Wednesday November 12, 2008, 15 km (9 miles) – Total so far: 236 km (147 miles0
This journal will finally lift off once we leave this town. In the meantime, here’s 0.3 % of what I took.
Wat Xieng Thong's funerary carriage hall
the Nam Khan river as it flows to meet the Mekong in Luang Prabang
Joma Cafe's delights
a local eatery, packed every night
Saturday November 8, 2008, 5 km (3 miles) – Total so far: 51 km (32 miles)
On any ordinary day, I have no intention, nor desire to take pictures of monks out on their morning alms. Mostly because back home any food offering to monks are done within temple premises, and monks back home get around in BMWs and Volvo SUVs, donations from business people who have prospered from going to the right temple. But I’m in Luang Prabang on a chilly morning, enjoying cycling in rarefied weather, puffing heaps of smoke without really smoking. Besides the hundreds of monks were here first.
Polite signs and posters around town, showing the proper way of keeping one’s distance, not standing higher above any monk and especially not using a camera’s flash are disregarded as some tourist papparazi stalk and follow the endless trains of orange robes.
Monks under seige
There’s no denying the popularity of Laos in general as a choice destination in Indochina. As a UNESCO World Heritage site, Luang Prabang’s draw has grown by leaps and bounds. Yes there’s the idyllic setting by the banks of 2 meandering rivers, the surrounding mountains, the 33 temples that you can loose your cultural self in, and great tourist infrastructure in beautiful hotels and restaurants.
But the place is bursting at the seams. The reality is that there’s the high and very high tourist seasons throughout the year. Rainy season? No it’s the ‘Green Season’ with a little less tourists who try to avoid the messy year end high season, thinking also that prices will be a little cheaper. Wrong.
Our guest house down a once quiet lane hears the constant buzz of hammering, grinding and sawing as more and more guest houses are being built.
While properly managed progress is generally a good thing and incomes rise, (I saw this in the glee of our 29 year old guest house owner as he washed and waxed his new $37,000 2.7 liter Toyota Fortuner SUV one night) I can take heart that cycle touring under my own steam on a LHT with like minded friends, is one of the better and simpler joys in life.
I am also much too lazy to wash any car of any size. Bicycles are fine.
Amazing Laos
Tuesday October 6, 2009, 70 km (43 miles) – Total so far: 586 km (364 miles)
Sort of skipped breakfast this morning. Nearby grandma’s beef noodles didn’t seem quite ready and though she was very apologetic, who am I to rush a senior citizen at 7 am? There are loads of other places to eat at, but in this quiet neighbourhood, the sound of a juice blender by the road should irritate a dog or two or three. That’ll be one ABC , or apple, beet root and carrot juice please. As a tourist I am given an upsized one. Just Thb 20, and a meal in itself and it lasted the 24 highway kms to the Wang valley’s most famous sight, Wat Prathat Lampang Luang, or ‘The Great Relic Monastery of Lampang’
While some temples claim to have a Buddha ‘relic’ of some sort, a tooth or strand of hair, this high walled temple complex and it’s importance comes from Buddha’s actual presence at one time here. He also left a whole tuft of hair, now preserved in the chedi behind. Alas. the magnificent 45 metre high chedi was under going a face lift. I was not that enthusiastic seeing it covered with a green netting under cloudy skies, from a kilometer away. Managed to lock the bike near temple security and did spend an hour walking on centuries old earth strewn courtyards.
I manage to leave just before the white tour buses arrive and try to find a more rural way back to town. This was much more fun than Route 1, so I headed north east through a place called Hang Chat, why I don’t know, but there were really posh homes among the rice fields, and once I hit the Wang river it was all small riverside roads all the way to Lampang proper.
Found another granny food stall, opened at 10 am and the cheapest but best noodles on record so far, Thb 20 with some crunchy fried bits of lard on top, the icing on the cake, the crown jewels atop other lesser blemished ones, the R in your XTR. What I am trying to say is, that though kiddy portioned, thus not too fatal, it was sooo good. The shop was a bit messy and disorganized. I shut out all thoughts of being adopted here.
After a while, a daughter shows up in a pearly white Toyota Camry Hybrid. Partially assembled near Bangkok, also known as the Detroit of Thailand, for you car buffs. It is utterly new with the plastic sheets still over the leather seats. Speaks to me in Thai while I nod in approval of the noodles. After I am done swallowing and able to converse, in broken Thai, she giggles in embarassment, for mistaking me as a local. Happens all the time, to this lone cycle tourist, and she switches to English. How am I ever going to learn more Thai ? She’s slightly clairvoyant and tells me that the train station is to the right, 500 meters further on. I am on my way there to look at the German inspired architecture, check schedules and see how much longer I can stay in this town without missing my flight home.
At the entrance, there’s a roundabout and big fountain with ornamental baby elephants frolicking in it, as well as a restored steam engine train to indicate that you’re just 50 m away from the train station. A slow mail train from Bangkok gets here at 1241 hrs and takes 2.5 hours to reach Chiang Mai 125 kms away. Looks like another lovely, relaxed late departure tomorrow.
In a never ending quest to document my trip in detail, I bring you more of Lampang, such a laid back town, say compared to Chiang Mai. If Lampang stresses you out, er, there’s always…..Phayao.
With too much time on my hands, I schedule in a post lunch siesta, some internet time, go circle the town of Lampang, again and mostly just cycle down any road I fancy. The riverside promenade ones were the best, car free and you get to hear heart thumping Thai aerobics at dusk and see locals on their bicycles. Met the boys on fixies again who confirmed that Highway 11, the main route back to Chiang Mai has a long and hot 60 km hill climb. They did that on their Vespas, and not on fixed gear bicycles. They told me that the town fountain was the best place to ride such bicycles. I have no idea why, but there are many coffee shops with wifi and bike parking in that part of town. So much saner in the daytime without a chance of getting lost.
Started pedalling again after the siesta and found some really nice looking Burmese influenced temples close to the guesthouse. Wat Don Tao, I think. Though Burma is quite a distance from Lampang, many Burmese were brought to this part of Thailand to work in the logging trade. Apparently there were 4000 elephants in the business as well, but that was a really long time ago , as I did not see one single elephant this whole trip. It was teakwood central during the early years of settlement, when the British controlled much of teakwood logging.
Dinner was 2 takeaways from 2 different places. Reached ‘home’ asked for my keys and I am given a dining set, like last night, plate, bowl, fork and spoon. There’s some idle banter among the staff, just a mother and daughter team tonight, about this lone cycle tourist eating alone in his room, surfacing only to ride his bike. Ride I did. 70 kms today.
Sunday October 4, 2009, 126 km (78 miles) – Total so far: 484 km (301 miles)
All my bags are packed, I’m ready to go, I just need to hook them up (the panniers) before taking them off again. I ride around town in search of breakfast but end up just taking more pictures. It’s a peaceful and quiet Sunday morning, not much traffic and some church bells are even ringing. After 10 kms I am really famished and set myself down to some rice, minced pork and Thai green curry 100 meters from the Baan Warabordee, which incidentally has a great coffee machine. I bring a cup back to the room. There’s a hundred plus flat kms to do today and looking at the sky, I might have to deploy the raincoat. Just lovely.
At Wat Rong Khun, even the koi in the ponds are white, seriously.
At the first touristy stop of Wat Rong Khun 16 kms south of town the skies looked really menacing, despite this famed temple’s glitzy white everything and mirror embedded carvings, I didn’t stay too long. The air was turning cold but I must have struck the weather lottery, twice today. A strong tailwind which made 50 or so kms quite effortless, and at the same time blew away any dark clouds and rain that was a kilometer or so front of me. I couldn’t believe my luck. The roads were not too wet for the wheels to kick up any spray and were actually drying up as I rolled along. Whenever I got hungry or um leaky, a gas station was all that was needed. At one point, I veered across 3 lanes, went off road into a median of grass, and muddy water, right across the opposite lanes just to get to a 7/11, usually part of a huge Pure or Caltex station.
7/11 Coffica is so thick and sweet, I dilute it with a whole bike bottle of ice
7/11 is a good source for almost free ice. Buy some thing though, to avoid dirty looks from the staff. I actually sat down for quite a while here, a pricey hi-so coffee shop, with my budget coffica, but the shop girls here were little angels, smiling and bringing out some serviettes for this sweaty cycle tourist.
Kwan or Lake Phayao is such a chilled out place, I wish I had another day here. 20 square kms of lake in a flat fertile valley was welcome change in scenery from the previous days. Cool breezes all day long and even better at night when the never ending rows of food stalls by the lake’s promenade kick up a storm of heady aromas come dinner time and I suspect till very late at night.
As the night turned out to be quite long and lonely, so tell me something new, I even email a Thai friend who lives in Singapore and she replies saying that she has relatives in Phayao but hasn’t seen them in 15 years. Like most city folk, it is beyond their belief that someone would even want to visit their back water towns and villages, let alone ride long distances on a bicycle to get there, but as we all know it’s the ride and not so much the destination that counts. Of course if the destination’s nice that’s always a bonus.
And now, ahem just to be on the safe side, I’ve also just emailed my dear wife, Coleen, sometimes twice a day, who is in San Francisco for a wedding, fine dining and a lot of shopping. I’d really like to give her a hand with a certain 42 pound package from Wayne @ www.thetouringstore.com, but heck, I’m stuck in exotic Phayao, by the lakeside for now.
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