Luxury Items You Can't Travel Without

We were all kids once, so we know what it’s like to not be able to live without that special something. Some kids have blankies or teddy bears or dolls. Others had action figures or other little toys. I (Talia) had my little orange Tonka truck.

Thing is, though, that doesn’t stop when you get older. It just…changes. There are things that you can’t go without. When you travel, these things are usually considered luxury items, because honestly, you really don’t need that Tonka truck when traveling through Southeast Asia. 

Ricky and I allowed ourselves one luxury item each, and no, our USB video game controllers for playing Mario Kart on the computer don’t count. For my item, I brought a pillow, which has saved me many a time on trains and buses when I really needed to sleep.  Ricky’s luxury item is a fly swatter because, as I have mentioned before, he hates the creepy-crawlies.   We both use our items frequently and are very glad that we brought them.

For flies, mosquitoes, and pesky children.

While we were in Otres Beach in Cambodia, we got to chatting to some other travelers and asked them what some of their luxury items. Their responses were quite interesting.

A couple of the girls we met said that they brought a bit of makeup, or a hair dryer, but one girl brought a “3-step facial care system.” Yes, three bottles of creams and lotions that she used every day. To her credit, she did have lovely skin.

Because when you're trekking through the jungle, this is all a girl needs.

Another girl brought a travel pillow—not one of the blow-up ones, but the real, stuffed, good quality kind. She didn’t have any room in her backpack for it, so wherever she goes, the pillow goes along, tied to the outside of her pack.

This thing.

Guys were a bit different. A lot of them said they didn’t have any luxury items. One of them brought his own coozie (or beer condom or whatever it is that you call that foam thing that goes around a can to keep your drink cold).  

Another friend of ours carried around his own insulated 64 oz Big-Gulp mug.

Because this is what you really need when hiking in the Himalayas.

The point is, we all carry around things that we don’t need but that bring us that little bit of comfort when we’re away from home. So, what are some things that you can’t travel without? Or if you haven’t traveled yet, what do you think you would absolutely need to take with you? 

It's Teddy, isn't it?

Near Death on Route 13

Having done all of what Savannakhet had to offer (a scantily filled dinosaur museum and the monkey forest) Ricky and I decided that we would leave today.  We filled up the bikes and the spare gas can (which took nearly all the money in my wallet, which wasn’t much) and paid our bill for the room (which took nearly all the money in Ricky’s wallet, which was quite a bit more). We still had money, because we never leave a town empty-handed. We had enough for a couple of food stops and more gas should we need it.  This was to be a long ride, and we thought we were pretty prepared for it. We had water, money, toilet paper, all the essentials.

Well, we weren’t really prepared.

See, since our trip to Monkey Forest, my bike had been feeling a bit wobbly, like the steering was a bit loose or something.  We got out onto the road and things were fine. After about an hour or so, my bike started feeling a bit looser still, so I slowed down from 80 km per hour to about 70, thinking I was just going a little too fast. Ricky was still going fast, so distance grew between our bikes.

I had just crested a hill when disaster struck. All of a sudden I lost absolute control of the bike. The front and back wheels seemed to be fighting for control and I swerved out into the middle of the road. It felt as if some unseen hands were pulling the handlebars back and forth while someone else pulled the back tire in the opposite direction.

I was going about 70 km per hour still and didn’t know what to do. If you recall, I’m fairly new to the motorbike scene, having learned to ride them just over a month ago. I didn’t really know how to handle this. My hand was off the accelerator, but I didn’t know if I should brake, and if I should use the front or back brake, so I think I may have eased both of them on. To be honest I don’t really remember. I remember saying “oh no oh no oh no oh no” over and over as I swerved out of control. All of a sudden I was at the side of the road, unharmed but in shock. I pushed myself off the bike and immediately burst into sobs.

I turned to face the road as I saw Ricky’s bike climb a hill and disappear over the top. I knew he would turn around as soon as he saw I wasn’t behind him, but all I could do was shake and cry as I waited.  Eventually I saw the glint of the silver front of Betsy Black, and then Ricky was parked behind me.

Before he had properly dismounted the bike I was on him, still shaking, holding onto his neck while he attempted to disentangle himself from his headphones. He looked over me for scratches and asked if I had fallen. All I could say was a simple no, and keep holding on.

When I had composed myself a bit, I told him what had happened, and that my steering might be loose. After a short inspection, however, the truth became clear. About 6 or 7 spokes on my back wheel had snapped off, which had caused all the wobbling. The wheel was frighteningly loose when we tested it; it was amazing that I hadn’t gone careening off the road and fallen off.

We tried to figure out what to do. The bike was all but undrive-able, and we didn’t know where we could go to fix it.  We also don’t speak Lao, so we also had that against us.

Ricky flagged down a man on a bike and mimed that we had a problem. The man pointed the way we had come, so Ricky hopped on the bike and was led to a repair shop. Or repair shack.  He came back and I took his bike to the shack while he drove mine. He ended up having to push it (uphill) because the back tire soon got flat with all the wobbling. He arrived drenched in sweat, panting from the exertion and the heat, ever my hero.

The repair shack that luckily wasn't too far away.

After some work and a little more miming, I ended up with a new wheel and tube. The price came to 175,000 kip, about double what we actually had with us.  I was cursing myself that I didn’t go to an ATM before we left. The nearest ATM was in Savannakhet, the town we had just left. We had already had a late start on the long drive, and adding a couple extra hours would leave us arriving well after dark in Paxse. And after the fright and the trouble, neither of us wanted to do much more driving. Instead, we told the repairman, and half the village that had come to gawk, that we would go to Savannakhet, sleep there, and return in the morning with the money.

My old wheel with the broken spokes, next to the tire.

Pictured: Instant Death

They agreed, and we left them working on the bike and put our huge backpacks in another building as collateral, and also because we couldn’t take them with us back to town with only one bike.

My new wheel leaning against the bike.

So here we are, back in Savannakhet. The lady at the guesthouse was surprised to see us, but gave us our old room, without even making us re-check in and told us to relax.

We took her advice and will depart for take two of the drive to Paxse in the morning. Wish us luck!

The goings-on

Ok, so here’s the DL.

 We’re in a town called Khoun Kham today (tonight), and last night we stayed in a town called…. Something or other. It was next to impossible to find on the map because here in Laos the name of anything depends on how you feel it should be spelt, leading to …some confusion.

 I have to say it’s not hard to see this place was once a French colony with all the ways they hide everything so no-one can understand anything except the locals. Anyway, the town was called either:

Pak Xin

Paxxan

Paksan

Pakxan

Paksane

Pakxane

Pak sin

Or Paxxane

Between road maps, street signs and what have you, I don’t know how to spell it.  Our journey here to Khoun Kham was uneventful but very interesting. We stopped off on the road to have a look at the “limestone forest” which was in all honesty, very beautiful.

 

We found a room for 1 euro a day (about a buck forty to all the ‘mericans) which is an absolute steal, though I get a feeling that a zero may have been omitted somewhere.

 Once we got the room here in town I was doing a quick run over the bikes and discovered that we had next to no oil in the engines so we went to a local mechanic, who spoke oddly great English. The guy ended up checking our bikes all the way over (all brakes, greased the chain, tire pressure and complete oil change) for just 75,000 kip ($9.50) for both bikes, which is very cheap considering he was working for almost a half hour between both the bikes. We were well happy!

 We wanted to blog loads for everyone tonight but a very odd storm passed by town (no rain, just thunder and lightning) and there was no electricity for a few hours, and despite the power coming back, the internet hasn’t. So I am writing to you from the past, as I plan to post this once the internet recovers.

Hello future self.

 Well now that our bikes, Betsy Black and Lady Stark (previously Arya, but her title and surname has a better ring to it) are fit and healthy and well fed, it’s time for us to venture from here to the 7.5km Kong Lor cave.

 Why is that significant, you ask?

 It’s a cave, and I’m claustrophobic. Also, it is home to not Laos’, not Asia’s but the world’s biggest spiders discovered in the last decade.  And I’m arachnophobic.

 See you on the other side future self.

Dusty Roads, Dusty Faces: Getting to the Country

Well, friends, we’re back, after a long and dusty road of…dust. Seriously. That’s about all I can recall from our last couple of drives. We left Vientiane, having done all that city has to offer (like seeing the abandoned water park and trying to find the zoo that mysteriously disappeared at some point), two days ago, apparently a Tuesday. We never really know anymore.

The long road ahead



Getting a drink of water before heading on again.

 

We drove to a small town called Paxsan, one of those places where if you blink, you miss it. And we pretty much did. When we got close to the town we saw a guesthouse and decided to get a room there, as opposed to driving on and trying to find another one. The room was cheap, which was fine, but I’ll get to the not-so-fine stuff in a minute.

We dropped our things off, and headed back on the road to find a place with internet and food so we could do a little blogging. We drove couple kilometers and the small wooden buildings became ever more sparse so we had to pull over and ask each other if we had passed the whole city. We had, so we turned around and drove through the two or three streets of the actual town. And apparently the whole town is internet-free, so we satisfied ourselves with overpriced drinks at a bar outside of town, not blogging. Meanwhile, a few feet away from us, the ladies that run the place were sitting on the floor watching TV, while pulling wings off of giant bugs that they would later eat.

Ladies hard at work.



The final wingless product

If you want to see them in action, here's a video for you.

We ended up going back to our guesthouse where I debated taking a shower, but I decided against it. To do so would require me to stand against the toilet, over the flush-bucket (a bucket full of water and a scoop to dump water into the toilet when you’re finished. Also doubles as back-side wash water after a healthy number two), and far too close to a huge cockroach carcass being carried away by hundreds of tiny black ants. Instead, I took a nap, covered in red grit from the dusty drive.

 When I woke up, Ricky and I went for dinner at a karaoke place where no one was singing and there were 3 whole tables of people. I ordered “fried fish with basil.” What came to me was undercooked, boiled fish with onions and carrots, whole leaves of basil on stems, and sliced peppers in an unbearably spicy sauce. By the third bite I felt like even my teeth were on fire.

Now, there are a few things I really dislike: snow on my face, overuse of the word random, Crocs. But needlessly spicy food is at the top of the list. Everything from my gums to the back of my throat were tingling with some sort of mutant-power chili spice.  I had to take a break every couple of bites so I could down some more soda, and by the time I was finished (and given away the mushy uncooked bits to the begging dogs around my feet), I was so grumpy and in pain that I demanded we stop to find ice cream on the way home, which we did.

Today we got up and headed out of the guesthouse, once again not bothering to shower. The roach was gone, but when Ricky tried to rinse his hands off in the shower, the shower head fell off.  So we hit the road, not caring how dirty we were, because we knew we’d just get dirtier. And did we ever.

Now, I sweat. A lot. And here in Laos it’s incredible the way my sweatstache reappears just seconds after wiping it away. So when I’m covered in sweat and then driving on sometimes-unpaved roads, I get real dirty real quick. Take a look at this pic. That’s not tan. That’s dirt.

Here's a better view of the karsts behind us.

And an even better one.

We also had to drive through veritable clouds of white butterflies. Now, butterflies may look delicate and sweet, but when you hit them going 80 km an hour, they feel like rocks pelting you.

 When Ricky and I finally got into the village we were to stay at, I was so gritty and dirty that I could scrape off layers of it with my fingernails. We decided to eat before we really got settled, and while we waited for the food, I decided to have look at a nearby market for a loofah or bath scrub of some sort. What I found was a scouring pad, guaranteed to get rid of grease and grime. Well, I was covered in that stuff, so I bought it, and let me tell you, I’ve never felt cleaner.

Of course, the glory of my super clean and shiny skin didn’t last long, because the power shortly went out, so Ricky and I played cards by headlamp in the main building, while small children chased puppies in the dark and somehow did not fall.

So now the lights are back on and I am typing this while we wait for our post-dinner dinner. The Lao boy next to me is playing World of Warcraft and there’s a moth fluttering on the floor. I have to admit that the last couple of days have been pretty strange, but sitting next to this kid that thinks he’s a warlock is pretty cool.