed in plastic wrappers (nuts? dates? insects?). The woman smiled and addressed me loudly with the all-purpose Lao greeting:
“Sabaidee!”
“Sabaidee!” I replied, as I always did. As I rode through every village on this trip, the people—adults and children alike—would briefly stop whatever they were doing, wave, and hit me with their best shout-out.
The woman immediately followed her greeting with a litany of Lao, unconcerned with the fact that I couldn’t understand her. Surely any foreigner who would ride a motorcycle into this part of the country would be at least semi-facile in the language, she seemed to assume.
I just pointed to the tire and then pointed to the chain, shaking my head as to indicate a problem. She understood at once, and shouted to a little boy who meekly peered our way from the other side of the road. She motioned to the boy and then to me, ordering me to follow him. Even though I didn’t understand the words, the intent was clear, and for a moment I convinced myself that I could actually understand the language, a self-delusion that I commonly fall into when confused in Asia.
I tailed the kid deeper into the village, past a line of huts. Hairy black pigs rooted in the dirt. Chickens of all ages clucked and ran in terror as I approached. Trash littered the ground, along with half-burnt pieces of wood and dried cakes of cow shit. This village was poor. It lacked both running water and electricity. It also seemed to lack men, as the only people observing me were women, a few of whom held infants to their breasts. I figured that the men were probably out in the fields—either that or they had recently been rounded up by government troops, taken to a deep part of the forest, and shot. I began to harbor serious doubts that my motorbike could be fixed. These doubts were soon assuaged, however, by the arrival of The Mechanic.
The Mechanic was a man, though one unsuited for farm work. He was deformed, with shriveled and useless legs. He had matted long hair with bits of wood and grass in it and wore an old army jacket so filthy that I had an impulse to yank it off and burn it. He got around on his hands, which seemed longer and broader than usual, but perhaps this was only a result of him ambling about on them for a lifetime. He looked like he was in his early thirties, the perfect age for a prenatal victim of Agent Orange, which the US government mercilessly sprayed over this part of Laos throughout the Indochina War. The Mechanic looked at me, flashed me a smile, lit a cigarette, and made his way to my bike for an inspection. By the look on his face, I could tell that the fix would be no problem, and he was soon barking orders to the gang of bored-looking boys who had gathered around us to take in the action. One boy scurried up a ladder and into a hut, reappearing with a burlap bag filled with some tools. The Mechanic quickly got to work, ripping off the tire and tube, locating the leak, and patching it up. At one point—when his kid helper couldn’t locate the extra tire patching—The Mechanic climbed up the ladder and into the hut, using only his arms and doing so with the confidence of an expert. He came back down with the patch tube and finished the job.
He easily re-railed the chain, and even tightened it up a bit with his wrench. When the bike was ready to go, I paid him his fee—one dollar—thanked him, and went on my way.
The next stretch of road was the most isolated and beautiful on the Nakai Plateau. The villages disappeared, and soon I was riding through untouched jungle. The traffic was light, and I made a steady pace down the rough road. My goal for the day was the town of Lak Sao, the last stop in Laos before the border with Vietnam. Within an hour, I was crossing the Nam Hin Bun, which stretched out below me and reflected the noon sun. A new bridge was being built about half a kilometer up, and soon, within a year or two, the river would be dammed (or should I say “damned?”), and much of what I had seen would be underwater. Ahhhh, progress. The words of Edward Abbey, whose seminal work Desert Solitaire I had completed just days before, rang in my head: Our modern industrial economy takes a mountain covered with trees, lakes, running streams and transforms it into a mountain of junk, garbage, slime pits, and debris. My blood cooled as I pondered the future for this beautiful corner of the country.
Soon I came upon Inga and Steve again. Like me, they were coated in dust.
“You made it!” Steve said.
“Not without difficulty, but here I am. Where did you guys stay last night?”
“Nakai. We found a small guesthouse.”
As I went on to tell them about my troubles the day before, their eyes widened with incredulity.
I rode with the Belgians for a while, but their pokey pace was a bit too slow for my liking, so I gave them a wave and cranked up the throttle.
I had crested the hump and the road began to wind down from the Nakai Plateau. The endless barrage of trucks making their way up and down was now taxing. Every two minutes saw a new truck grumbling by, often at lethal speeds. I rode through Saharan dust clouds and was nearly forced off the road by coffee-jacked truck drivers rushing to make their deliveries in time. As I coughed up dirt and picked dust nuggets from my nose, I thought of a clean shower and hot meal awaiting me in Lak Sao. My fantasy was soon interrupted, however, by another flat tire. The Mechanic had only patched the tube; there were no new ones in the village to sell me. I at once regretted my need for speed. The velocity of progress and stress of the road was just too much for the tire to bear, and the patch failed. So I again pushed the bike down the road, soon passed by the Belgians, who could only laugh and look on with sympathetic eyes.
Soon I was off of the plateau and into a village. This village was the most developed settlement since Nakai. It may even have had electricity. I pulled off at the first mechanic I spotted; he changed and inflated the tube with Teutonic efficiency. It took no longer than ten minutes. This is the terrific thing about breaking down in Laos. Everyone rides 100cc bikes for transportation, so even the most primitive village has someone who can fix them. Let us give thanks to the invention of interchangeable parts.
After stopping for a brief swim in a cool river, I caught up with the Belgians and accompanied them into Lak Sao. Though Laos is a tropical country, we were now firmly in the highlands, and once the sun was obscured, things quickly turned cold. Lak Sao is a stopover point on the way to and from Vietnam, so despite the rugged frontier feeling of the place, there are plenty of good places to stay. I got a huge room in a guesthouse in the shadow of an imposing mountain. It even had warm water, though it only stayed warm at the lowest pressure, which was nothing more than a trickle. But warm was warm, and I spent the greater part of thirty minutes feeling like I was getting peed on.
After cleaning up, I took a wander through the town, which is located at a crossroads with a main paved route. The worst part of the journey appeared to be over. The rest would be over smooth, sealed roads. I wandered through the market, past stalls selling clothes and food. Meat sat out on tables, unrefrigerated, shining in the periodic bursts of sun. One stall featured several gutted rats and what appeared to be a guinea pig. Lak Sao is located in a mountainous and unspoiled part of the country, and much of the local wildlife was evidently available for consumption at this market, but in recent years there has been less and less to eat, as the hunt went on unchecked. Just rats and pets left, it seemed.
I joined Inga and Steve at the main restaurant in town, aptly named The Only One. We sat at one of two tables located a small patio near the entrance, bundled up against the chilly wind. The menu was vast, containing your usual array of fried rice, stir-fries, soups, and curries, along with a dish bizarrely named dish that leapt out from the menu: BOILED THE FURNITURE OF BUFFALO. Despite my curiosity, we went with the chicken and fish.
The restaurant was the busiest in town, offering refuge from the mountain chill for the many visitors passing through. At one point a group of four Laotian men in suits walked in the door. They had the confidence and air of Communist Party officials. They were joined by a young woman, who stepped outside to make a call on
her cell phone. As I looked at her features, I took her to be foreigner—definitely northeast Asia—confirmed right after when I recognized the language she spoke as Korean. When she finished her call I addressed her in her native tongue.
“Annyeonghaseo?”
“Annyeonghaseo?” she replied, curtly.
“You are Korean?” I continued.
“Yes.”
“I actually live in Korea. In Busan.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yes. I like it very much.”
“What country are you from?”
“America.”
“I see.”
It was only then that I noticed a little red pin on her lapel, displaying the all-knowing face of Kim Il-Sung. She was from the North. She turned away and re-entered the restaurant before I could say another word.
Soon a man rolled up on a big dirt bike. It was Don, my map making drinking buddy from the night before.
“Man, oh man it’s a cold one. Care if I join you guys?”
He had been all the way up to the border, which is at a high elevation, and was too chilled to continue with his ride. A biting wind cut down from the mountains that day, making motorbike travel a ball-chilling affair. He sat down with us and we ordered more food and more beers, continuing our impromptu party well into the night. We were eventually joined by three Aussies who rode in on dirt bikes, as well as a group of about forty elderly Dutch people from a tour bus staying the night on its way to Vietnam. To see a true trailblazer such as Don and this herd of package tourists in the same room truly represented the two extremes of Southeast Asian travel. By the end, aided by countless bottles of beer, I had made friends with them all. And after nearly falling asleep at the table, I said my goodbyes and stumbled back to my room though the pitch black of the town.
Day 3
The morning proved to be even more frigid than the night. The wind had intensified and I could see my breath, a phenomenon I hadn’t counted on for this trip to the “tropics.” I put on my pants, two T-shirts, two button-up shirts, and my sweater, and proceeded to zip down the road, savoring the smooth surface and quick pace. The dirt track was behind me, and once again I was on an unbroken, hard-sealed surface.