Across the Border into Vietnam

We took a bus from the world's sleepiest national capital of Vientienne towards the Vietnam border, sad to think about leaving Laos but eager to make headway into Vietnam. Despite the madness of our first three days in the country, Laos had really begun to sink in, and we knew that it would be hard to shift gears from Laos time to the hecticness of the rest of Asia. We were the only falang on the local bus to the border from Savannakhet, and the driver (nor any passengers) were in any kind of hurry to complete their journey. The driver often stopped the bus multiple times in a span of 200 meters, to pick fruit, deliver a parcel to a villager, or allow a teenage boy to hop off, run to the market, buy a diving mask (presumably for fishing) and hop back on. We were considerably less stressed when we realised it would not be a problem to delay the bus a few minutes while we untied our bikes from the roof, and the driver even took a few laps up and down the street on Mo's bike before telling us goodbye and firing up the engine again. Our time in Laos riding between the villages was an interesting look into a country that still largely consists of people living off of subsistence agriculture. Yes, they need to get home, but to tend to their crops and keep the household running - not to be on time for a meeting, make it to class, or show up for work. This simple living, combined with Beerlaos - the ubiquitous, cheap, and surprisingly good national brew - seems to produce an country full of happy and pleasant inhabitants that manage to keep smiling, despite their lack of material possessions or ravaging of their country by umpteen various world powers throughout the past millennia.

One incredibly interesting lens that we have been examining this travel experience through is the multiple land border crossings we have encountered. Many times when travelling internationally the border becomes less of a physicality and more of something abstract that occurs somewhere between the gates of two airports. When cruising around the countryside on a bicycle, the physical land border is incredibly tangible and present, from the countdown of kilometers on the roadside signs as you approach to the different posts to which you hand over your passport that you ride between. With this crossing comes stress and immediate discomfort, as within the space of a few hundred meters you are plunged into a new land where you often have none of the proper currency, don't know how to say simple things like "Hello" or "Thank You", and are immediately confronted with new customs, lifestyles, and ways of living.

The crossing into Vietnam was the most formal of the crossings we have encountered so far, and they even X-rayed our bags in a semi-official manner. The increase in development, infrastructure, and money was immediately apparent on the Vietnamese side, and we fought to find the right tone with which the locals would understand our botching of "Sin Jow", or "Hello". Fortunately the learning curve is quick, and we found an ATM, used enough body language to get a hotel room, and found some dinner which consisted of rice, vegetables, and some unidentifiable meat. We feel fortunate that we are able to explore Vietnam voluntarily as opposed to the generation before us, and we will work on getting off of Laos time and synchronized with the locals, which will be a bit sped up if the mega-jolt coffee served alongside green tea for breakfast this morning is any indication. Yes, despite our discomfort in the new experience, we've already learned "kaffee sua", or coffee with milk - now all we need is a tour company to schlep our bags and we'd be all set.

On a Slow Boat to Laos

Although we were loving riding through the plains of Thailand, we were getting a bit anxious to get into Laos if we were to complete our hopes of a Southeast Asia circumnavigation. This, coupled with our increasingly sore legs and butts prompted us to hop on a bus northward towards the border city of Koh Chang, where we then hopped on a longtailed boat with a guy from Boston who had ridden his loaded-down mountain bike over from Chiang Mai (only the third other cyclist encountered in Thailand!), and crossed the Mehkong River into Laos.

On the other side there was nothing more than a somewhat depressing border town, as the place was used by almost all travellers as a one night layover until they caught the slow boat down the river. The boat was really the only game in town, as the roads heading out were notoriously decrepit and beat up, and the mountains were looking a bit too ominous for our bikes. We bought our tickets for the two day slow boat ride, thinking that it couldn't be too bad and happy that we saved $1.20 per ticket by riding to the boat dock ourselves instead of paying for it through a travel "agent".

It turns out that a two day boat ride is really about as long as it sounds. The novelty of the hard wooden seats and views of the river scenery wore off in about 20 seconds, and for some 17 hours of our lives we were packed into a boat floating down the Mehkong with scads of other tourists and a good number of locals, who knew to sit up in the front of the boat where the air was freshest and the engine noise quietest. At times we felt like we were in some parallel universe people-safari, as the boat actually began to tip over from all the tourons rushing to take pictures of the local village dwellers performing everyday tasks with their telephoto lenses. Yes, this is how you get good pictures, but one can imagine how it would feel to be followed by boatloads of Paparazi was you went to the grocery, got off at your BART stop, or stepped out of the shower. It became annoyingly obscene at points, and the price that we paid for not putting up with the madness is a not so suprising lack of good people-photos from the trip. Thankfully the social life of our trip was saved by a largely disproportionate amount of Bay Area folk on the boat, including a rad lesbian couple living in the Mission in San Francisco. We hung out with them, swapped stories about life at home and on the road, at drank as much Nescafe Turbo as our stomaches could handle.

To add to the eternity-like feel of the trip, we stopped overnight in the small village of Pak Beng, about halfway before getting to Luang Prabang. Pak Beng, which used to be a small subsistence farming village, is now the major stop on the tourist trail down south. As soon as the boat pulled in, throngs of local children ranging from ages 4 to 24 hopped on and swarmed the luggage compartment in the rear. What followed for the next 30 minutes was a sea of chaos that revolved around these kids pulling up rucksacks from under the planks of the boat, throwing them to a friend, and then their compadre taking off running up the hill to a guest house. The foreigners have no choice but to follow their bag, where they are charged for the porter service and already have a room booked for them at the establishment. To add to the excitement, while Mat was in the back trying to catch our bright yellow panniers before they landed in the arms of an accomplice, a full-on fist-fight broke out between two of the adolescent boys, and a joking play-fight turned into a Muay Thai performance in mere seconds. While this scenario was hectic, stressful, and more reminiscint of India than anywhere we've been so far, it does show the complexity of an economy that so recently has had tourist dollars introduced. Yes, these kids are perhaps rude and inconsiderate, but in the end they're just trying to make a buck to buy food for their family and live another day. You can't blame them, but it does sometimes make the situation difficult.

Thankfully, by reasons unknown to us, the second day of boat travel went much quicker than the first. We both finished our excellent books, chatted with out new found friends, and managed to get our luggage off the boat without hassel or fistfight. Willing to overlook the experience of our first few days in Laos, we headed into Luang Prabang full of optimism for a city that Lonely Planet called "a tonic for the soul".

Cycling Through the Land of Smiles

As predicted earlier, things have become a bit easier after leaving the tourist trap of Bangkok and getting on our bikes. Cycling through Thailand thus far has gone suprisingly well. The roads are well paved with huge shoulders on the side, there are a plethora of food and drink stands every five kilometers (can you say 10 baht thai ice tea?), and the locals we have seen along the route have been incredibly supportive, honking horns, giving thumbs up, and practicing their English phrases of encouragement. One elderly man also riding a bike yelled at us "I love bicycle trip!" with a veracity that seemed to indicate he had been waiting his entire life to yell these four words.

After a hectic day riding through Bangkok we were a bit concerned with the traffic patterns, not to mention remembering to ride on the left side of the road (fairly easy until you get to some crazy traffic circle and have no idea where to go). Once we hit the open road, however, our concerns with traffic subsided quickly. It seems that roads and drivers in Asia are quite used to having all sorts of vehicles and such on their roadways; at any given time there will be pedestrians, cyclists, motos, buses, trucks, rickshaws, elephants, scooters, cars, taxis, and lories all sharing the same space. Slower traffic simply keeps to the left, and if you have to pass someone you make sure the lane is clear enough and then you go for it, usually giving a warning honk, ring, or yell to make sure everyone knows that you're coming through. Everyone on the road has given us more than ample room when passing, with some large lories even slowing to a near-stop rather than barreling by full-speed. This scenario is quite a contrast to the idea of riding on a busy highway in the U.S., where the roads are designed for fast moving cars and that's the only thing that belong on the highways, gosh darnit.

While the going has been relatively easy thus far, it has not been without excitement. We have been trying to stick to the smaller roads, and while our map is decent it doesn't exactly have every turn, bend, or road number that would be nice to have. Combine that with long stretches when the road signs are only in Thai, and it's easy to see how we can get lost every now and then. At one point we were following a small country road that our map had crossing the river on what we assumed to be a bridge. We rolled into a small riverside town and certainly didn't see the bridge we were expecting, much less any apparent way across the river. After some broken Thai and English map studying sessions with a Tuk-Tuk driver we queued up on the street with the other cars and motos and waited for the ferry to come across the river while a fried-coconut-banana saleswoman tempted us with her wares (we bought some and she through some in for free!). We somehow got a special bicycle rate on the ferry across the river and were rewarded with a near-deserted stretch of beautiful road on the other side.

We've been resting our legs (and butts!) for a few days now 400km+ from Bangkok in Sukhothai, an ancient Thai capital, and enjoying the amazing food and ruins. We ran into another couple on bikes crazy enough to be doing something similar to what we're doing, expect that they are loaded down to the max and headed into China. We're still planning on staying light and fast for the time being and will head out North in the morning as we move closer to the Thailand/Laos border and a river trip down the Mekong. Yeee-haw!

Sur le Velo

If you ever want to know how to attract attention abroad, carry around lots of seemingly heavy and awkward gear. We pushed our way through the crowds of people at the backpacker area of Khao San Road in Bangkok, with our bike boxes in tow and SPD cleat sandals clicking with every step. Mat carried the bike boxes on his head, Asian style, much to the amusement of ex-pat beer drinkers and the Indian boy on the corner trying to sell him a suit ("Hello sir, would you like a nice suit when you are done with all of that work?") Adding to the confusion, we tried to convince our guest-house owners to allow us to pay them money to store our empty cardboard boxes, so that we have something to protect our bikes on the airplane for the return flight. Despite what you may think, paying someone to store an empty box in Bangkok is not as easy as it might sound. Unlike India, in Thailand not "everything is possible".

Tomorrow we are leaving by train, heading northward to Ayuthaya, and then will be hopping on our bikes to ride to Chiang Mai, a hilly city in Northern Thailand that neither of us has ever visited. We have been practicing our communication skills and strengthening our stomaches by eating only at local restaurants without English menus. Thanks to Mo's practice on a Thai language game on the flight from Taipei (Air China isn't that bad after all!) we can now say "two, please" which is quite effective when pointing at your preferred noodle and meat type. While this methodology has worked quite well, for dinner tonight we ended up with the spiciest meal we have ever eaten, seemingly sauteed hot chili peppers on top of rice. Barely able to finish, we ran straight to the 7-11 for a yogurt drink in a bottle to quench the fire in our bellies. Being optimistic yet perhaps foolish, we keep repeating our mantra: It will all be easier once we are on our bikes...

P.S. For the francophones reading this, we really tried to properly accent our post title - but alas, the Thai language keyboard we are using wouldn't have any of it. Hopefully you can figure out what we were talking about despite the missing accent aigue.

P.P.S. We stole the inspirational picture of women waiting in line to cross the border into Vietnam from China from our friend Ryan's online photos. We'll think of this whenever we start complaining about how heavy our "loaded down" touring rigs are.

SFO-BKK

We bought plane tickets last Thursday and are leaving at midnight tonight for Southeast Asia. The big change from previous trips is that we are bringing our bicycles, loaded up with touring gear, reflective tape, spare parts, and warm-weather clothing, with the idea being to somehow circumnavigate Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia on our bikes. Before you start asking for details, we don't have too many yet, besides a few detailed trip reports from people who have done this before, including a good friend we went to Berkeley with. But all sources indicate that it is not really as crazy an idea as it seems, as the roads are well sealed, the people friendly, the traffic not too bad (although on the left side of the road in places!) and the roadside noodle stands endless.

We are excited to return to Southeast Asia, especially when it is our primary destination and not a month-long break from the chaos of India. We are also excited to travel the country by bike for many reasons. First, when flying through the countryside on a bus or train, one eventually just starts connecting major tourist hubs and getting a snapshot of cities when they disembark for a few seconds here and there. On our bikes we will truly be off the tourist path and able to explore much less traveled areas at ease. Secondly, while riding a bike around Asia might seem like a crazy idea to us in the USA, it is the primary mode of daily transportation for billions of people around the world. We will definitely stick out like foreigners, but at least we will be getting around on the greatest invention in the world, using power derived from our legs, mystery meat, and local fish sauces. Riding bikes is fun!!

After some crazy dateline shenanigans we'll land in BKK on Valentine's day, just in time to also celebrate Mo's bday. We'll try to be better about updating our blog as we'll probably have all kinds of interesting adventures to write about soon!

Thug Life

Our trip to Joshua Tree ended on a somewhat sour note, as Mat took his first leader fall and it wasn't a very good one. In a strange bit of counter-intuitiveness, the higher you get while rock climbing the safer it is to fall - there are more pieces of protection in, more rope stretch, and less chance that you will hit the ground. Mat unfortunately fell very close to the ground and in fact did hit the deck. Before you worry too much, he is okay, although he managed to cause quite a scene at the Hidden Valley campground on a quiet Tuesday morning. The order of appearance of good Samaritans responding to Mo's yells of "HELP!!!" were other climbers from the campground, Sky the hippie covered in Grateful Dead tattoos (was this the end? I'm coming to your side Jerry!!), the professional, courteous, and light-humored NPS EMT team (dude, is that your Eurovan? Si-ick!!!), and the private ambulance that somebody called in (If you don't ride in my ambulance you will probably die, blah blah blah, natural morphine secreted from the brain, blah blah blah).

Trips to the ER are always quite bizarre, and the Hi-Desert Morongo Basin Hospital Emergency Room was no exception. While waiting multiple hours to be seen by the triage nurse, we made friends with a local tattooed skinhead named Bonehead, who appeared to not really be in any sort of trauma but just there for the social networking, heard a teenage girl wax ecstatically about the $1500 credit she would receive for her newborn child, and witnessed another teenage girl obviously bad-tripping on something, writhing uncontrollably while screaming about a miscarriage and numb hands only to be galloping around greeting doctors with a smile and a handshake one hour later. Upon finally making it out of the waiting room Mat was cared for by a large, also tattooed Mexican nurse named Pete who took his vitals and asked him about his employment history while cracking truly funny jokes all along (Which falls faster - a feather, a bowling ball, or a science teacher? Neither - acceleration is independent of mass, homie!!!) Thank god for personable nurses because the lady who drove 5 staples into his skull and left shin did not deserve a five star bedside manner rating. I guess stapling flesh is serious business after all. (Another one from Pete's standup science routine: Why would an Eskimo never eat a Penguin? Different sides of the globe, homie!!! (There's got to be a better audience for this brilliant material somewhere!!))

All in all, we are counting our blessings and considering ourselves very very lucky. There were a number of things that could have gone wrong to make the situation much worse, and the fact that Mat emerged from another high velocity impact with the ground without a broken bone (see previous bicycle crashes) is a testament to all the milk that his mother fed him as a child or some strange genetic trait of a resilient skeletal system. We have again retreated to the safety of the Sacramento area, and are treating this as an opportunity to slow down and really assess what we want to do for a next step in our lives. Translation: we are watching the 7th series of Survivor (Go Rupert!) while avoiding all of the tough questions floating around in our heads. Is bike touring in a foreign country really safer than rock climbing? How would Mo like a four year Chinese medicine school program? Could we trade our climbing rack for a nice setup of fly fishing gear? Can the Giants really beat the Patriots? How do we catch a stowaway desert mouse potentially living in our van? How does one remove staples from one's head by oneself?

As for the photo - Mat has traded in his wrap-around bandage of gauze for something a bit more fashionable, and has not run into any problems on the Carmichael streets as of yet. We will continue to ponder our next move, and while our plans may have changed, we remain happy that nothing has tarnished the bright joy of being alive.

The Chasm of Doom

When a tall, skinny Alaskan runs through your campsite at the ungodly hour of 9PM on a nearly moonless night, PBR in hand, promising to lead an adventure through the Chasm of Doom if he can find enough takers, there really is only one possible answer. It didn't take our group too long to sign our lives away as we were eager to partake in this age-old Joshua Tree tradition, having never been around at the right time in the proximity of a willing leader our many trips before. Mo and I were in, as well as JP and his beau from South Carolina, along with Matt, the solo Canadian camper in our site, and the skinny Alaskan's (not to be confused with Skinny the Alaskan, an entirely different person) better half.

The skinny Alaskan (real name: Aaron) was in the middle of proclaiming how a lithe group of seven was the perfect number for the Chasm, being small enough to maneuver easily but large enough to have a critical mass of fun, when Matt the Canadian started running through the full Friday night campsite inviting anyone he could find. As the word got out the campground turned into a sea of headlights, looking and beaming for their future leader as if they were welcoming the Mars Rover. In the only moment of panic that he showed all night, Aaron declared that we had to get out of there before the group got too big - we high-tailed it toward the Real Hidden Valley only to be cut off at the pass by a group of four eager Chasm-goers who had correctly transected our intended route. The final group was 11 plus one American pit bull, the sky was dark and filled with stars, and adventure was in the air.

A trip through the Chasm of Doom is steeped in tradition, and this outing was no exception. Headlights are allowed on the short boulder scrambling approach into the chasm, but once inside they are strictly verboten. The actual Chasm consists of an enclosed tunnel and cave system through a rock mass that would be no big deal in full daylight - there are no real technical climbing moves and your feet are grounded for pretty much the entirety of the journey. However, in pitch darkness, using only your hands, feet, body, and the person in front of you for navigation, the Chasm can get downright scary. There are no actually dangerous drop-offs, but a pit of 2 feet might as well be 100 feet in 0% light. Boulders are scattered all about, and easy scrambling takes on a more challenging element when you can't see your hands in front of your face. Every so often the roof opens up to a view of the beautiful starlight, which helps eliminate the claustrophobia as well as confirm that you are going in the right direction. The Chasm has a general upward trend, with a successful trip exiting onto a huge ledge high above the desert floor, with a breathtaking vista all around. The combination of trust, navigation, communication, and fear results in either the world's perfect potential teambuilding exercise, or a pretty fun thing for a bunch of climbers to do on a Friday night.

Just as the final headlight was extinguished before filing into the mouth, a dark shadowy figure turned towards Mat.

"Mat?" the shadowy figure asked.

"Yeah..." Mat replied.

"Mat Glaser?" the shadowy figure continued.

"Yep... who is that?"

"It's Jullian!! From Cal Cycling!!"

And suddenly, like only the Chasm of Doom can possibly do, two friends were reunited after some seven years of separation, with memories of an epic dirtbag mountain biking trip to Moab and Fruita in their minds. There was no time to talk, however, as the leader had entered already, and Jullian filed in behind Mat, occasionally touching his butt and other body parts as they navigated through the darkness, bonding and reminiscing in the terror of the night.

Our personal Chasm adventure was epic and fun, if not entirely successful. The girth of a few of our members picked up in the parking lot along with the somewhat sketchy navigational skills of the skinny Alaskan combined to prevent a pure through-tunnel of the Chasm. We were eventually stymied after not finding "the birth canal" passage, and not wanting to look too hard with the larger Chasmers in tow. No one in the party wanted to do the old-school 5.9 chimney route, and the promised easy bypass was never located. Declaring it a success, despite not actually tunneling through, the party turned around and retreated the way we came in, this time working our way down the boulderous passageway instead of up. Perhaps our eyes had adjusted to the darkness, or perhaps someone somewhere turned their headlight on (shhh!!!), but we made it out quickly and safely to be greeted by Joe the Pitbull and a still amazing desert vista. Jullian and Mat had the whole weekend of climbing to catch up on life, Aaron the skinny Alaskan vowed to head back in the day-time and perfect his route, and we awoke the next morning to only minor bumps, bruises, and scratches from the previous night's adventure. All in the desert was good.