February 22, 2012 near Vientiane, Laos
I wanted moto adventure and today I got it.
I got back to VTE from the north a day later than expected and did not plan to stay there overnight but had the pleasure of couch surfing w/ Kirsi, the Finnish ex-pat whose company I thoroughly enjoyed.
This morning I was moving slowly so when I finally got my ass in gear and made it over to Jules bike rental I was anxious to get going. I’d been waiting a week for the off-road bike to become available.
We took care of the paperwork and Ting, who is a hellova nice guy, was helping me map out routes when it began to rain. Having no riding gear at all my request to use theirs was fortunately granted and Ting sent me upstairs to grab whatever apparell I wanted. Unfortunately, Most of it was old and in poor condition as some tour groups came in first and snatched up all of the good stuff. Dang. So I rifled through what they had left and came up with a jacket, a well-used helmet, cheapo rain pants that were ripped at the crotch, as well as a water-proof bag for my gear and some bungees to tie it on the bike. The bike I got was a Honda XR250, generally a pretty bullet-proof ride.
I waited as long as I felt comfortable doing, calculating how much daylight I needed to get to the first proposed destination. At around 2-something there was a break in the downpour so I went for it but right after I left the rain picked up again. Regardless, I had to go back to the shop because the bike was idling way too high (the idle screw head was broken off so a pliers was needed to make the adjustment) and the drain hose from one of the carb float bowls had fallen out (the end of the hose is split so the thing was going to pop off again but that shouldn’t effect the bike’s performance…right?!). I got only a mile away from the shop and managed to fill the tank but I was already soaking wet and had two problems to contend with. A wiser man might have called it and waited one more day. But being the stupid, adventurous type I set off again as soon as the bike issues were dealt with.
The rain never let up and within 15Km I found myself on a dirt road along the Mekong just as Ting had described. It was an otherwise beautiful rural route. But wet dirt equals mud in case you’d forgotten, and as I went deeper into the countryside these roads became severely pitted. Many of the pits were actually massive craters, all filled with rain. If my camera was water-proof (and I wasn’t cold and soaking wet) I would have some fantastic evidence of those ridiculous conditions. Each time my front end dropped into a crater it was a surprise how deep it might be. Through several of these -in futile attempts to keep my feet from being completely water-logged- I leaned back in the seat lifting my legs off the pegs high and wide like I was doing some sort of yoga posture. What a joke.
Adding to the “adventure” I still didn’t have anything lighter than orange lenses but I could not ride without something protecting my eyes. The rain was driving, the drops were stinging my forehead. It was really slippery and sometimes the road was off-camber. Tractors had gone through and carved trenches of their own. I kept reminding myself to just stay on the gas. ‘Do not get off the gas or you’re going down. Right here in the pouring rain in the middle of nowhere with nobody around. Shit, I might go down anyway.’
A few times I stopped under shelters to pull out my soaking wet road map. I wasn’t completely certain I was going the right way and by now I was far out into the countryside.
At a small village I came to a cross-roads and drove under the shelter of this hardware store, for lack of a better term, to again check my map and take a needed break. I could barely see and I was a getting cold. All I was wearing under the super-saturated riding jacket was a sleeveless tee and I had no gloves.
There was a man in the back of the shop sitting on a stool eating sunflower seeds and watching bad drama t.v. from Thailand with Lao subtitles. They love their dramas here. Seems to be all they watch. It was funny to see his face as he turned to watch soaking wet white boy ride a big dirtbike right into his shop frontage and create a growing puddle as I pulled myself off the motorcycle. I imagined the look on my own face; a combination of despair, resignation and just a little smile like the one I’ll have re-telling this story months later.
The man motioned for me to join him at the table. There was another stool next to his. And he offered me sunflower seeds. All I could do was sit and drip for several minutes, trying to consider my next move despite feeling rather stunned. I scanned around his shop for anything I could use…some farming gloves, clear lenses that might otherwise be used for industrial work, any clothing… At first I saw none of those. I plopped myself back down, took my shoes and socks off (rang the socks out on the man’s cement floor), I took the jacket off and I pulled out my map. As I unfolded it and layed it out over boxes of screws, bolts and fasteners pools of water in the map creases poured out.
The rain was still coming down hard and it was now past 330; I was quite aware that I only had about two more hours of daylight for riding and it would only get colder. I hoped to make it to Paksan for the night but that was looking less likely.
Just as things seemed at their worst wouldn’t you know that’s when they started getting better. This unlikely man slowly became my savior. First he pulled out a plastic bag for me to put my wet socks in. Then, looking around the shop some more I found a rack of sunglasses and there was that pair of safety glasses I’d been hoping to find! The only pair. I was overjoyed! But wait…what’s this? Another pair of clear lense specs that were even more head-fittingly appropriate. Excellent! -And what? He had a package of socks for sale! What were the chances of that? Then the guy goes and digs in a box and he pulls out a whole frickin’ rain suit. Jeebus f’in Crackers! The icing on the cake was when I got two more plastic bags from him, put them over my feet, and tied the tops before putting the shoes back on. It was delusional to assume that rig would keep me dry for the rest of the day’s riding but at the time it was like the gods were smiling on me.
I put on the suit. It was sized “Asian farm boy” but functional. It would keep me warmer at least. Now, if the rain would only let up… Uhh, you guessed it! So I quickly gathered my things, put the riding jacket from Jules on top of my new rain jacket, paid the nice man and bolted with a big smile on my face. He’d confirmed the direction towards Paksan so I was feeling better about my whereabouts despite still being way out in the boonies.
A short time after I got moving again the rain picked up, then it was pouring, then my feet were soaked again. I had to chucle despite the futility of the situation. I rode down long, muddy stretches of road with hardly a soul on them. A few times I thought for sure I was going down and was really wishing I was a better off-roader. But again I kept repeating to myself “stay on the gas!” Eventually I made it to Rte 13 and pavement!
I pulled into the first gas station to collect myself again and check the distance to the nearest place I might find a bed as I definitely wouldn’t be making it to Paksan. When I rode away again the kickstand was dragging. I thought I’d spaced on putting it up but it turned out the spring was missing. Ha! Now, with the sidestand dragging I 180’d back to the station where the attendant was standing waving the spring at me. I tried re-installing it but something wasn’t right. I couldn’t figure out where it attached at the top. What? Am I that batty from the ordeal thus far? The station guy and I were communicating completely in hand movements. (I’m getting pretty good at that.) He indicated there was a mechanic just up the road so I set off to find it, hooking my foot around the stand so it wouldn’t keep clinking along the road.
Luckily there was in fact a mechanic a few hundred feet ahead. I drove up to find a couple guys drinking BeerLaos under cover and once again hand-communicated my issue, showing them the spring. One of them had me roll the bike over to the shop and we realized the top bolt that the spring attaches to had busted off so he scanned his shop floor for a suitable piece of metal and found a nice one with a button end, welded that on, affixed the spring back on using a pair of pliers (all while doing the “Asian squat”) and did not charge me for the job.
I offered to buy he and his buddy beers and they invited me to join them. Soon a couple of girls came out of the house behind us. One spoke some English and was able to help me figure out where we were on the map. I was in the town of Naxo, roughly 80km from Paksan. After another 20 min or so of hanging out I realized I was pushing my luck with the daylight so I thanked them profusely (phonetically in Lao: “khawp jai”), and got my ass moving. A short way down the road I came upon a roadside hotel for 80,000 Kip ($10). Good enuf.
I pulled off my drenched gear and left it outside under cover, took a kind-of-warm shower and had a good laugh. Then I went to find much-needed and well-earned grub. Aahhhhhh.
…After thoughts:
In the shower that evening I thought about how when you you set off to unfamiliar places you go hoping for smooth sailing and good times. But so often you have your best experiences with people in times of adversity. I realize that given the opportunity humans generally enjoy helping total strangers in need. I’ve seen and experienced it time and again. One vote for faith in humanity.
On the way back to Vientiane several days later I decided to take the same country route. This time it was sunny and gorgeous aside from a few remaining puddles. I found my friend at his hardware shop and took a few more smiley photos w/ him. Later I came upon a group of locals sitting outside a store having social time. They called me in and were stoked when I bought beers all around. As nice as it would have been to be able to chat w/ them it truly wasn’t imperitive. Smiles all around really were enough.
