Fuck me what a morning…

It’s been a while!….. Not having a computer or internet has made it difficult to finish this part of the story so finally i’m getting around to it!

 

Katmandu. After the fun with pushing the bus out of the river I was back in trash cow central with a day to wait until meg got into the airport. I hung out with some new friends from the bus and asked around about how i was going to find transport to the airport. The more people i asked the more it looked like i would actually have to walk there! All of the hotel staff warned me very heavily against taking a taxi at this time. Arriving on the first day of the strike the town seemed kind of uneasy but this was only the first day of two. I was told the second day was a black out strike and absolutely no one would be allowed to travel…. I looked at the map and planned my route for the next day, about two hours heading east and i should make it to the airport to find meg. I’d been told micro buses were exempt so I planned my route to try and find one of these if i was behind for any reason. About 20 mins in I asked a lady directions. Knowing where i had to go it was more of reassurance than anything. BIG mistake, she told me to go in the opposite direction to where i knew or at least thought i knew where i had to be going. Fuck. I was at a moment everyone who has ever asked directions faces, Should I now just completely ignore what this local person has just told me throw their kindness in their face and keep walking or take the advise and do what they say. Against all my better judgement I decided to take the advise and go south to where she said i would find buses. It was sweltering and I was now heading in the opposite direction to some kind of park to look for buses. Time was slipping away and every five minutes or so a military truck over loaded with fulled armed solders or riot police would speed past usually followed a few minutes later by a few ambulances. The tension in the city was intense to say the least and I was now lost. I start trying to find people to ask and ended up asking almost everyone who walked past if they knew where the buses where. Around 15 minutes later I saw some people from the corner of my eye coming up behind me and before i turned around I’d said, Nam-es-day and was going to ask them directions when I saw that they were four 17 to 19 year olds and the second i turned around i regretted it.

Two were drunk (at 10am) and the other two were sizing me up. I knew I’d sparked  interest and with nothing better to do on a strike day than get drunk and wander the streets I was suddenly a target. They didn’t understand when i asked them for the bus so I thanked them and crossed the street. They crossed the street. I crossed back. They crossed back. As I was walking one walked ahead and one to my side and two behind stalking me down the street. This was not a good feeling, it wasn’t the fact that I was alone but it was that I had my bags with me. I felt like a buffalo being stalked with all this extra weight on me which I couldn’t just drop . I crossed the street again and they started to close the net around me casually trying to block me off at any ally or wall they could find. All the while me and them keeping up the pretence that nothing was happening and we all were going for a stroll in the same direction.

As I walked I took out my earphones, and put them in my bag as well as my wallet, ipod and sunglasses, I made sure my camera was safe took out my gloves and put them on and had my knife in my left hand. I wasn’t sure what i was going to do with it but it would be good with the knife closed to use as a solid object to crack into someones skull or open to scare them giving me a second. We all saw it at once, a huge flower pot on the side walk used for decoration and a perfect spot to trap me between that and the railing on the road.Two had hung back a little for some reason and the two largest and drunker ones came in. I was supercharged with adrenaline at this point and ready, as the obstruction came closer, all of us still pretending nothing was happening, people passing by completely unaware, still closer and then they made a move. The smaller of the two stopped next to the giant pot and turned to face me while the other now next to me made a grab for my pockets. I went straight into the one in front and almost knocked him over and then threw all my weight into the one next to me, pushing him clear of me and before he had a chance to recover I took my deepest breath. I shouted so loud people on the  other side of the street stopped to look. It wasn’t a nice feeling hearing fear in your own voice but I couldn’t control it at that point, it was fucking on like donkey kong. Even though I could hear it i don’t think they could, they looked genuinely shocked at the sudden outburst and ferocity of it all and now knew every one on the street was watching them and I was walking towards them with my fists up still screaming at the taller one. I spun my head to make sure the other one wasn’t going to hit me and then went after the guy who grabbed my pockets, I could barely feel the bag on my back and bag on my front i was so angry, before I got to him he’d turned and started to run back down the street. (Thank god haha!!) I was still yelling when he turned the corner, i’m pretty sure I shouted “You better run mother fucker”… hahaha. The others had scattered and as quickly as it had started it stopped, the only thing left was me shaking and sweating in the morning sun, still no closer to the fucking airport.

Strike or no strike i had to get a taxi, I was now running late and meg would have no idea there was even a strike on. I finally flagged down a taxi speeding past and the driver looked terrified. “Airport” ….”1000 ruprees, strike, strike” No fucking way was I paying triple to get to the airport. Two more taxi’s went along these lines until I got one for 700. Again the driver was seriously nervous.

I was lying across the back seat trying to hide from view as we screeched along the smaller allies and back roads trying to steer clear of the major lanes of the city. Stoping every few minutes when we saw other taxi drivers to ask where the angry mobs were. Yes, angry protesting mobs of people. This was where all the riot police and ambulances were going in such a rush. All across the city people were protesting which usually led to riots and they were targeting people who were working on strike day. Racing around the bumpy roads felt like a war zone, with most the other traffic being military or armed police. Finally arriving at the airport I felt exhausted from the mornings events and couldn’t wait to see my best friend meg.

Another 30 minutes of waiting and she was giving me the biggest hug her little frame could handle. We started speaking in constant streams of thought not ever taking a breath, this basically continued for the three weeks she was over in nepal and was great! I mentioned the strike but decided not to go into detail, I told her not to worry and that it was really just a small deal. To get to the hotel near the airport i was going to walk but finding out meg had just come off more than 24 hour travel time we flagged a cab……

Meg could sense something was wrong as soon as we got in and i told her to leave her bag on. So we could…..get out quickly. I changed the subject and she was suddenly glued to the window watching the trash cows and Katmandu folk in the parade running past the window unfold. The ride should have been only 5 minutes and we would be home free to , a large stupa (temple) surrounded by narrow streets filled with traders and craftsmen. Four minutes later meg found out that everything was not alright. We turned the last corner onto a main street to be met by about 700 people marching down the street towards up. Taking up every inch of street from left to right. People had torches and bats and did not look happy to see us in a taxi.

“OH  FUCK ME, FUCK FUCK, meg we might have to run, are you ready, put your bag on!!!!”

The people were about 50 meters away giving the taxi enough time to jam on the brakes and slam the little taxi into reverse. I was ready to run with meg as he bounced us into an alley to do a three point turn.

“400! 400 TO BODINATH”

“FUCK DUDE, I’LL PAY IT, NOW FUCKING DRIVE DRIVE!!!”

“ROOT, WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON!!”

“ANGRY MOB!……..welcome to kathmandu meg”

“OH FUCK”

 

The taxi spun its little wheels in the dirt of the alley and we were back in the back roads and allys. We made it to the saftey of the stupa and walked to the first bar we could find and got plasterd. I had really missed meg and was looking forward to catching up and hanging out. The sky was blue the drinks were strong and after making through the day I was exhausted. As soon as possible we would be on the bus back to pokhara so we could do a trek and see the real nepal.

 

White Water and Elbow Grease

At exactly 6pm there was three of us standing in front of the white water rafting shoppe in Pokhara. This was the dead line to see if the rafting trip was going to go ahead or not, we needed one more person and we were off in the morning, at five past six an odd looking couple walked up, to our great relief. A graceful waifer thin beauty by the name of Elina who floated up like a dream…….and then there was james…. A cross between a football hooligan and Rasputin. None the less we were all stoked to be going on a rafting trip down the Kaligandaki, the deepest gorge in the world. The next morning I was ready to go, james and elina were so hung over they looked like they were about to die. We were going to get along just fine!! The rafting trip was great, we went with some guys called Rapid Runners and they were amazing. So professional and easy going, everything was thought of and the river was fantastic. I was thrown out several times and we got wasted every night on the shores of the river. This being quite a remote river it was a trek to the nearest road so we were completely alone and it was zen as shit apart from when the rafting guides in true nepali fashion busted out some mobile phone brian adams while they cooked. Summer of ’69, one of my most hated songs of all time turned out to be one of their favorites. Life was good. Even better when they made us spicy pop corn salad, sounds crazy but it was one of the best things that I ate the whole trip to Nepal! The second day was hectic with some big rapids and lots of fun, I opted not to take my camera, this was a massive massive mistake as the scenery was incredible. On the second night me and james became real men.

 

We built a fire so awesome and un necessary you could see it from space. It had not 2, not 3 but 4 Phases to this beast. We finished the trip with a huge dirty paddle and headed back to town for some beers and happy hour cocktails. We had a drink with bullshit ben the boat captain and endured a few (last stories) of everything from him being an international rock climber, trekking guide, photographer and world savior. He wasn’t a bad person, he really was good at heart, but just full of shit.

 

Kathmandu was my destination as I woke up at the ungodly hour of 6am and headed for the tourist bus stop. Being still slightly drunk from the night before I sat down and opened the gates of madness on the poor two people sitting next to me at the back. They turned out to be two cool ass Canadians Hobin and Barbara and we got on like a house on fire. A more appropriate phase would have been like a sinking ship though, it was raining outside and I mean raining! For a few hours we drove into the torrent, lucky for us we were inside a dry bus, well lucky for me, most the people on the bus were being rained on anyway through assortments of holes, leeks and ac ducts which I’m guessing were just connected to a hole in the roof. Eventually as with all bus trips we stopped for a traffic jam which from the looks of it was rather large. We busied our selves with the ancient and proud game of ShitHead which the bus wasn’t bouncing around. After an hour or so the engine rumbled to life and we started moving, strangely though we were the only ones. We pulled out of the jam line up and headed for the front of the pack to everyone’s delight! We had ourselves a renegade, an outlaw… a real man. Nope, turns out we just had a man with real bad judgment.

We looked out the window as we got to the front of the pack and saw what the block in the road was. Well we would have seen what was blocking the road if we could see the road….at all. It was under about 3-4 feet of water and it wasn’t still water either. A dam up the mountain had broken and sent a wave of debris and mountain down the side and washed most of the road away. We all looked at each other and out the window at the huge crowd gathered in the rain to watch the first attempt at crossing this obstacle, there were literally hundreds of people lining our bank and the opposing one. I’m guessing there wasn’t too much else to do .. so they cheered and our driver obliged by gunning the engine for a few seconds and then ramming it into gear. With in seconds we were in the middle of the new large scale water feature with a broken muffler and water sucked into the engine. We were dead in the water so to speak and it didn’t look like we were going anywhere soon. All this to the rapture of the audience watching on. No one was really sure what to do at this point, the drivers were opening the engine and looking at it like some strange alien and the cracker tourists were dumbly looking out the window and saying stupid shit like “do you think there is a toe truck around”. Not only were we not going anywhere but neither was anyone on either side of the river, we were blocking the entire road. Because Nepali men are bad asses they would not stand for this, a number of bus drivers and others waded into the river and tried to push us out. They put in a great effort too rocking us back and forth, but as long as a bus load of fat crackers were still sitting on the bus it was going no where, and boy did they let us know it!

The conductor walked to the back of the bus. “Who wants to go to Kathmandu?” We dumbly raised our hands, “Good then you can get out and push” There are two types of people in this world. Those who would object to this ridiculous request on the basis that they paid for a bus ticket, not dangerous physical labor in god knows what kind of water with no safety or plan, I fell into the second category along with Hobin. By the time he had said “get and push” we had already kicked off our shoes and were rushing for the door. About 5 seconds ago as I was pondering this next sentence “What a wonderful world” came onto shuffle. Couldn’t be more appropriate, so if you will click on this link as I regal you this next part I think it will paint a vivid picture:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5TwT69i1lU&feature=related

We stood on in the doorway of the bus with the water spilling over the ledge and the river literally roaring below us. Having no idea how deep or strong this was and the flowing water flowing directly down into a barbed wire fence 10 meters away, our previous optimism paled slightly. Fuck it, I climbed down off the first step and immediately lost my footing and almost got washed away. “FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKKKKKKKKKK” Hobin helped me back onto my feet and I finally found my footing. The rushing water was up above my knees to my thighs and it was worryingly strong, another small problem I gleened from my first few seconds in the water was that it wasn’t just water flying past my legs and bare feet, but also half of the god damn mountain. My shins and feet were bombarded by rocks caught in the flow from above us! It felt like a hail of jagged golf balls. Every now and then you could feel in your feet something rolling along the ground from the vibrations it made and BAM! Huge rock right into the bone!

 

I think hobin asked me how it was…I lied. I held on to the side of the bus as I made my way to the back. To my delight I heard hobin shout something over the roar about rocks in shins. The bus was caught on a rise in the middle of the river with the wheels being in deep and the middle practically beached. Finally set up at the back of the bus in the deeper water with Hobin and Ben another Shithead player from the bus we mashed our feet into the ground to find something solid and some grip and heard a call to push from some where. We took a scrum position and pushed. Not .. an.. inch. The bus didn’t even rock! This happened twice more before re found out there was no one pushing from the other side and the people at the back weren’t paying attention. This is where Ben decided to take matters into his own hands. An unassuming skinny english school teacher suddenly opened his mouth and let loose a booming english voice that wouldn’t be out of place in an old war movie. People snapped to and with in seconds he’d got every single man (about 30) in position and working as a cohesive unit. “READY ON 3” Some on the other corner passed the message along to the others on the right side out of our sight..

“3….”

“2….”

“1…”

“PUUUUUUUUSH!!!!!!”

We pushed, the river surged around us and we felt the bus move forward a fraction and swing back, “PUUUUUUSHHHH” With each push everyone felt the bus creep forward and then back again. People were starting to grunt under the stain. “PUUUUUUUSSSSSSSSHHHH” We could feel it moving but the simple fact was that we needed more power. The crowd was cheering from the banks, “3, 2, 1, PUUUUSHHHHH GOD DAMN IT PUUUUUSHHHH” With each push we let out our frustration and pain from the rocks we were stepping on and being belted by and grunted louder and louder, by push six each one of the 30 people pushing this full size tour bus in the middle of a flood let out a defining roar of exertion, the crowd was  going wild around us! It was fucking amazing!!! On the first round we managed to get around three foot up the embankment. Some more tourists and locals waded over to give a hand and once again we took up positions. People were chocking the wheels with rocks as we swung back and forth each person giving everything they had from business men in rolled up suit pants to young hipster nepali guys from our bus. 20 minutes later and all the girls were off the bus (following Barbara’s lead 10 mins earlier) and we had almost made it. With a final exhausted push we had made it onto the other side and onto tarmac, only to be almost crushed with people running over to get a photo and say they pushed a bus out of a river while conveniently not getting wet or actually doing any work at all. None the less we received rapturous applause and congratulations from the crowd of tourists and locals as we limped back to the bus comparing wounds, bruises and finding the parts of the body that were losing blood. It was only 10 am but seeing as we had to wait 2 more hours for another bus to pick us up it seemed like a pretty good time to drink some beers. So that’s what we did.

Another bus came for us a few hours later and the irony was not lost on anyone that the name of the bus was “adventure travel” Indeed. We made it back to Kathmandu and Ben and I went to find a hotel have a shower and go for some dinner with Hobin and Barbara.

Back in KAT

We played some more shit head and had a great chilled out night. We found out there was a city wide strike on the next day, infact there had been one today also. Every local we spoke to told us not to travel, ESPECIALLY not by taxi as the second day of the strike was serious business and if caught the situation could become very dangerous very quickly. In perfect timing Meg was arriving tomorrow at high noon and in less than 12 hours I would be seeing how hectic it could be first hand….

This is indeed a view we’re looking at brian …

I haven’t been updating for a while due to Nepal’s constant power cuts, shitty internet and general disposition to getting anything done. We left of in Pokhara……

After our night out we woke up to find that Mahabir Pun was in Brian’s hotel for a meeting with us. This man was to be the subject of the documentary, after speaking to him no one was really sure what was going on so in the end we asked him to do some interviews around pokhara and if the next day it was possible to go and see the hill village where he has done a lot of his work. He agreed but seemingly reluctantly. I was soon to find out why this was. But back to the show, I had been told some details about this man but it wasn’t until I met him that I was really able to understand who he was. He spoke very softly, had an ear piece to his phone in constantly and always seemed to be somewhere else when you were talking to him. We spent the day talking and doing some interviews about the work that he has done for the people of the mountains. No wonder he was always some where else, this unassuming nepali was one of the busiest men I have ever met!! As he casually rambled off what he has done for the people of the mountains I was amazed, wanting nothing in return this man had dedicated his life to the betterment of others from his community.  What a badass!

The next day at 6am we were due to hit the road and go and see his village, quickly it became clear as to why he seemed slightly hesitant to go back. Three days from now he was flying out to the Neatherlands to give a presentation on the charity that he also ran. The ride up was going to take us around 8 hours! Our car pulled up and me and brian looked at each other. “Oh yeah, we’re fucked.. We are going to fucking die dude……” In front of us was a 1971 Toyota corolla which IF it was held together by duct tape at least THAT would be something. No such luck…. Mahabir looked at us and smiled. ‘I’ve taken this same car and driver for the last twelve years. Is good” It looked like he’d taken it for the last hundred years…..

              

The car lumbered off the mark, I must say it really grew on me. A car that has sustained this much torture over the years and is still running, must be one of the best made cars in history! And trust me when I say this, this road was torture. We did some more interviews in the car and we found out that the hill village had internet. Amazing, and what was even cooler is the story of how this came to be.

Once Pokhara got the internet (dial up) Mahabir thought that the village could benefit greatly from this. Why internet ? For teaching aids, medical advise (the nearest hospital being 7 hour walk and 6 hour bus ride away) farming techniques and communication. That and the fact that he had to walk 6 hours down and mountain to check his emails!! So he wrote some emails to the BBC and a number of universities. Some students decided this was worth helping out on so soon enough they were in Nepal. The idea was to send Wi-fi to the village. Only problem was that the longest distance wi-fi had ever gone was around 30 meters. He needed 37 Kms…. But like all things he plodded on and with in a few weeks the team had mocked up an idea. With Mahbir’s uncles house on a hill in Pokhara they set up a send receive unit and pointed it at the highest mountain on the way to the village. The idea was to concentrate  the beam like a satellite. Two days later they had climbed a mountain and set up the next relay. With in a few minutes they had smashed every record anyone had ever thought possible. In typical fashion Mahabir just said. “It was a nice moment, then we walked down again and had some Raksi” (Raksi, a local rice wine, tastes like paint and death, I would find this out soon enough)

On we bumped as the driver pumped the brakes to try and stop us from going off the side of a mountain. It was either that or he was pumping his heart back into motion as he looked about as healthy as the car. Three hours later we reached Beni a small town north west of Pokhara, just past the start of the Annurpurna circuit, this is where we transferred to the jeep. Like everything in Nepal the further from the cities you get the tougher everything seems to be. Old ladies carrying a shit load of crops on their heads, kids falling off walls, dusting off like it never happened and this jeep ride was going to be no different. We piled into the “Mahindra” jeep and up we went. I kid you not, this thing was a beast! The first hour was almost a 45 degree angle, bouncing us so hard I felt like I was fighting the mountain its self. Another hour and we were at some altitude, I could tell this because you could see all of it out the fucking window!!! Sheer drops don’t do justice to what our wheels were rolling so so dangerously close to! Brain and I could do nothing but look at each other and shake our heads and laugh. This was exactly what both of us were hoping for when we got the chance to go to Nepal, some adventure damn it!

                Nangi was the village we were going to, perched on the side of the Annapurna range we were told the views were something special. This was like saying Gary Busesy is slightly odd. No, that mother fucker is fucking CRAZY! We stepped out the jeep and couldn’t believe what we saw. This was unbelievable. We dropped our things and set up for some more interviews and a tour around the town and all the initiatives that Mahabir has set up. Book and paper making, the mushroom farm, trout and rabbit farm, primary and secondary school, internet/ computer lab and trekking routes. For a village of 800 people this was great. A main aim of all of these things was to create jobs and reasons for people to stay, especially men. We found that almost everyone we saw were females, most of the young men left to HongKong or Saudi to be unskilled labour, while there these poor bastards have  a terrible time and are treated like slaves, but there is just no work in Nepal so they think it is their only option, Mahabir is trying to show that it’s not, and with plans to build a university by 2015 he wants to create ways for them to stay. What a legend.

 

 

  

 

We enjoyed the views and kicked in the town meeting the other volunteers the rest of the day. Dr. Tim Wolf and his wife were up for a month and Miguel had been there since January. He was in charge of setting up the new trekking routes. Basically this was a community run route done entirely by the villagers, the idea of this was to decentralize the profit base from Kathmandu and move it back to the mountains where it should be. Miguel was a Spanish volunteer and a seriously cool cat with a knowledge and collection of music which blew my mind and was great to hang out and find out more about the village and check out some of the short walks around the area.

      

The next day we opted to stay longer and Mahabir left to go to the Netherlands. Half the village turned up to give him a send off, he was treated like royalty and people loved him and his work. It was fantastic to see such a great man appreciated.

We spent the day filming interviews and the goings on, from trying my hand and almost cutting off my fingers paper making to a tour by an ex- gurkha of the sacred forest and fish farms. Everyone in the village was great and couldn’t be more accommodating. That night we saw one of the most spectacular sunsets of my life. It was hard to believe my eyes.

 

That night we ate by candles as there was no power (sometimes for days) and drank some more Raksi…. Just thinking about that poison sends shivers down my spine!! We left the next day on foot opting over the death box / jeep down to Beni. With in 20 minutes brian and I were dying. Our 16 year old guide didn’t break a sweat the whole time. Our aim was to get to Beni around 7000 feet below us, about half way we both felt like our legs were about to cripple under us but the views were amazing.

 

We could tell we were getting back to “civilization” as more and more people were around. The clincher was a small child dressed like a half naked pimp. In his leopard print fake fur little jacket and tighty whities he ran over to us as we walked down to near his village, side kick in toe.

“OI….HEY, HEY…..HEY YOU……GIVE ME MONEY….MONEY, GIVE ME MONEY”

I turned to brian, “charming kids huh, we’re back from paradise”

I wish I had a picture of this, but that is about as open an invitation for harassment for money that you can give! We made it down to the bottom and even standing still I was constantly worried that our legs were going to just buckle under the weight of us.  As we stumbled into town we were met by a dude called Chitra, who was a guide in the village. He pointed us in the direction of the bus and we got his email and told him if we wanted to do some trekking we’d email him. He pointed us in the direction of the bus and we bounced out of town. Strangely the bus was comfortable. It was shit, but comfortable, that is until the last person an old lady sat in front of me and we both found the seat was broken. She was pleasantly surprised that the chair leaned back at 45 degrees. I on the other hand ran through A to R of the most offensive words I could think of. My legs we getting crushed like Han Solo in the death star except the trash compacter never stopped. It just crushed the shit of him, this was compounded by the bumps, so savage that it actually lifted us out of the seats and slammed up back down. Brian didn’t escape either, while his legs weren’t crushed the row of over head compartments stopped mid way above out seats. This meant that there was a large jagged rusty metal corner directly above brian’s head and every time we involuntarily levitated he had to force his body back or to the side to stop an impaling of biblical proportions. Fuck this bus. Then the music started…… BLARRING HINDI. FUCK THIS BUS! Although it must be said, its still a bit better than Sydney busses. Anywho after about two hours we stopped for a snack, not that I would touch the food on the side of the road but it gave me the chance to achieve a life long ambition.

“Brian we getting out of this shit box”

“Where are we going? We’re still ages away from Pokhara”

“I didn’t say we were getting off, just out. It’s roof time”

  

Most people including me thought that this was not the greatest idea being on dangerous mountain roads etc. But the way I figured, if the bus crashed or was going off the side of the mountain then we would simply jump off. Breaking a leg or two, but we would live, not be sealed into the same fate as the people freefalling to their doom in the jagged rusty tomb to the sound track of hindi music blarring through shitty speakers. We jumped off the bus and told the ‘conductor’ we were going on the roof, I was ready for an argument, but instead he just said….sure. I fucking love the third world, safety is up to you and people just have so much more freedom, can you imagine seeing people on the roof of a Sydney bus? So as the bus pulled away we pulled ourselves up onto the roof and held on for dear life. What a trip! Immediately we were so happy we’d done this, the sun on our skin, the wind in our hair, no old lady crushing us and scenery so incredible it was mind blowing! At one point I had a step back moment. As we rounded the corner we started down the other side of the mountain, at that point a ray of sun shot through the drifting  clouds onto us and led zeppelin clicked onto my ipod, life was perfect, then we saw about 50 or 60 eagles soaring in the thermals directly above us. Epic doesn’t even start to describe this moment. It was un fucking believable. The rest of the bus ride we were holding on for dear life as the down hill was considerably faster than the up. We made it back to Pokhara in one piece about 2 minutes before it started to rain. We do live a blessed life. That night we played some pool and had one drink. Of course this drink was a quart of scotch, but it was only one so it was sweet. Brain had to bail in the morning to hit Thailand so once again I said good bye to another great friend I’ve made on this voyage through the lands and wished him the best. Once again I was alone like a wandering trash eating cow which features so prominently on the streets with some time to spare before Megan got here, it was time to find another adventure.

Photo’s from Nepal

Here are some of the photo’s from the last post from Bangkok / Dubai / Nepal

War to End all Wars…

Songkran Theory: The festival of Water and New Year where people lovingly drip some water on you for good luck in the coming year. 

Songkran Actual: One week of pure water fought carnage. A week where no man woman or child is safe from the fray. Anywhere, anytime you could get hit by a bucket of ice cold water from a balcony, a car, a motorbike, a pick up truck, a hose or a water gun. More traffic incidents happen in this one week than in all of Britain…all year.

 

Walking down the street to find a hostel when I arrived from Chaing Rai with all my bags  an old lady got me with a hose, ignoring my pleas of CAMERA! CAMERA! She laughed….. laughed as I ran down the street with all my bulky bags…..She just made an enemy, and I was packing. I finally found a hostel after finding almost all of the others were totally full for the festival. I striped down and filled up. In shorts and a t-shirt I hit the street. Today was the first day and I heard it doesn’t really pick up until a few days on. But I wanted to check it out anyway and maybe have some fun. But first I needed to take care of something…. She didn’t even see me coming as I accelerated to attack speed down the street. “HAPPY SONGKRAN” BAM! My water gun spat forth a torrent of revenge and good luck for the new year as I ran past drenching the old lady who had previous Songkran’ed me. She was just a little too late to get her hands on the hose of death and I made it past, still dry. Nathan 1. Songkran. 0. I made it onto the street and within around 45 seonds the score was. Nathan 4. Songkran 237.5 Litres….. Water was just flying from every direction, the main source of the beatings were from the 4×4 pick up’s with huge barrels or baby pools in the back usually with large 20 kg ice blocks to make the water super cold and shocking. I’ve never seen anything like it. It truly was a city wide water fight, and no one was spared. People on motorbikes riding by would get several buckets to the face, so, so dangerous as that was around 25 meters that they were riding blind. But no one seemed to care! Day one was great, I hung out with my friends from Laos and we got drenched. My good friend from Kampot in Cambodia had also made his way up to Chang Mai for the festival and the next few days were spent with him and another friend Rachel he was traveling with (also from Kampot days) The next day was cloudy and raining making the fight all the more hectic because most of us were shivering the whole time so when the ice water hit….oh shit did you feel it! The numbers were swelling regardless of the low temperature and David  was hilarious in his Irish brutality. In a very nice twist while on the street I bumped in the Max and Iz from the Gibbon Exp! They decided to come to Chaing Mai after all and we had two great nights out. On a side note, they stayed one extra day on the border and told me my bike was working and it was the talk of the town! 5 mins in the shop and it was good as gold!!!! That night I had to go and buy a bus ticket back to Bangkok. Finally dry it was getting dark and very cold. But karma is a bitch. All day I was taking incredible pleasure in running behind the taxi jeeps and throwing buckets of cold water inside the cabin on the back while the people screamed! They had no escape! THIS IS SONGKRAN. So as you can imagine that night we were savaged on the way to the buses. With the wind with the water I was so cold I thought I was going to get hypothermia, we tried pleading, dodging, hiding but I deserved every drop of icy torture. Tomorrow I wasn’t going to throw water in the back of the utes, especially because I had to go back to the buses with all my stuff this time….

            Final day of Songkran and it was sunny, hot and all the stops were pulled out. We sat on a old fort over looking the moat which runs around the old section of the city which is a main source of water for the fight and just watched the endless parade of jeeps with people in the back fight the people with buckets on the moat. You couldn’t see the ground it was so crowded. Everyone was having fun and going crazy. There were concerts, tv camera, and everything. I would have loved to take some pictures but there was no way in the world that I was going to take out my camera after seeing people with cameras better than mine get doused. It didn’t matter what you had, some one was going to get you. Here is a video someone else made, I haven’t seen it (bad internet here) but hopefully it will give a good idea

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yU5YH6XQiyE

 

Back to Bangkok:

 

I took the first bus of my trip and it was all the overnight crapness I could have expected. Thank god it was only one. In Bangkok songcran was still in full swing so I walked the streets to get to JJ’s in fear, but as the bus arrived at 5 am everyone was still asleep. Downtown BK each day of Songkran has around 200,000 people involved so I was keen to avoid this!

The last three days of my trip flew by. Before I knew it I was waiting for the taxi. When I left for the airport it had been exactly three months to the day since I first set foot in South East Asia. I was at a loss as to whether it felt like 3 years, or 3 minutes. I still can’t decide. The taxi ride was stunning as the sun set over Bangkok and I retraced my steps in my mind. From the first taxi ride at 1am to my hostel and thinking oh shit…. to meeting JJ, my first ride through the traffic in Hanoi, meeting Kurtis and Gray, passing through the mountains of Vietnam, arriving in Ho Chi Min, crossing the boarder after the Mekong delta, the trek across the back country in Cambodia, 4000 islands of laos and my bike problems, the hell week struggling north and finally saying goodbye to my bikeafter more than 5000kms. Each time I thought of something a thousand tiny details would flood into my mind and it was like I was back on the road with countless weeks ahead of me and no plan. Every sense was overloaded and I longed to be back. All these will fade with the weeks and months but for now they are fresh and I can almost touch them, but like the trip the taxi ride was over and I had to go.

 

 

 

Opulence to Obscurity

 

I’m sitting at 7900ft. in a small hut surrounded the Himalayas. There is a thunder storm outside and three women of the tiny mountain village of Nangi are showing me how to strip bark to make the pulp for hand made paper. It’s been 8 days since I was sitting in one of the world’s most expensive shopping mall’s drinking an over priced coffee.

 

The first thing that I did when I got on the flight out of Bangkok was take a huge sigh of relief. As much as I loved every second of Asia, it did take its toll. I was exhausted and I looking forward to doing nothing for a few weeks while I visited my dad in Dubai. But first thing is first, I pushed the button for the flight attendant and explained that I needed some good red wine….. and a lot of it. I spent the next 9 hours eating and drinking my self silly. It was amazing! My parents met me at the airport which was great and heading back to the apartment it was so nice not to have to think about anything. Where will I stay, how will I get there, do I have any money, can I eat that, should I drink that? I was being taken care of and it was fantastic! I hadn’t been back to Dubai for some time. Lastly being in 2005 for two days after my South America trip but this was the first time I had really been back since 2002. I could barley recognize anything. I’d imagine it is rare growing up somewhere for 12 years and coming back only to find that EVERYTHING is different. But this is Dubai and its always doing something ridiculous. It was great to see my parents but they were heading back to Australia for a few weeks about 5 days after I arrived so I was left to my own devices. This suited me as I was used to being alone and it gave me time to explore the city and catch up with old friends.

            Everyone always tells me how great dubai is and how it must have been so great to live there blah blah blah. Maybe I was always being too cool for school but I always brushed it off. But it is an amazing place, I mean driving down the freeway I was just astounded by the size and the general craziness of the whole place. Over the few weeks I could see some of the old dubai I remembered showing through the cracks in the polished marble but it was just too clean, too fake now. Not to say that I didn’t enjoy it, I was having a great time but it was like a drug, I could see myself getting sucked into the fancy café’s, expensive bars, massive air conditioned shopping malls and the general mind set of everyone there which is money money money. I got a lead on a job and looked into it, it would be great to stay for a while, but this wasn’t real life and it wasn’t the adventure I was looking for. But I met some great people, I went surfing again which was fantastic and hung out with some awesome flight attendants, hung out with my oldest friends and even went on a road trip to which I made a quick video:

 

http://www.vimeo.com/23409578

 

But ultimately I found my mind wandering back to Asia constantly. I missed the squalor, the danger and especially the amount of fun I was having.

 

But my stop over in Dubai was for two things. Get fit. Get to Nepal, my next leg. I’d wanted to go for as long as I could remember and now I was. In my mind I had a mix between Indian Jones and Cliff hanger to motivate me. But with my ankle still a very big problem so I was limited in the amount of work I could do. None the less I was getting considerably fitter and more excited. Finally the day had arrived and I was heading out into the wild once more.

 

            I arrived in Kathmandu at around lunch and was so glad to see a small dingy airport. So simple the security and the visa was a breeze! I headed to my hostel in a clapped out taxi and took it all in. Cows on the roads, cars using horns rather than brakes, streets with no direction or lines, police with Ak’s, a smell of rotting something in the air, THOUSANDS OF POWER LINES, ROADS WITH POT HOLES! I WAS BACK TO THE SQUALOR. YES!!! After some tricky business with my accounts and forgetting to put any money in the accessible ones, I made it to Thamel and to my guest house. I checked in and headed out to the sitting area on the roof. A few hours later me and my new friends were sitting in an amazing middle eastern restaurant on the floor as the rolling black outs tumbled through the city.

            In general I found myself a little bored in Kathmandu, a big reason being I wanted to explore it with Megan my roommate and partner in crime so I wasn’t really doing much. It was nice hanging out with the people from the hostel as they were all really cool but my adventure wasn’t as adventurous as I thought it would be. So I decided to do some white water rafting. I wanted to go on a 10 day expedition but in the end with only me the chance of finding others didn’t really work out in the time frame I needed so I settled for a 2 day to warm up. The guy who ran the hostel (Cam) told me about the trips and pretty much hard sold me on a particular trip. I didn’t really want to leave the next day but I was coerced into it. What luck!

 

The first day was nothing to write home about I have to say. The river was gorgeous but I was with 3 russians who didn’t really speak English and the rapids were not the white water monsters I’d been hoping for. But it was nice and the place we stayed that night was amazing. I had dinner with a group of guys who were riding royal enfields in Tibet which made me green with envy! The tent/room was great and I was told the river was a lot more hectic the next day. The next morning I walked up to some other interesting looking people and sat down. One being a photographer from Austin Texas. He was still in school but he was out here on a trip with an older friend of his who was putting together a doco on a social worker by the name of Mahabir Pun. They were heading up to Pokhara the day after rafting and Brian offered me a lift as they were taking a private car. This was great as I was headed up there anyway. The rafting was a lot more fun with more people in the raft (who could speak English) and even though the river wasn’t as wild as I’d have like it was still fun. Brian and I got on great and the next day I met with beth and we went for a stroll around the back streets of Kathmandu to take some photo’s and explore. It turns out that the camera man who was going to do the shooting for Beth was un contactable and it looked like the project she and brian were coming out here for wouldn’t go ahead. With in a few minutes I was the new camera man and we were heading off to Pokhara in the morning!!! That night I stayed in the same place as Brian and Beth which was on the side of the mountain over looking the city. It was stunningly beautiful and compared to my hostel, luxury!

            The trip down was just that. A trip. The roads were jammed with busses crashing and motorbikes sliding around the tarmac. It took us about 6 hours of steaming hot, bumpy/windy roads to get to Pokhara but we made it and compared to Kathmandu it was a relaxation dream. It was nice to be out of the big city and be able to see some mountains which weren’t covered in haze. That night me and Brian hit the town and found Pokhara has some interesting places. Not one to escape the black outs the heavy rock back at the busy bee bar had to finish the song early as the power cut robbed the guitarist of his much anticipated solo. One thing I have found though is that the beer in this country is very expensive which is not a good thing for my account balance.

More to come on the next exciting installment, hill tribes, white water rafting, documentaries and hellish treks. ……. .

 

Laos vs. Nathan

Vang Viang:

It’s 8:57 am and I just forced myself to eat exactly one third of a chocolate and banana pancake.  Friends is playing on the tv and I’ve thrown up in my mouth 7 times. My bike is packed and sitting outside and I am surrounded by people in the same boat as me, and its sinking fast. Every second I feel worse. I have now been in Vang Viang for exactly 60 hours, and I have been sauced for around 50 of those.  All I can think of is getting out. With the cool wind in my face as I reach the out skirts I already miss it. This has been hands down the most dangerous, belligerent, epic, painful, hilarious, injury filled, drunken, awesome consecutive 60 hours of my life. Suffice to say I was not feeling the best when I left. As it would be good to have a record of this I will attempt to give my time in bullet point as it would take way too long to write it all and frankly, I don’t think I would do it justice…

• Woke up from first night out, bad hang over
• Tried to forget painium in my brainium with banana smoothie at café next door
• Sitting in a bed in the middle cabana I had a choice of speaking to either my left or right cabana neighbors. Decisions Decisions
• After hearing the Americans on my right say “What is bog-la-naise, and like what is Carb-on-aria”
• Hearing response. “Oh, bog-la-naise, is like meat, and cabin-aria is fish” my decision was made for me.
• Chatted to the people on my left, an awesome Australian couple and two crazy Canadian girls.
• Decided we will all tube
• Hit the took tooks
• Arrived at river, my mind was blown! And not only by the 4 free shots of whisky we had before even getting to the bar.

• Think lost boys, but if they liked to drink heavily.
• Sat in sun by the river. Drank copious amounts of booze.
• Went on the giant swings
• Drifted to next bar, drank more, went on even BIGGER swing, drank more
• Discovered buckets

• Discovered dancing
• Dove off a bar and landed on rocks, managed to push myself past jagged rocks just under surface into deeper water…
• More shots to calm my nerves at stupidest thing I’ve done in years
• Someone shouted Titanic
• More swings

• More buckets + very bad body slam on water while trying to film me and wade jumping off 10 meter platform
• Mud volleyball
• Mud acrobatics
• Sunset
• Canadian girls proving that they may be the most epic boozers I have ever come across, I mean, wow, these guys took shit to the next level

• Arrived back in Vang, out of control, wandering the streets in my boardies as people walked by and judged me “YOU DON’T EVENNN KNLOWWWW, KRACKERS!!!! YOU’LL BE HERRRRE SON DON’T THINK YOU WON’T ”
• Showered
• Headed out, bounced between bars old and new
• More shots, more buckets
• Met girl from 4000 islands I met before and bribed her to give me a back rub, she was a massage therapist and told me I had more knots in my back than any one she had ever treated.
• Passed out around 4
• Woke up still blind drunk
• Met Aussies and Canadians for round 2
• Realized we were all still wasted from yesterday
• All found numerous scars, bruises, pulled muscles aches and oil based spray paint on our bodies
• Resigned to drink asap as this was the only way to stop the impending hang over and pain
• Went tubing
• Drank first beer. “Mate this is going down like rusty fucking nails”
• “Hey 3 must be my lucky number, because this beer is tasting better!!!”
• “I GOT TWO BUCKETS YEEEHAW” …….” NO FUCKING WAY, SO DID I!!!!!!!!!!”
• Repeated previous day……..

• Woke up at 8:00am
• Packed bike before hang over really hit
• Checked out
• Ate Banana and Chocolate Pancake
• Forced back the puke
• Left town while I still could

I was now back on the road and the fresh mountain air was making me feel a lot better. The scenery was stunning and the roads were great, albeit steep. After the first few hours I was over my hang over and the day was perfect. As I got deeper into the mountains the sky darkened, I was worried about rain but it seemed that the farmers just wanted some shade and were back burning entire mountains. This was quite a sight.  Apart from one very very near death experience involving a cyclist I waved at and a pick up truck then cutting a corner to the point I had about 20cm’s of road left to pummel the bike hard down into with my left side bag scraping the side of the truck, the ride was very pleasant.

I came across the biggest climb of the whole trip which put some serious strain on the bike but reaping its rewards on the other side when I coasted with the engine off in neutral (not between 1^st and 2^nd, but the one hidden between 3^rd and 4^th so I could roll start it at top speed!) I estimate I rolled about 20+ kms on the down hill. Nothing but the wind and silence, what a great way to live. Having a drink on a road side stop on the side of a mountain with a truly amazing view was very Zen.

Although a strange occurring….was occurring, clouds suddenly rolled in and i was worried it was about to piss it down, but as i peaked across a ridge i saw that they were not rain clouds…

My destination is Luang Prabang, popular with the over 50 tourists with lots of money and the young backpackers alike, this stop over is filled with temples culture and expensive crafts done by local peoples. Seeing as it’s the only stop on the road south or north depending on your inclination it has many different people milling around. I’d didn’t agree with the town itself so much, or more to the point, the town didn’t agree with me. As I rolled into town my music was blaring and I didn’t understand why the people of this sleepy little town (especially the older tourists) were glairing at me so fiercely. I stopped to look at my map to look for a bed for the night and pulled out my headphones. As I kicked the bike over and rode off down the street it immediately became clear to me why people were glairing. At some point in the last week or two I’d hit so many bumps I’d either cracked my exhaust or dislodged all the baffles because fuck me dead this bike was unbelievably loud, and being a two stoke it was offensively so. Every single face I saw looked at me like I was the anti Christ invading their pre planned cultural experience, usually I would have felt bad, but seeing as I had been riding for around 9 hours I gunned it down the road and eventually found a hostel. Luang Prabang was nice enough but after a while you just get sick of temples and Mekong sunsets.

I took a great trip to the waterfalls and got soaked by some kids as we motored past on the pick up. They were getting into Song Krang, the thai festival of water/new year, this would be my first taste of the carnage……

After the waterfall I arranged to meet with the two Dutch guys from the waterfall trip for dinner. On my way back to the room a couple stopped me and asked about my bike. As we were talking another girl came over and joined the conversation. We all arranged to come to the Indian restaurant and I told them I was thinking of selling it and they seemed pretty keen on the idea of a motorbike adventure.  By this time I’d been on the road so long and I knew there was a slim chance of getting my bike across the boarder, the idea of running around a town I did not know trying to sell my bike didn’t really appeal to me. I was tied, worn out, alive and exhausted, I told them to meet me at the Indian restaurant and we would all have dinner.  A strange think happened at dinner though as I sat with my dutch mates. Michael said how good it would feel to finally reach Chaing Mai and riding into town, as he said it I saw the three people coming to meet me, and I swear it was like seeing 3 executioners walking up to the block. I suddenly had the urge to run down the street. The thought of parting with my bike right now was horrifying. I was suddenly energized, all the fatigue of the last two weeks vanishing and I knew I had to ride as far as I possibly could otherwise I would always look back and regret it.

“Well, it looks like we’re going to buy your bike”

“Well thats just never going to happen”

They all took it pretty well after I explained the situation and 7 of us had dinner and hit the town for a really great night. Loas was coming to an end, and I running out of time. I had two days to make it to The Thai Laos boarder and be on time for my Gibbon Experience.  The day was gorgeous but for various reasons I left town a little late. It was a great first 130kms, the roads were gold, the mountains were far and wide and I was making great progress.   I saw the dutch guys in a mini van pass and wave madly at me, they were heading the same way as me. I caught them in the little town of Pak Mong which was my turn off and they were having lunch. There was 87kms of what looked like windy road and then turn north for another 127km to Luang Namtha. Perfectly do-able with the roads in as good condition as they had been.  Strangely though, just before I reached the town I just said to myself, I’m going to crash today. Out of the blue, I tried not to dwell on this but it seemed so strange that I’d never said or thought that before. I turned left on my new route and just over the first rise I had to slam on the brakes and almost stop. There was a section of road which was just rocks…. And I don’t mean pebbles either, large jagged fucking rocks where the road has just disappeared, or no one ever put the tarmac on. The crazy thing was that there was road, but every 50-100 meters there was just a fucking rock pit!!!!

The next 87kms were the hardest fought of the whole trip. Not only could I not get up any kind of speed I quickly realized that I needed petrol and the villages on the map, were literally a road with shacks on either side, not that any one would be there to sell me petrol. (Especially not the guys walking around with AK-47’s hanging off their shoulders) It was burn the shit out of the mountains day and it seemed like every one was out for a piece of it!!!! 3kms into my very own “road of bones’ the sky went from pale blue to yellow, ember and then straight up blood red/orange. I was riding through the apocalypse of man and I was running out of petrol. It’s hard to describe what this was like but hell-esque would be a nice word. The sky was dark orange, every now and then a wave of heat would wash up the side of a mountain, constant smoke made your eyes sting and breathing painful.

My average speed had dropped down and every km was taking longer than the last. Time was getting on and I was in the middle of fucking no where. Petrol was becoming a serious issue and I was becoming worried that the rock pits were doing irrecoverable damage to my bike. On all of the downhills I had the engine off this time more for necessity than fun, I got some strange looks from the people as a coasted silently in and out of their towns with out a whisper. Amazingly my bike was silent when it rolled! On one such down hill I had an amazing encounter. I floated through a hard right and I was suddenly face to face with a man walking up the road, he was a westerner and with out thinking about it I just said ‘ hey man, hows it going’ “Not too bad brother” …….I rounded two more corners before I processed what just happened. I kicked into gear and the engine came back to life. I pulled a U-ey and headed straight back up to meet this guy, as i stopped he put down his walking stick and his backpack.

“Dude, your seriously walking!”

My favorite part of this trip has to be people, I’ve met so many and I love collecting and hearing their stories, but none were more interesting than Daniel. He’d been on the road for 15 months and when I asked where he was going, he answered ‘going home…’ He’d been living in London and working as a banker and one day he had a dream, he had to walk around the world. He woke up and started planning. So far he’d walked through china Vietnam and was heading south through laos. His calculations were that it would take him 6 years. So far he was always offered a place to stay or a good meal by strangers when they found out what he was doing, he had faith in human kindness and it never seemed to let him down (but he did have a tent just incase!)  We sat by the side of the road, swapped tips and good spots that we’d both been and were both going in the eerie orange light of the fires. We talked and traded some snacks over a cigarette, not that I smoke, but seeing as I’d been breathing smoke for the last 2 ½ hours what more damage could I do! I could have sat there for hours, but as always with the people I meet, especially the most interesting ones it was short lived, we were both going different directions and we both had places to go. I wished him luck and safety and silently rolled back down the mountain.

The road finally cleared up as Daniel said it would a few kilometers later going through Muang Xai where I filled up 9 ½ litres of my 10 litre tank, from here there was 127km to get to my destination. I got through the town without stopping and was on the out skirts before long. It was 3pm on the dot and I had around 3 hours of light left.  All I had to do was keep an average speed of 40kph. The quality of the roads were back to normal and this was possible and I almost let myself believe this….almost. Traffic jam. This is the first traffic jam I have seen in three months. Mainly because people just don’t stop….ever! They go around it, over it or through it, but now I was faced with a line of cars trucks and bikes. Naturally I pushed to the front with the other bikes but there was actually a barricade. It seems that they were literally making the road in front of us! I sat in the sun for 15 minutes while the tarmac spraying machine spat out its cancer lung onto the road. This was not going fast enough so it was time for action, I tried everything, I revved my engine, I stopped it, I stood up and sat down on the bike, I grunted, I yelled “COME’ON” Started the bike again and edged forward and got whistled at, I even tried to use my horn, but it was broken. There was nothing I could do, I’d pulled out all the stops and nothing! Finally they waved us through, but not before a massive god damn road fucking building fucking truck. Due to the fact that the road was still being made I was stuck behind a huge truck driving on what could only be a road covered in talcum powder…..  I mean the cloud was so thick I couldn’t even see where the truck was, I tried slowing but it just hung in the air and then all the people behind me would be popping out any second to happily run me down. They only choice I had was to try and over take. This was a nightmare in white. There was no safe way to do this so I ate shit for many minutes and then finally found some straight flat which looked big enough to pass and went for it. Finally I could see, northern laos was really getting to me, but at least I could see in front of me….a…..massive….fucking ….traffic jam………AGAIN!!!

I rolled passed 100 meters of cars/vans/tour busses/pig trucks and all sorts, every one I passed I was becoming more and more agitated.  I finally saw a westerner standing on a ditch on the other side of the road. I asked him what the hold up was…….nothing. He didn’t respond, I asked once more…..blank. HEY, I’M TALKING TO YOU!! WHY THE FUCK ARE ALL THESE CARS SITTING AROUND WITH THEIR DICKS IN THEIR HANDS!!!!!

“Hey Nathan”

It was the dutch guys! I had caught them again. I dusted myself off and parked next to them. We were around 20 meters from the front and now I could see loads of tourists and locals alike stretching their legs and some looked like they’d been there for a while. Michael gave me the low down and I started to pace furiously. It was getting later, it was now 3:30 and my average speed was rising along with my blood pressure. Each time I paced back to the bike I kept slamming my hand down onto my ruck sack and a huge cloud of dust would shoot off it. I was also yelling a bit. It was something along the lines of…

NO………..NO……….NO NO NO NO NO…. GOD DAMN IT……………..NO! WHAT THE FUCK IS TAKING SO LONG, I’M FUCKED, MICHEAL I’M SO FUCKED…………………(pacing, pacing) …..NO…….(hit bag)……..THIS IS BULLSHIT, I’M NOT RIDING THESE ROADS AT NIGHT…….COME ON……….NO

 

Then I asked the driver of Michaels mini van what the road was like, he looked at me and said….’it’s bad, very bad, stop like this many times’ This news wasn’t taken well. I’m not sure if it was lack of food, fatigue or just that it was getting late and by the looks of it the day was about to get even harder. The other tourists were looking at me with a mixture of shock and awe,  I was leaving a trail of dust from my clothing and my erratic swearing and cursing was becoming more creative. Some huge trucks passed and nothing happened. People were saying one hour more. Fuck my life. I made the call at 3:55pm. It was too dangerous to ride, I was going to bribe a farmer to let me put my bike in the back of their truck and hopefully they were going the same way. As I was about to ask I realized I didn’t know the name of the town so I started back to my bike for the lonely planet. I was about 20 meters away when I heard it.

“OPEN…..GO, ROAD OPEN……FREE TO GO”

Time stopped for a split second. I jerked my head up to survey what I had to do. There was half a second of calm until the realization hit, and it hit like a gunshot to an Olympic race. From nothing to sudden chaos it was like a LeMans start for the whacky races. People were running from every direction, bags under arms, water flying out the bottles as they ran with the caps open, people screaming, diving into mini vans and busses.  Locals, tourists, farmers, drivers already honking horns and revving engines waiting for the slow ones to run from the shade down the road. Who ever got out last was going to be stuck behind a shit load of the slowest traffic in all of Laos….. And by fuck it wasn’t going to be me. I burst into an avalanche of speed, I use the term avalanche because I wasn’t stopping for anything and if I had to I would literally run over people to get to the falcon. By the time I got to the bike my gloves were on and I’d pulled my scarf up for my makeshift mask. Helmet, Strap, Ignition, Kick, Clutch. My bike was facing the wrong way but I didn’t have time to push it back so I took a page from the Graham and Curtis guide to riding. The order was actually, Helmet, Strap, Ignition, Kick, Open throttle to maximum..….clutch. The back stepped out and i carved half a donut out of the dirt road. I was out of there in a blaze of dust, flying stones and glory and I had only one thing on my mind. Make it to the front of the pack. I tore passed the barricade and I was out of the gate but still back in the field. I refused to get stuck behind another dust spewing truck and while there was road I was getting past these 2 cars 3 motorbikes and two smaller trucks. I took the first car on corner one and a motorbike 30 meters on. The falcon was making the jump to light speed, round the next corner though I saw why they were holding us. When some one says the road is open I imagined something slightly different. It was indeed open but more to the heavy machinery still making the friggin’ thing. I was suddenly in a layer 5 inch thick of small grain gravel used as a base before the tarmac was sprayed on and almost out of control. Both tires were cutting straight through and it felt like riding in sand. I was drifting all over the place and to make it worse I was now on the wrong side of a massive earth mover coming towards me. I cut across further to the left and hit some compacted gravel and got my balance for a second before swerving off to miss the gravel compactor which had just driven over it. This was Madness! This construction was going on for another few hundred meters which I could see with people, equipment, trucks, ditches, tools and rock piles. Every one had to slow down. Almost everyone. I’d past everyone by now but in front of me where still one set of tracks and they were cutting a furious pace. Sliding in and out of his wake we made our way through the gauntlet and we were neck and neck as we hit the rise. I clawed up to his cab with my bike being lighter but the tires were thin and sinking but at the last second I felt my engine hit the high powerband and the millennium falcon once again as it always does delivered the mother fuckin’ goods!!

I was elated for a second, but then it was back to serious business. I’ve never been so charged for a ride in my life. It was nearly 4 which meant that I needed an average speed of 60kph to make it to Luang Namtha by dark and if the roads were like this riding at night was not even a thought let alone an option. Seeing as 60kph was my top speed this was going to be hard. The next few kms were mostly gravel and slowing down on an uphill + gravel meant that if my speed dropped it took forever to get back so instead of this I just didn’t slow down. I took the corners Motorcross style with one leg out and the back sliding in and out of traction. I thundered through small towns along the way and finally there was road! I was still heading up ten minutes later and the corners were sharp and blind with the occasional work crew sitting behind some. I was going to push the bike harder than I ever asked or it was going to die by the side of the road, we were taking corners flat out and making incredible time. I’m still amazed how well the bike performed under such pressure, turn after turn, churring out the rev’s to get the speed back and careening ever higher. The bike was covered in dust apart from the top left side of the tank which was shiny and blue where for the course of the mountain climb (and the entire trip) I’d been petting it and keeping its spirits up. It was alive and kicking. Even I knew I was going too fast I had an solid mind set, very little was going through it except what was directly infront of me. As always, but I find it hard to recall much of this point in the trip, I was completely and utterly focused on riding as fast as I possibly could. As I was coming around a corner I pushed too far and the front wheel let go throwing the bike down with me under it. It happened so fast I didn’t even really comprehend it. The bike had landed on my right ankle and dragged me along the road, luckily it was up hill and the corner was sharp so my speed wasn’t what it could have been. Before I knew what I was doing I’d hauled the bike up and was trying to kick it over, it wouldn’t start so I ran it down the hill jumped on and roll started it. This worked and I pulled it round and opened it up. All I could think of was to keep going, and keep going fast, as I rounded the next corner a huge truck was barrelling down the other way. I guess it doesn’t pay to dwell because if I’d stopped to take a picture or piss around on the corner where I’d crashed it would have certainly crushed the bike, and  maybe me. I was finally at the top of the mountain in another 3 or 4 minutes. I knew I was bleeding a lot from my right arm and my right ankle was becoming more painful by the second. To boot the front wheel felt like I’d bent the bolt because I could feel a serious vibration in the bars. It was time to assess the damage.

I pulled over and check myself while sitting on the bike. My ankle was possibly broken but I’d imagine it would be more likely sprained badly I tied the boot up tight and went through my bag to find some disinfectant cream for my arm. This was quite hard as it turns out it wasn’t the front axel shaking but it was me. Uncontrollably so, I could barley get the cap off. I applied the disinfectant liberally as I didn’t have any bandages, it looked a mess, but I was still determined not to lose. I wasn’t going to let this stop me, the bike was ok except the rear brake pedal was bent up in a weird way making it not quiet as accessible as I would have liked but otherwise the bike was solid. I said something lame like ‘fuck you laos, let’s fucking do this’ revved the engine and promptly dropped the bike almost crushing my other ankle…..well shit. It was time to swallow my pride and take a breath. Picking up the bike was very painful with my ankle but I stopped the shaking so much. I set out to finish the day, my speed was still a lot higher than usual but I was reigning myself in and not letting anything to chance. I still had a long way to go. The quality of the road kept improving and the scenery was spectacular, I still can only remember tiny bits but it was stunning with the sun setting. With 37kms to go it was 5:40pm and the roads were glorious! Long, sweeping curves with the smoothest tarmac imaginable! At 6pm the sun was setting over rice paddies and I was rewarded by a truly beautiful post card sunset. I limped into town and went about getting some bandages and clean gauze for my arm and a room. I met the Dutch guys at a road side bar after tracking them down to their hostel. I had arrived a full 30 minutes in front of the fastest car from the traffic jam! We ate, we drank and I fell into bed like a building being demolished. And to think some one 24 hours before had offered to buy my bike off me…. To miss out on the hardest, most dangerous, exciting and rewarding day of the entire trip would have been a tragedy and I would have always regretted it.

I woke up in a fair amount of pain (to my ego as well, as I was very proud not to be one of those dick heads who’s covered in bandages from crashing a scooter in asia, usually a southern island in thailand, usually drunk) and headed south east out of town. Today was going to be much easier. I stayed on the same road and didn’t stop.

A somber reminder of the dangers of a seemingly safe road

I arrived at Huay Xai at lunch and checked into the Gibbon Experience.  FINALLY! I’d made it! After pushing myself for the entire length of Loas. I got to the boarder. I was so tied but before I was able to crash out for the day I first needed to run up to the boarder and make sure I could get my bike across to Thailand. I thought it would be best to get this sorted now rather than as I’m trying to get across. I knew this could be tricky and not declaring the bike coming in I took a risk, a risk I soon found did not pay off…. After speaking to a customs agent and then his boss and telling them I just bought the bike  two weeks ago they informed me that it was impossible to get the bike to Thailand. I tried everything, I asked to apply for a “government form for $50 USD” then I got more blatant, but they just would not have a bar of it. I couldn’t believe it, I was stumped and they were all leaving. I even ran after the boss driving home and stopped him. The bike could get back into Vietnam but not Thailand. If I went back to nam and then got a passport for the bike, then I could cross but otherwise it wasn’t going anywhere….. This was a very depressing afternoon. I had come so far but it looked like my trip on the millennium falcon was at an abrupt end. The boarder was on a river and you had to cross on a barge, I went through all the options in my head, I could just try and smuggle it, or pay someone to hide it in their truck or any number of crazy ideas. I had to admit to myself in the end that this wasn’t some pole across the road, this was Thailand and if I got caught playing dumb wasn’t an option. I took a ride for a while before heading back into town. This could be the last…

I typed up a sign and parked the bike outside a bar and proceeded to down my sorrows in a high concentration of Beer Lao. I reminisced for the afternoon and tried to go over the ride in my mind, what an adventure. As I returned to the bike the sign was gone and a lady who owned a little restaurant next door came over and was talking excitedly to me about it. She loved it and asked me how much I wanted it for. I told her $100 usd and she would find the money and meet me when I got back from the Gibbons. Back at the hotel I was lying in bed watching a movie when about 4 minutes from the end the power cut out. Typical. Suddenly all the shutters slammed against the window. From a completely still night it was like opening the window on the freeway! I thought it was a hurricane or something, I found my torch and ran outside to the reception. The whole family was there and me and two others went outside. It was insane, lightning and incredible winds but not a drop of rain yet. I was just out of the door way when a suddenly I received a sign from above……in the most literal sense possible. The large wooden sign above the entrance to the hotel had been blown off its hinges and crashed into my shoulder then dropped into my hands. LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOSSSS! The owners turned around and looked at me taking a second, along with me to understand why I was suddenly holding their sign in my hands. The rain came down on us like a waterfall a second later and we took cover. My shoulder was throbbing. I couldn’t believe this another injury! In a way looking back I was lucky though, it would have broken a number of my toes if it hadn’t landed on my shoulder or my nose or cracked my skull so slamming into my shoulder was lucky……in a way, not as lucky as staying in bed but you know, sometimes you take what you can get.

We were off to the Gibbon Experience the next morning.  We jumped in the back of the pick ups and picked up some locals along the way who had a massive chainsaw. We were either helping them out or we were all going to get killed. Turns out as soon as we hit the trail into the national park we were cutting through huge trees felled on the road by the crazy ass storm the night before. Awesome. Mean while I was knocking back some tremidols to try and get rid of some of the pain in my ankle before the impending hike. It seemed that the pain killers weren’t killing shit, but coupled with the beer I bought from the village at the start of the walk I was now ready to go. The hike was tourture, turns out sitting on a bike for 2 months did nothing for my cardio, but it was worth it! I met some awesome people and had loads of fun. The zip lining was out of control and for the last year since I saw a blog from someone in laos I’d been absolutely dying to get down along it. I’ll let the pictures and video speak for me. But I want to say how much fun it was, mainly because of the people, they were all great fun and we had some epic shit head tournaments and some funny mornings in the rain.

Two days later I was back on the boarder and ready to say goodbye to the millennium falcon. I’d been thinking about the idea since I got the bike and when the lady gave me one million kip I gave her the registration, and then the change. A million to be exact. She was pleased but not really as ecstatic as I hoped, but it was a lesson I guess, I gave it to her not wanting anything back so I shouldn’t have minded how she took it. The bike had been good to me, really good and i think she could have used it more than i could use a few hundred dollars. I owe Karma alot so a bike was a small price to pay. Saying this though she cooked me some food and gave me some beer. Fair trade I think!! But saying good bye to the falcon was pretty sad, I didn’t know then but I would be seeing it very soon. Half way through my pizza I heard someone tell me it was broken down……what!

I headed down the road and tried to kick it over. Nothing. Over 5000 kms and the second it leaves my side it breaks down. The poor thing felt abandoned but I had to catch a boat across the river so I did everything I could to fix it. The fuel filter was doing something funny and with in minutes I was covered in petrol and oil on the side of the street. It killed me but I just couldn’t fix it and suddenly so glad I didn’t take any money from the poor lady as I can’t think of anything worse! I said good bye, i had to be on that boat. I tried to tell myself that it was just a stupid, noisy, dangerous, cheap old motorcycle…. but who am I kidding. It felt like I was leaving a part of myself abandoned by the side of the road and it tore me up to limp away from it. I got one last picture and forced a smile..

 

Soon I was on the boat and headed for Thailand once more to complete the full circle. It was getting dark and I was had no idea how to get to Chang Rai but as fate would have it I got a super cheap ticket as I hitched a ride with 3 Canadian students studying in Bangkok who had also been on the Gibbon. I was getting on my first bus in 3 months and as we cruised down the highway on the ‘wrong’ side at 120kph I sat back and watched the world go by. I could barley move I was so tied and I’m not going to lie. Being driven was GREAT! We spent two days in Chang Rai with Trevor and the girls and I spent most of that time lying down. As soon as I was off the bike my body just let go and I just felt terrible like the last 2 months suddenly caught me and punched me in the face.

The festival of Song Khran was upon us and we were arming up. Me and trevor dropped some coin on the sickest water guns that we could find and made a vow, the find and decimate every man woman and child in the water war. It was on like mother fucking donkey kong. To calm our nerves we  played some golf and then went bowling. I won at both. This war was going to rule!

 

Singing at pigs

I awoke the next morning to find the weather some what lacking. Add this too my mood and today was going to be a dark day. Thakek, the town i was in was a hole. A massive, cold raining hole. I wasn’t going to ride today. After yesterdays catastrophe I just couldn’t be fucked. I only wish that this town had something to do, or see, or eat. To top it off when i tried to update I found my hard drive had a virus. Peachy. I met some cool French girls while walking around looking for something to eat, we ate and then the three of us, and two other French people in the cafe promptly got into a fight. Not only was it one of the most average meals I’ve had in loas, but also the most expensive! They were trying to rip us off so hard, this coupled with the hotel i changed to, and then ended up walking out after a 2 hour drama with the room and shower and locks and price i wasn’t happy. The only good thing about the day was the ok sunset. What a waste, i could only hope the next day would be better, other wise it would be a seriously unhappy ride.

           

 

With time running out and a few more places that i still wanted to see and spend some time in I headed out once again… I got an early start and and told Thakek to go fuck it’s self and was making great time. Finally the sun came out and i could see blue skies for the first time in a week. Pretty much the first time in laos besides the start.

 

                                                    

The morning was going great and i’d covered over 100kms by 12. As I was singing along to the look of love I suddenly was not feeling any…as once again. You guessed it. My chain snapped! Looking back on this it should have occurred to me why this was happening but at the time I was so tied and pissed off i never stepped back and thought about it. School was just out so i had to endure the laughs of all the kids on bicycles i had just passed only moments before. Oh the shame!! Two how ever stopped when i asked them if they knew a mechanic and it quickly became evident they did not even know what a mechanic was. I have to say though, they could not have been more helpful and they showed me a place i could fix my bike and even went off to get a mechanic to help me with some spares. After about an hour and a half I was ready to plough on. I thanked the guys and the crowd which had formed and set off.

My aim today was to get to the town of Vang Vieng which is famous of course for tubing. Known by numerous names that i’ve heard one  being my favourite from a Russian girl i met. “Öh you go to Laos, will you go to the river of death?” “Uhhh the what” “The Death River, with the tubers”

                I’m not too big on the drunken tourist attractions but seeing as my roommate Lou told me how good it was, i had to check it out. But more importantly first I had to get there. So the chain break over with about 10 minutes down the road it suddenly hit me. I don’t know why i didn’t think about this before. 3 times in a row, all happening after my blow out. I pulled over at the next shack and lo and behold the back wheel was out of alignment. When the tire was changed the two bolts at the back holding the axel level to the bike have to be EXACTLY the same length other wise the back wheel will be running at an angle putting enormous pressure on the chain. I should have checked over the work when the tire blew out but i was rushing so much I didn’t even think about it. With a quick screw the tire was aligned and i no longer was. But once again it was getting late and i still had a very long way to go. The total distance of the day would be somewhere around the 450km mark. I was around half way there at 3pm so I resigned myself to go against my rules and right through part of the night. I by passed Vientiane with what a thought was a short cut which was a big mistake, but a beautiful one  I got to the highway going north and stopped.

 As the sun was still about 30 minutes from setting I ate some food for the first time that day. I don’t know whether this was a good idea or not but the sun was almost set once again and as i rode off i realised i should have ridden out every last drop of precious light. The next few hours were ….. lets use the word intense.  Just passed the restaurant a sign told me it was 87 Km’s to Vang Vieng. Ok, at this rate a good 50kph should get me there in around an hour and a half. I could do that. The light was now really fading and my clear-ish glasses didn’t seem to be working so well. I mean, it was seriously dark and with no moon, even with out the glasses on I was struggling to see …. anything at all. Now I was down to around 30Kph…. make it two hours forty five…. The other great thing about this ride was that it was all only semi maintained mountain roads and I then found my tail light had been shaken clean off the bike. I think i used the phrase, “oh dear, that seems to be an unfortunate circumstance”….or something similar maybe give or take a few more choice expletives. I had to think of something because stopping was out of the question as I would completely invisible and there was literally no where to stop, it was a god damn mountain range. 

And then suddenly a light bulb turned on in my head, in fact it nearly blinded me. Turns out it was two light bulbs, both on high beam and coming up behind me. Quick. Luckily I was on a straight and he saw me and was able to over take on the straight. For a second I could see, and i wasn’t about to let this pass me by. I gave the millennium falcon a pat and we both knew what we had to do. Once the truck had passed me I was on it like a Lindsey on a crack pipe. Turns out i wasn’t the only one. There were around 7 MASSIVE pigs in the back of the truck and they didn’t seem to happy about it. Even over the noise i could hear them screaming every time they rounded a bend. For the time being i was happy and everytime the brake lights lit up i knew there was a corner coming up so i was able to drift over the inside of the corner and have a look at the road for pot holes and debris using his lights and then tuck back in behind the truck and try to recall where all said holes and debris were. I’d been riding now for around 10 hours and I was getting….not ok. The pigs were still causing a racket so i started to talk to them, more like shouting but to my surprise they all turned and looked at me! This was quite amazing at the time, enough for me to then start singing to them. I had come to a point in my playlist that was all frank Sinatra, dean martin and ella fitzgerald and the pigs really seemed to like it!! A few jostled around to get a better view and when I fell back to dodge something I could hear them suddenly start screeching again! This ride was bigger than me now… I was riding and singing for these pigs! If I could make their trip better, and not die it would be fantastic. I’d hit the jack pot, going around 40kph and some company I was really hoping this truck would go to Vang Vieng. It turned off just after a rendition of fly me to the moon and I was alone in the dark again. Back to 25Kph. I wasn’t alone for long as I latched onto another van passing me but this was short lived, as my life would be if i kept up with this maniac tearing along at around 60kph. I saw something big in the distance so kept pushing on. I caught up to two gas tankers, perfect! I passed one and slotted in between them both. Now I had the one behind blocking me and lighting my way like it was day time and then the one in front showing me where to turn. Only problem is that they were slower than I was, but safe. At this rate I’d be another hour. I stayed with them for 25 minutes but ended up latching onto a truck with two guys in the back. It was quicker but I preferred the pigs, all i got from the two dudes on the truck was blank stares. Constantly.  It was pretty awkward while I wasn’t dodging shit. But like everything on this trip it was short lived and they too turned off suddenly almost taking me out. I stopped next to a road side stall. Dried fish. The Worst.

But as i was taking a picture the two gas trucks roared down the road and i was off chasing them down. They had picked up a load of speed and we were making good time. I looked up for a second and I’ve never seen so many stars, anywhere, in my life. I wish I could have stopped to take some pictures but after a while, you just stop caring and all you want is to get somewhere with a bed. I made it after getting lost twice just trying to get to the main road of the town, in the end I just followed the flow of wasted back packers still in board shorts (I judged them, oh yes i did. In less than 24 hours though I would be exactly the same, if not much much worse…) the time was 9pm and I had been on the road for thirteen hours and covered 452Kms. I put down the stand and fell backward onto my bag and lay sprawled out across my bike for a few minutes. What a day. I was completely exhausted, my back felt like it was made of marble and I could barely string a sentence together. Thank god i found a room with a  soft bed, then hit the bar next door for a tasty tasty beer. Maybe not the best idea, after chatting to the bar tender it seemed free shots straight from the bottle were the order of the day and for the first time my pool skills came back with a vengeance so one beer turned in to many. It was a great night and the bar and the patrons were of the chain, just what i needed after such a shitty week. Tomorrow…..I would engage in the classy Art of Tubing.

Never feed a bear marshmallows from your mouth…

Well well, Its been a while since I’ve updated so I’ll run you all through what went down heading up in loas. So as I took off once more in a new country and new adventures my hopes were high and the sun was shining. It was slightly strange to be riding with the sun on the opposite side to the usual north heading south but the bike was purring like a cat trapped in a tumble dryer and I had a full tank of gas. As I was speeding down the road at top speed listening to whitest boy alive a truly sickening feeling overcame me. Suddenly the bike felt like it was on ice. The back started drifting off the road and as I corrected it the over compensation slid the bike broadside and almost flipped it. I knew what was happening but that didn’t make it any less pant shitting. I’d had a blow out in the back tire, the only problem was that I was going 60kms on rugged tarmac in T-shirt and shorts. This had happened on my bycycle back home but this was something else. Everytime I forced the bike back up the overcorrection was killing me, and it took all my strenth to keep the bars level and with my legs out like a star fish I managed to yank the non existant front brake  and the bike came to an eventual stop on the side of the road with me shaking on top of it. The band played on like nothing had happened. I stepped off to assess the damage and looked around for some shops or a village that hopefully would have a place to fix tires. The German biker who I met at the border had told me he’d got 3 flats in loas and now I know why! I realised that I hadn’t said my chants today so set about the long push and said my chants. By the time I’d finished the chant I’d also finished pushing. Fuck that. I don’t mind a bit of hard work but pushing around 150kgs+ on a flat was just never going to happen. Plan 2. Throw my self on the mercy of a stranger. Now this plan didn’t take very long because as I was deciding this a man was walking over to a pick up truck and looking at me. I waved and did the “oh shit my back tire just fucking exploded dance” while pointing at my bike. He came over and had a look at the damage. With in 5 mins my bike was being hauled onto the back of his pick up! This was unreal!His name was Lee and he was on holiday with his familly. What a legend. An interesting note as well, sitting in the back seat was a monk. Budda was on my sideonce again.

The power of the chant most definatly works! We back tracked (which made me happy, so that I would be able to say I did every single km on my bike) to a town I passed 5 mins before where we found a tire repair shop. An hour and twenty mins later my bike was back in business…..almost. Although the tire was pumped with air the beading was not flush which meant that every time the wheel rolled around there was a bump. This was not good , but the guy could not fix it so the only option I had was to keep going and hope I found some one who could. Two hours later I found some one and a lot of greese brushed onto the tire was the key. All this screwing around had put me a few hours back and I had to settle for a night in the town of pakse. With some god sent indian food and a bed which wasn’t completely rock hard I readied myself for the next day which I was going to make up a huge amount of time.

                Leaving around 9am the weather wasn’t the best but I wasn’t raining and it was calm as long as I made it to Thakhek by around 5 or 6 I would be happy. This was possible but after yesterday I had a bad feeling in my stomach. There is nothing worse than to ride something you don’t have 100% confindence in. Weather it be a motor bike, bicycle or car its just a shit feeling worrying everytime you go round a corner that something will go wrong. These fears it seems were not unfounded….. 50kms in my chain snapped…. Shit.

Once again I was stranded, but at least this time I was able to push the bike. It was like a déjà vu of yesterday, but this was only the beginning. As I pushed the bike down the road I tried to hitch a ride for me and the falcon. No one wanted a bar of it so I did the only thing I could think of. Said my chants. Two mins later a pick up truck pulled up 20 meters in front of me. What luck, I couldn’t believe it had worked AGAIN! So you can imagine my surprise when once more lee popped out of the drivers seat and jogged over to me!!!!!!  “Need a lift?”

 I kicked the stand down and ran over to him and gave him a big hug. “You are my saviour dude” So once again we lifted the falcon onto the pick up and hit the road. Although this time we headed north. This was fine by me (as I was sitting on the bike with the brakes on so it wouldn’t fall out the back, technically…. I was riding it) They dropped me off at a mechanic and were back on their way. I gave the monk my pack of bribe ciggerettes as I saw him smoking. Then I also saw him littering too. Maybe he’s like the shaft of the monk world? Don’t take no shit from no one. No cracka, no health advertisment and certainly not the god damn enviroment. I think as he was throwing all of the litter of the car into a field I heard him shout, “EAT SHIT WORLD”…. I may or may not have only heard this in my head.

It took an hour and a half to fix my bike. A simple chain break is a lot harder when the chain runs in a sealed housing. Also during this time the weather went from moderately crap to just plain ol crap-tastic. The wind was up and the clouds were dark. I made it to Savannakhet by 430 and had a quick bite. I was trying to decide if I should risk getting to my ultimate goal or playing it safe. I was shivering uncontrolably  and pretty miserable as I rolled into town, and as luck would have it I found a french restuant and they were assholes. So that made up my mind for me. I put on some cold weather gear and hit it. 127kms and I left at 4:50pm. I can do this. As I passed the 100km sign my hopes were up. It was still cold and now looking like it was about to rain but I was going to make it. After the 50kms sign I had about 30 mins of light left and I was screaming along. From the 30km sign I counted 56 seconds between km markers. At 63 (ish) kph I would be in town in just under half an hour. That was until marker 27 where I pulled over to swap glasses and bam, another chain snap….. I couldn’t believe it. I laid the bike on the side and pulled out the chain. This was fucked. So close, but as I calculated, if I pushed the bike 27kms I would be in town by 1 am,but so far. I had about 20 mins of light left so I just had to start pushing. I got to a little town at dark and the people there seemed to revel in my defeat and just pointed down the road. I even tried to bribe some one to let me put the bike in his truck as he was leaving but as I was trying to explain he just put the truck in gear while still stairing blankly at me, and slowly drove off. It was akward and depressing. This is what you would call a low point it was now completely dark. 3kms down the road and it was a very low point. By the time I actually got to a light in the distance it was borded up and  closed for the night and I just had to keep pushing. At one point I looked up at the sky and shouted. “COULD THIS GET ANY FUCKING WORSE!” Then it started raining. Oh Nathan…why would you tempt fate. Sometimes it just likes to see you suffer. Another km and I could see a light in the distance. It was a general store. But in South East Asia general really does mean general. They have anything from chips and drinks to plough heads, rope and MOTORBIKE CHAINS! There were two guys manning the shop and niether of them could give a fuck that I just pushed a bike out of the rain and darkness. I mean, not even a nod. So after 20 mins of trying to explain and keep their attention they gave me a chain pulled up two chairs and sat down to watch this ‘falang’ pull apart his crap box bike and have a running comentary of how shit I was. Of course I have no idea what they were saying but sometimes you just know. After 20 minutes I was making progress but it was slow. One of the guys offered then to call some one for 20,000 to come over and he would fix the bike. I took this offer only to regret it soon after.

The mechanic was also a real prick and spent the time pointing at things on the bike, grunting and occationally prodding/ pushing me out of the way while all the time talking to his companions and laughing at me. He basically did what I was going to. This was now a real low point. As I needed his help/tools and unless my bike was fixed I had no where to go in the raining night. I was tired cold and pissed off and all I wanted to do was let loose a torrent of abuse and maybe some fisty cuffs with these knob heads. In the end we all shook hands and in a nice voice I told them all to go get fucked, and they were a bunch of assholes. I’m pretty sure they were saying the same thing to me. Fuckers. I made it into Thakhek at around 9:30pm and found a hostel. I met some really cool german rock climbers and with in 2 beers I was drunk and warm and madly ranting the events of the day. This was an end to an asshole of a day and I just wanted to lie in a soft bed. I got a rock hard hard one. This didn’t surprise me at all. But after some vallium it felt soft enough and the day was finally over….

Irony loves to stick it to me sometimes. This is the sink after i washed my face.. 

Lost in the World

So, i am alive if you were wondering but this last week or two has been Laos, and its been hard. Hard on my body and hard on my mind. I will do a full update, but with in three days I had a puncture, 3 chain breaks before i realized what the mechanic had fucked up,  pushing my bike 5 kms down the road, at night, in the rain and around 1500kms, my hard drive getting a virus (so i may loose all my pictures) crashing while racing the sunset on a highway literally being built around me! (Gravel in the middle of a blind corner!) And also being drunk for 3 straight days in Vang Vieng (thank you lou!!) But every night I’ve been so exhausted from trying to make it to the top of loas for the gibbon experience I haven’t had the energy to post. I doubt anyone really cares but i’ll update in dubai or Bangkok! Peace out peoples!

Loas or Bust!

So plan for the next day was to blast around the temples at Ankor Wat and then around lunch start heading due east to a small town I heard had a guest house. There are two ways to get to loas. Firstly you could go 580km’s along freeway, almost all the way back to PP and then up to Stung Treng and then the boarder the next day. This is a massive right angle triangle. Now all of you bright young sparks who paid attention in math like myself would know when employing the Pythagoras thermos  that the quickest way from A to C is straight through the mother fucking wilderness! And that is exactly where I planned to go! The temples were great, I wish I had more time, but after the awesomeness-emptiness of Bang Melea it all seemed a little touristy! Here are some pictures though. I packed my bike, said good bye to everyone at the hotel and hit the road, or what I thought was the road, but then went back because it wasn’t, then just sent east, turns out it was south and I was back in the main center. Fuck. I went off again, with no maps which actually accurately show….anything in cambodia, all I knew was that there was a route 66 across the vast middle bit of the country and I was going to find this road. I didn’t find shit, in fact some how either my map was wrong or I was teleported! I had my compass with me but some how ended up 27 kms north of the city! I got back on the freeway and started to head the long way! This was crazy. 60kms out of Siem Reap I made an adult decision. I turned back. After realizing I had no money, no atms around and it was 3pm it would be crazy to ride into the night after the last night. With my head held in shame I returned to the same hotel, only to try and explain in broken English to all the staff what just went wrong. I slept like a log that night, because the next day I was going to rip Cambodia a new arse hole, straight through the middle!!!!!

Up early and knowing which road I shouldn’t take this time, 66 was mine for the taking. Interestingly google maps didn’t show any sort of road through this whole area even though on my map is had “Provincial Road” So I went back to the temples and found the right turn off.  Provincial road. This term is an interesting one. Half of it is true, and I will let you guess which. I knew it would be bumpy and a bit dodgy othe wise everyone would take it, but fuck me this was out of control! It was a single track through the wilderness! More of a bad walking track than anything!  After about 30 mins I came to a river crossing. Sitting on my bike on the bank I was weighing this obstacle up in my mind and comparing my tiny river to the ones in long way round…..theirs were much bigger! So as a bitching song came into my ipod at the perfect time, I did a huge burn out on the river bank got some run up and took off at it with gusto. I wish someone was there to see it, because it was cool as fuck powering through the water in a wave of manliness.  In the end I’m glad no one was there because then they would have seen my next obstacle which was a bog and  took up the entire road, and surrounding foliage.  After my last triumph over major (minor) adversity and feeling pretty good, it was fitting that in around 15 seconds I would be knee deep in stinking mud, bog and buffalo shit. I was totally stuck. Trying to take pressure off the bike my legs were sinking and I could feel the sludge filling my boots! No time for that though because if I sunk even a little further then the bike would cut out and the exhaust would be blocked which would mean I was really trapped. I struggled  to get cm after cm and finally got in reach of a dead tree branch so I was able to jam it between my back wheel and the bog and bounce it out followed by a 25 foot trail of flying mud and bog! I was so buggered from this little episode I was shaking and drenched in sweat. Took a swig of water kicked over the millennium falcon, did a 80’s movie fist pump and rode!…. for about 15 meters and then crashed the bike when I hit a huge sand patch. Will both my drum brakes filled with slim and water and no strength from the bog there was no way I was keeping that thing up! My first crash. I wasn’t going to fast and it landed on sand so I was able to dust myself off, double check no one saw and then ride on. So far this short cut wasn’t working out to be as short as I thought! But I was having the time of my life! I crossed paths with a man, old lady and a child on a scooter 20 mins of terrible road later when we were both sussing out a big truck made bog and they looked at me like I was crazy! I asked them where Bang Melea was and they motioned “Miles Away dude, so fucking far!!!” They crossed and I crossed, trying to be impressive I then crashed for the second time! But this time people saw! Thank god I always wear my huge hiking boots to ride because the way the bike slipped it trapped my leg under with all the pressure on my boot! Stuck at a weird angle and hoping the pipe wasn’t near a limb the old lady who just passed runs over and starts trying to help pull the bike off me!!!  Back on the track to bang melea. I arrived after an hour more. I was 9:30am and what took me just under an hour by the long way had taken me around two. Speaking to the guys at the ticket booth to the temple I laid it out, map and all. 580kms of shit high way or attempt to keep going on the 66. “Well you know, we see whitieys go 66 now and then.” “Did their bikes look like mine?” ………”hahahaha” As I was in silent contemplation of what to do one guy asked me, “Where you go to?” I told them I was trying to get to loas. “Well why don’t you take our private road north to these temples and then go from there……” “I’m sorry, your what now”!! A few months ago the people who run the temples connected two big sets with a private road over previously un passable terrain! Which then linked up with a number of other dirt roads which would finally get me across to Stueng Trang 50 kms from the boarder with LOAS!! They said that the road went for about 60kms, dirt and tarmac but after that they had no idea of the roads! SNAP! I couldn’t believe it! I was saved! I headed off on my mission and made it through the heart of middle of nowhere Cambodia with a terrible map, no pronunciation and my compass around my neck. Checking I was still heading east was pretty much the only way I knew if I was on “one” of the dirt/farm tracks heading in that direction. For the most part it was a long long day of riding in dust, but the roads allowed some speed so I could get a decent pace going. Around 4 the roads went back to 66 style. From my calculations in my head, heading east around 50 I should be getting to the river at 5 30. But with these roads I could only do 30 so I was really pushing the bike to get every bit of speed out of it. It was getting late and as I got on a rare stretch of straight track my mind started to wander over something and suddenly BAM! I hit a pot hole the size of a truck tire around 50 kms. I hit so hard I felt the side of the hole push through my tire, slam into my rim, both wheel maxed out the suspension and hit the frame and then I took off about 3 or 4 foot into the air. As I came down the bike was all over the place, all I could do to keep it up was to jam my leg down and get it smashed back into my panniers and wrestle the bars and keep it up right. Amazingly nothing happened to the bike. It just kept on going strong as ever! At 6pm I saw the water of the Mekong delta once more and it was a sight for sore eyes….and ass! The last two hours of trying to speed in places where bridges didn’t always cross the entire way over something or out of no where the road just disappeared into a huge pot hole and all you can do is lock up the brakes and hope you slow enough before you slam into it, I was so done! After being the entertainment for the local teenagers and almost getting my punch on when one tried to take my zippo I left that shitty town which previously held so much promise and went looking for a way across my self. Perfect timing, as I rolled down a embankment to try and pay some fishermen to take me and my bike the last 2 kms over the water a motorbike/car ferry came chugging out of the distance! What amazing luck. The teenagers turned up again, turns out they took the money for the ferry and worked for them. Pricks! Didn’t help me at all when I was trying to explain about the ferry before. Anywho. Made it to Stung Treung. (I still don’t know how to spell or say this place) But what a massive day. To steal a line. “They were twelve of the most exciting hours of motorcycling I’ve ever done in my life, unbelievable. The roads were just deteriorated and deteriorated. We were riding on mud, gravel, and puddles, and pot holes, and rivers, and bogs. It was just everything thrown at us at once.” Not as impressive as Mongolia, but you get the jist!

Loas or bust. Shit. Today is the day. Three separate people had told me that it is impossible to get a bike from Vietnam into loas. IMPOSSIBLE. But this was from Vietnam into Loas. But I had to make a contingency plan just incase. With not a chance in hell I was going back across Cambodia the next day for Thailand I was going to head to Vietnam where my visa is still valid. I got to the boarder and parked my bike. Cambodia customs came over, looked over my bike, said. “Yours?” I nodded and they walked off! I asked them about the Loas border and they seemed to think there was no problem. Met a German guy who’d riden from Western Australia!! Really cool guy, but we were going opposite directions so our encounter was brief but very enjoyable talking about our adventures! Signed out of Cambodia and floored it and got as much speed as I could between the Cambodian boarder check point and the Loas check point. This was about 100 meters. 50 meters away from loas I cut the engine and rolled the bike silently and parked it next to the “official” health check hut which conveniently hid the bike from sight. Storing all my riding gear on the bike I went into the hut and got my visa and all the documents. At the end of the process I was explicit in making sure this was the last and final check point to get into loas. Just for good measure I added, “so now I’m free to *cough* ride *couch* into loas. It was the last check point and in perfect timing a bus load of tourists showed up. My plan was to sneak passed the boarder huts on my bike next to another tour bus about to leave. I rapidly explained this plans to some really cool English guys and they all hustled around the window so the guards couldn’t see what was going on outside. I sprinted to my bike kitted up and at the very last second kicked over my bike and made for the bus which was pulling away. It was only 20 meters to the safety of this behemoth but just as I was ducking under the partially raised boom gate (non-manned) and getting into loas this really annoying german girl (who’d been complaining about the visa price and height of the the visa window and every other detail to the border guards before my go) comes running out to the bus! “HEY YOU DON’T LEAVE US. YOU WAIT HERE UNTIL WE FINISH’ ………….”YOU BITCH!!!!!!!! WHYYYYY!!!” I was left out in the open with a confused pissed off german and my rouse was up! So once again, I made an adult decision. After weighing up the odds, in plain sight and at an international border crossing I did the only thing any reasonable person would. I dropped down a gear turned the bike away from the bus AND FUCKING GUNNED IT BABY! YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWW! LOAS OR BUST FUCKERS! I looked over my shoulder as I tore off to make sure no one was watching. I can’t be certain, but I may have seen one of the English guys fist punching the air! There was no way I was going back to Vietnam!! About 2 kms down the road I was feeling pretty darn good about the whole situation. The sun was out, the sky was blue and everything looked great. Even that customs hut just down the road…….oh shit! Now crossing the border carried slight risk. If you’ve been to loas its not like I was running the berlin wall in ‘87! But this time I was going to stop….or I would have If there had been anyone AT the customs. I slowed to a roll, turned off my music and waited for the call….signal…..boom gate to drop…..anything at all really. Seeing as none of this happened. Once again. Kicked down a gear and BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA LAOS BABY! Headed for the 4000 Islands after checking out some waterfalls and met the English guys again while we waited for the ferry boats. We were headed to Don Det, I thought Kam Pot was a chilled out hippy haven…..i had no idea! I won’t go into too much detail, because lets face it….nothing happened and i do mean nothing! It was amazing. But we did go tubing. quite cold but one of the funniest things i have ever seen was when suddenly 14 stoned and drunkenly people realized that we were being sucked down the wrong river and don det was the other way! 14 left, 3 made it back!! The rescue boat saw this thankfully and saved the others who were on the way to the the water fall of certain death around 10kms down river!! But my god it was funny to see all the people splashing around like turtles in their tubes! Some trying to front crawl with a tube around their waist haha and then some people just simply gave up ha! Next few days will be big days! BIG DAYS! I am now under the gun to get to where i need to be in the next week or two so we will see how it goes.