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!

Attacks for Apples: The Great Monkey Adventure

So when we travel we don’t necessarily travel with a destination in mind. We have a rough idea of a route, but not a destination. By which I mean, we leave on city with the intention of going to the next largest city along the route, not knowing what or if there is anything to see or do there.

When we arrived in our current city, Savannakhet, two days ago we knew a little bit about it. There is a dinosaur museum and a national museum. While we were taking our stroll through the town later that day however we found out there is a lot more to offer. We found the tourist information office (Which in Laos is simply a rip-off tour operator who may or may not give out information for free) and outside we saw a map with some places of interest.

One of these places of interest was “monkey forest”.

So, us being us, we got on the bikes and went straight there the following day. The ride was long and arduous, with potholes big enough to hide medium sized farm animals and deep enough to snap the front suspension on the bikes, making the ride a little unpleasant,  apart from some off-road sections we found, like when we rode through a pool of water next to a dam with a lake behind it.

After an hour and a half of trying to find it we finally got there. At first we spotted just a couple of little monkeys up in the trees hiding, making me think that this place was going to feel more like a zoo than a true “monkey forest.” Talia took some of our packed lunch apples out of our day pack and gave small chunks to the nearest monkey, but within a couple of minutes, or maybe it was seconds (it all happened so fast!) we were almost overrun. Monkeys came from EVERYWHERE and gathered all around us.

When a monkey was displeased with us, it bared it’s teeth in a sort of menacing smile, and then I remembered that I had heard somewhere before that bearing your teeth is a sign of aggression to most primates. Not smiling is difficult when you’re surrounded by such amusing creatures but we did our best so as not to freak them out.

"Give me the precious...apple!"

Instead, they freaked us out. There were points of our walk through the forest when we were genuinely frightened. Check out this video of tons of monkey running out of the forest at us.

After that, big papa came over and scared off all the other monkeys and continued to hassle Talia for apples. At one point, she was pretty scared and I had to talk her through getting out of the situation.

We walked along the path and ran into this. 

Because, you know, why not?

A bit later we decided to eat our packed lunch sandwiches at a table outside a Buddhist temple. Of course, the monkeys wanted in.

When we had finished lunch near the Buddhist temple, Ricky was feeding a piece of apple to a large female, but she apparently wasn’t very impressed, because she grabbed his arm, scratching him and drawing blood.

Before "the incident."

 Then, we noticed a baby monkey had picked up a plastic bag that had fallen off the table. I took it away so it wouldn’t get hurt and because I didn’t want to leave trash there, and the baby’s mother freaked out and jumped at me, baring her teeth. We decided it was time to go.  

We left the temple and headed back down the road to the start of the forest, and the monkeys from the temple followed us out and down the road.

It was odd, and we soon discovered that monkeys and buffalo are BFFs.

BFFalo's

We fed the monkeys a bit more at the clearing where we entered the forest. One of the monkeys was brave enough to touch a human. Talia called him Mr. Softy-hands.  He was so sweet looking up at her for an apple.

The sweetest little beggar.

But as soon as her back was turned, he jumped up and grabbed the apple core out of her hand! To add to the insult of being robbed, two monkeys decided to make sweet love on Talia’s motorbike, while another tried to get into my water bottle and my backpack.

And then goats wanted in on the action.

All in all the day was exciting and terrifying. And just to clarify, these were indeed wild animals. They were in no way tame. They were sort of like pigeons. They’ll take what humans give them, but they’re not going to hang around to be picked up or played with. Unlike pigeons, however, they have teeth and fingernails.

But aren’t they adorable?

Born to be Wild: The Super Deluxe Mega- Montage!

You've been waiting for it, and here it is. We have painstakingly put together this unbelievably astounding montage, to the tune of Born to be Wild, by Steppenwolf, the winner of our latest competition.

So enjoy the latest creation. It's WILD!!!

Special Announcement! Motorbike Song Winner!

We have selected a winner for the best motorbike trip song to listen to!

Born To Be Wild!

However, we've changed the prize. Since Ricky's guitar has a big crack in it, we decided that an acoustic version of the song might not be so much of a prize as it would be a punishment. Instead, you get...wait for it... a super deluxe mega-MONTAGE! With the song playing! It's going to be amazing! And since tomorrow we're going to to a monkey-forest, we may get some good footage for the "wild" bit of the song!

Now, I know you're all anxious to see this epic piece of filmography, but you'll just have to wait. While you do, you can watch this:

360 Degrees: The Best Kind of View

Well, there's not a whole lot to report right now. We're a little tired today, after the outrageously exciting time we had last night watching the Expendables 2. Ricky liked the explosions; I liked the Chuck Norris joke told by Chuck Norris.

Now it's my turn: I'm off to pick up some ice-cream before we lay down to watch Gone with the Wind. Ricky's never seen it, and I haven't seen it in ages. He may hate it, but frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.

I'll leave you now with some sweet sweet pictures Ricky took. The first one is  at the stupa on a hill in the center of Luang Prabang.

Click here to see it. It's a 360 view, so feel free to roam!

Here's the other one. We stopped on the road to get a pic of the surroundings. Once again, it's 360!

Enjoy!