Laos - Road to Hell

Laurie Weed's Portfolio Travel Writing Asia Blog Index

Asia Update 10: Laos – Nong Khiaw Means “Road to Hell”

January 2003

As delightful as Luang Prabang is, I hoped to see a bit more of Laos before my visa expires. Craig proposes an adventure: he promised to deliver some paperwork to a friend in Nong Khiaw, about 150 kilometers upcountry. I can ride along with him and spend the weekend in a rural Lao village.

"It's beautiful up there” he coaxes, "you'll love it".

He did warn me that rural Laos is a lot like camping, which I abhor: no phones, no electricity, no hot water, and terrible food.

"But it's a wonderful place”, he assures me, and will be a nice break from our so-called city life in Luang Prabang. Our rented Cinco motorbike is hardly tour-worthy at 100 cc’s, but I figure I might as well travel with him, rather than endure a 4-hour bus ride alone...how bad could it be?

The trip begins auspiciously enough. The two-lane northern highway seems in reasonable condition, the views are astonishing and the weather is mild. Since the bike lacks a carrying rack, not to mention functional gauges and rearview mirrors, I balance our two bursting backpacks on the seat behind me while Craig drives. When he slows down to navigate through a minor washout, the overburdened Cinco wobbles into a rock, upsetting the delicate equilibrium of bodies and bags. A slow motion, domino-like topple ensues, during which I hear my right ankle sizzling on the muffler before I feel it.

Fortunately, Craig has honed his first aid skills on his own numerous travel injuries, leaving a trail of Ace bandages and sterile gauze across the South Asian subcontinent. He patches me up quite professionally, apologizes for crippling me, and we continue north. We’ve underestimated the wind-chill factor, and pull over several times to add more layers of clothing. Less than halfway to our destination, we're wearing ALL of our clothes and still shivering. We stop to refuel in the unattractive hamlet of Nam Bak and congratulate ourselves on making such good time. Ten minutes outside of Nam Bak, our confidence fades when we realize our rear tire is completely flat. Rolling up to a cluster of shacks, we wave some villagers over and proceed with the usual smiling and pointing antics. To our relief, they locate a dilapidated bicycle pump and kindly help us revive our tire, while a gaggle of grimy kids looks on in silent fascination. We thank them all and putter off again, hoping the tire will hold. It does—for a couple of miles. Again, we pull over and approach the nearest hut, but this time no pump can be found; no one in this village owns a bicycle. We continue, very slowly, on the flat tire. Dusk settles around us, the temperature drops another 10 degrees, the bike wobbles violently, and the bad tire emits unpleasant squelching sounds. A few vehicles zoom by…the drivers honk and laugh good-naturedly at our plight.

At last, we reach the outskirts of Nong Khiaw. At the petrol station (a hut displaying three pop bottles filled with gasoline), the proprietress shakes her head and waves us on. A crowd turns out to ogle the two ungainly farang, padded in mismatched clothing, clinging to the little bike and thumping along on a squashed tire like the sad-faced clowns in a small town parade. Further up the road, at a hut with a deflated inner tube dangling from the roof, an 80-cent patch job carries us just into Nong Khiaw proper, where the tire deflates again. Chilled through, exhausted, and hungry, we huddle over a candle to await the third repair of the day. Craig suggests we eat first and then get a room at the guesthouse near his friends' home. He is anxious to deliver the papers before the family goes to sleep.

After picking at some cold, brackish noodles in what passes for the town’s restaurant, we drive across a bridge and navigate a treacherous dirt path, guided only by our 40-watt headlight. A boy of about ten bounds up behind us in the blackness.

"You go Mexay Guesthouse?” he chirps hopefully.

Craig remembers him from his last trip up here 3 months ago, and greets him by name.

"Hey, Sameet! Do you remember me?"

The boy looks uncertain, but pleased. He leads us to a ramshackle bamboo building and lights a candle so we can follow him up the rickety stairs. While we settle into a dim, musty room, young Sameet plays concierge, fetching bottled water and more candles with aplomb. In the improved light, he recognizes Craig.

"I know you!” He exclaims excitedly, "You friend Marko!"

“Yes, we came to see Marko”, Craig confirms.

The boy shakes his head. "Marko go," he tells us, "Bus, Luang Prabang. Today-morning."

Of course. Sameet scurries next door and returns with confirmation: anxious about the delay, Marko and family departed for Luang Prabang on the morning bus. How they missed seeing our carnival act on the highway is a mystery. Sameet’s uncle agrees to drive to the nearest phone in the morning and tell Marko we will return to Luang Prabang with his papers in two days. After our torturous road trip, we cannot imagine anything worse than turning around first thing in the morning. We planned to get a good night’s rest, then hire a boat and spend a relaxing day on the river. Instead, we wake up in the wee hours to freezing rain and raging head colds. We languish in the unheated, moldy guesthouse all day—feverish and sneezing, downing endless cups of tea and sniping at each other to keep warm.

After another sleepless night, I am out of bed at dawn, anxiously anticipating the hour when I can flee this hellhole. Although the rain has finally stopped, it pounded our tin roof all night long. The roads will be wet and dangerous, but I plan to catch the first bus out at 10 a.m., while Craig drives the motorbike home alone. He will be safer without my weight on the back, and we are both determined to escape what is obviously a vortex of evil in the universe. My neurotic packing and pacing wakes the Nocturnal One early, provoking some yelling and door slamming. Hurrying out of the guesthouse to avoid the further wrath of Morning Craig, I slip on the wet plywood stairs and pirouette to the bottom, smacking down on my back hard enough to knock my wind out. I lie dazed on the rocks for a while, wondering if my fate is to die here. As soon as I can stand, I hobble through the muck and hop on the back of the bike, convinced that if I look back the vortex will howl open and I'll be sucked into a scene from a bad horror movie.

Somehow, the possibility of broken ribs dampens my enthusiasm for boarding the raggedy pickup "bus", and I elect to ride with Craig as far as Nam Bak. He's too thrilled for words. Wearing all of our dirty clothes and sniveling, the sad-faced clowns mount the mini-bike and plot a slow course through the mudslide. The paved highway is surprisingly dry, and Oh, so cold. Upon reaching Nam Bak safely, we stop to thaw out and strategize—our first civil words all morning.

Now that I am reasonably sure my ribs are still intact, though badly bruised, I must find a bus. No one here speaks English and we don't know where or when the bus might arrive. Craig has to leave soon to avoid driving in the dark, but having overcome his earlier hatred of me, he is now somewhat reluctant to abandon me in a third world truck stop. While we deliberate, an enormous delivery truck pulls up and a few passengers straggle out. It appears to be heading in the right direction, so I knock on the window and pantomime jumping into the back. The driver shrugs; I have a ride.

The truck carries a few huddled villagers and a load of burlap bags filled with sharply pointed sticks, on which I envision my impalement in the likely event of a road accident. Crouching in an open truck bed as it hauls along mountain roads at a terrifying 80 kilometers per hour is not much more comfortable than the back of the motorbike, but at least I will suffer only half as long, if by some miracle we don't crash. The driver reaches the edge of Luang Prabang in record time, and locates a smog-spewing motorcycle rickshaw to take me the rest of the way home. By now, an image of our funky little house in Phabantay is hovering in my mind's eye like a desert mirage of Shangri-la. When my new transportation immediately sputters to a halt, I decide to get out and limp for a while, in spite of the driver’s cheerful assurances that “It fix soon.” Feverish in the midday sun, too delirious to remove the extra layers of clothing, and sporting a gauze-wrapped burn that will permanently brand me as a stupid tourist (as if I needed further identification), I totter along the side of the road until another taxi driver stops and asks me if I want to ”go to Hospital?”.

"No, thank you!" I reply, perhaps too emphatically, but the last thing I need now is some ignorant, backwater medical treatment to finish me off. I accept a ride home, arriving shortly before Craig rolls in on the motorbike—hypothermic but otherwise unharmed, and only too glad to resume city life.