No Fixed Abode: High Adventure

Fri 08 Apr 2016 - Motorbike tour day 4, Muong Lay to Lai Chau

Glenn decided on noodle soup for breakfast again but wanted scrambled egg in it. With mime action of scrambling to the kitchen staff he thought he had it cracked, as it were. A steaming bowl arrived with scrambled egg, though unfortunately uncooked, just raw egg. Last night's dinner was procured with an omelette and Yvonne had made very clear this is what she wanted for breakfast and it duly was delivered.

Leaving town we meandered along the river road stopping to view a dilapidated gold mining dredger in the river along with sporadic floating bamboo poles lashed together in large squares. These are fishing nets used at night where bright lights are put on and the fish jump into the nets. As easy as that!

Breaking up one of many long steep climbs,we paused to admire below a plateau of contoured rice fields with the constantly hazy karst mountains on the far horizon. These mountains are incredibly beautiful. On our continuous ascent we passed through many small hamlets of minority villages, Black Thai, Tay, Humong and others. Each village consisting of about 8 - 10 wooden stilted homes or tarpaulin shacks with corrugated roofs perched along the edges of the mountain sides. Village life was busy with many people digging on the slopes, women carrying firewood in round rattan carriers strapped to their backs, women squatting to wash their long black hair in a bowl, water buffalo and pot bellied pigs wallowing in muddy holes on the side of the road trying to keep cool, women herding their goats along, a boy riding a water buffalo whilst herding the others and an elderly woman dragging along her tree branch which she had just chopped down. Not forgetting the steady stream of nods, smiles and waving from most people as we ride past, with shouts of hello ringing out.

Riding down to Sin Ho town, we stopped opposite the daily market and took an amble through it to see the customary sections, the fish stalls with round tin bowls laid out containing live fish, frogs and eels. The butchers stalls with all sorts of cuts of meat and in many cases still very distinguishable parts of animals. Rows and rows of clothing including many of the traditional woven skirts and tops of the various minority people. Every other stall has plastic flip flops or sandals, as nearly everyone wears these all the time. And a new encounter, herbal remedies and a very wizened elderly lady miming to Yvonne what many of the dried out bits were for, many of them looking like bits of wood and stringy vines. We were frantically nodding with her and guessed at toothache and sore throats. She seemed very happy with us and as we left gave us a wide toothless grin and a wave. These people either: averted their gaze, stared, smiled, waved or shook our hands but we do get some sort of reaction from nearly everyone.

We caught up with the boys at our lunch stop where we squeezed into the last table, to a cacophony of noise with men chatting, eating and drinking the famous 100% rice wine, a customary drink where each person in turn pours out shots for everyone else, makes toasts, downs in one with the finale of much mutual handshaking between everyone. The place looked full of office workers with a very clear hierarchy going from table to table, being poured rice wine, downing it and respectful handshaking. It was chaotic to say the least and Yvonne was bemused by the fact they were going back to work for the afternoon.

Clambering back on the bikes, we headed up and out of town following another windy and mainly single track road passing through a couple more hamlets where the kids were walking back to school and of course, we received the usual yelled hello and wave from them. We both love this on our bike journeys!

At the very top of the pass we stopped at a fork in the road and spotted a few traditionally dressed ladies sitting under umbrellas for shade and in a line at the edge of the road with their few homegrown vegetables on a plastic groundsheet for sale. They all giggled and pointed at us, Jin and Flower in their bikers’ gear and Glenn and Yvonne with our white knees and legs in shorts. As we strolled past each one they laughed revealing lovely sets of gold and missing teeth on sun darkened and weather beaten faces. Jin delighted one of them and bought what looked like a tree trunk,which he seemed very pleased with saying you couldn’t get it in Hanoi. On the last of these stalls we spotted a pretty little girl and we felt obliged to buy a couple of drinks from her. She ran off then reappeared with some more plastic stools for us. Have we mentioned about the table and chairs here? For some reason, everyone has sets of table and stools which we would consider were made for children. You have to squat down to eat and drink practically everywhere, even in their homes and many restaurants/cafes and always on the streets. A nightmare if you are tall and/or average westerner build. Inviting us to squat for our drinks, this little girl then proceeded to chat with Flower and Jin and in a short while we knew so much about her. She just didn’t breathe for air. Even the usually talkative Jin couldn’t get a word in. A delightful 10 year old who apparently was a very good student, had been to Hanoi along with a couple of other local towns, had four best friends, fancied being a teacher, didn’t want to be like the other Black Thai girls who leave school to get married at 14, no thank you! Boys ugh! Mum works at the cafe up the road (think shack basically), Dad is a motorbike mechanic and we guessed she told the boys so much more which they didn’t know how to translate. We could have picked her up and brought her home.

At this point Flower advised we had an hour’s ride down now to the overnight stop of Lai Chau, a large town close to the Chinese border. Jin strapped on his tree trunk and we were off, winding our way downwards with a warm wind blowing and slightly clearing the haziness to reveal lush forests interspersed with clearings of a few bananas, corn and cultivated bushes. All in meticulously kept neat row after row with a maze of worn red earthen paths leading to them from the roadside, typically with a scooter/moped left covered with leafy branches to keep it out of the sun. These are dotted along many of the roads where the agricultural workers have rode and parked up before the walk along the tracks to where they are working, some flat fields but in these parts mainly vertically challenging slopes.

Our route was taking us along a very new road with recently constructed steel barriers on the dangerous bends and the boys were getting into the swing of riding the road. Things suddenly deteriorated and the new road promptly ended and we were bumping along a rock embedded single track road. Then things suddenly took a turn for the worse, we were weaving in and out of piles of large gravel and turning a corner we hit a loose gravelled section still under construction. Flower and Glenn skidded, losing the front wheel, but managing to stay upright and stopped to regain balance. Jin, with Yvonne behind was yelling out, no doubt swearing, with both his feet on the ground ice skating along. Phew tough moments. Then things got even worse. Rolling uphill in front of us was a dirty big yellow beast of a construction digger just about to dump a load of gravel. The boys took action, beeping frantically they began to weave around him along with many other construction machines we were encountering. Dumpers, concrete mixers and road rollers all lumbering their way along, throwing thick dust in the air impairing our view. We were basically riding down the road whilst they were making it.

We finally made it off the main construction part back on to the fine gravel strips and sought refuge on a small clearing amongst the construction debris on the side of the road. We all got off the bikes and sighed with relief, patted each other on our backs with much hilarity and Jin smoked nearly all of his “20” a day (yeah right!) in one go. We patted off the dust and hopped back on the bikes for a few more miles of bumpy, but manageable, unmade road until we hit town and found the sanctuary of the hotel. Today Flower thought it would be good to try the new road he’d heard about. Well it’s not quite ready yet Flower!

We arrived to what appeared to be an impressive 3 star hotel but the bathroom was - well, different. The waste from the sink and bath both emptied straight onto the floor forming a huge puddle that eventually found its way to a drain in the corner but left the floor like a skating rink. The bath, which wasn’t fixed to anything, had a large crack in the bottom leaking on the floor and no shower curtain. The extractor fan was hanging out of the wall and vented into the corridor outside. But, do you know what? Who cares, we both had a hot shower and what a great day! Definitely rice wine for the boys tonight.

P.S. Special surprise at dinner - a plate of crinkle cut chips. Promptly downed and a second plate ordered whilst large hailstones poured down outside.