Tha Khek and the Three day bike tour

Day one
On Tuesday we arrived in a small town called Tha Khek. It's a located in the middle of Laos and there is not much to do there besides rent scooters and drive a 3 or 4 day loop around the countryside. Which is exactly what me and Gemma did.

First problem we encountered was the renting of the bikes. There are only semi automatic to rent. Both of us have only ever driven fully automatic before. We explained this to the lady at the shop and she answers us by saying " no problem we show you" so after a 2 minute talk through we had our bikes. To be honest I was a little nervous for about 2 minutes and after I got the hang of how to change gears and to use the foot brake all was good again. As soon as we made it out of the town we were flying along the Laos country side. There were a few sights such as caves, rivers and waterfalls to see but it was late already and we had to make it 100km that day, so we skipped most of them. This might not sound far, but in a breathtaking countryside where you just want to cruise along and enjoy the view, it will take a long time.

After about 80 km having snaked up a beautiful mountain we came to a village where the police officers where playing boules by the side of the street. Here the wonderful asphalt road ended. We had 22 km of pure hell on the road. It was sandy, gravely, pot holes the size of cars and wave kind of holes. It took 1 hour to get to the guesthouse. As the roads were so horrible it was unsafe to go any faster. We thought this was a pretty bad road, but we had heard from others that the next part which we were to do in the morning was going to be even worse.

Day two
The second day started with the road from hell! Having cleared what we thought was the road of hell ( those are the words other travellers used) where we had to drive round this eerie ghost lake with dead trees and mirror like black water and white/ orange/ brown dusty roads, we were wrong. it started in a forresty part where I suspect there wasnt even a road. it looked more like a dried up mud track. The first 50km were bumpy, potholy, gravely, sandy and just absolutely horrendous. As soon as we came back to a paved road and all the rattling from the bikes stopped I actually shouted with relief. So from then on it was about 100km of smooth paved roads with barely any traffic. The road went up and down the mountains for about 30km and we got the most breath taking views over the valley we would soon be driving in. This valley must be about 15-20km wide and surrounded with the mountain range. It's completely flat with barley any trees, a smallish river and a few small villages scattered around.

As soon as we come down from the mountain we started hitting the gas. The road from here was straight with no turns and no cars at all! In the last 70 km we musty have seen about 5 cars. It felt like we were the only people around especially since some of the villages we passed looked like they had been abandoned for quite some time and the entire valley was so still and quiet. Eventually we came to a small village with 2 guesthouses and decided to stay the night here, as we were 6km from this massive, supposedly amazing, cave. We decided to get a early start the next day. Be at the cave by 8 in the morning, spend about 2 hours there and then head back to Tha Khek where we started from. It's was about 200 km to get back and we really didn't want to be driving in the dark.

Day 3
Today started off easy. We rode 6km to the Kong Lor cave. This is a massive cave with a river that runs through it. It's 7.5km long and up to a 100m high in some places. The only way to see the cave is by boat. M and Gemma rented a boat with a driver and a guide. About 50m into the cave it got pitch black. We all had torches, but as the cave is so vast the light barely touched the walls or the ceiling. At one point the boat stopped and we got out to see the pillars that have formed throughout the years. It was a very eerie feeling being in that massive cave. It took about an hour to get in and another hour to get out of the cave.

After having spent the morning by the cave we knew we had to push on. It was going to be our tuffest ride yet. We had to clear over 200km that day. We started out well and making good progress until we hit the mountain. On the drive up Gemma noticed a strange noise coming from her bike. We stopped and checked it and everything looked to be in order so we decided to continue. After a few minutes we stopped again as the noise was getting worse, I had also noticed that the chain on her bike looked very loose. This time we had just gotten over the peak of the mountain road and resolved to going downhill very slowly with Gemma at the front so I could keep an eye on her bike. After about 5 minutes the chain on her bike jumped off! Right now we were in the middle of nowhere having no clue to where the nearest village is where we could fix this. Luckily after a few minutes a Laos couple came past on their bike and we flagged them down. The man was kind enough to help us get the chain back on and he also showed us that a few links on the chain were actually broken. Once again we set driving very slowly down the mountain and once again we got struck with bad luck. This time the chain snapped in half. It flew off Gemma's bike, past my face and into the middle of the road. Now our only hope was that we could roll Gemma's bike with as much speed as possible from the mountain to get as far as possible before having to park it on the side of the road. Again with our streak of bad luck, that was only a few hundred meters. We parked the bike in some bushes hoping we wouldn't step on any bombs and Gemma got on the back of my bike. We were hoping it wasn't going to be to far to the next village with a mechanic. After about one km we come to a cluster of houses that can't even be called a village, we stopped at the local shop and asked in our very shaky Lao, where is the closest mechanic. This is where our luck turned, it was just across the road! We got the mechanic to the bike, got a new chain on it and after about 2 hours of screwing this, banging that and straightening something else, the bike was fixed!

Finally we could continue on with our journey. We had about 120km left to go and it was already late afternoon. We started pressing on and the roads here are amazing. They are straight and in a much better condition then you would have thought. Whooshing past the beautiful landscape, small villages and having schoolchildren waving and saying hello and seeing the bright orange sunset through the trees by the road were a few of the things we saw that day.

Just after dark we arrived back in Tha Khek safe and sound. It was a hell of a journey and a good one. The Laos countryside is very special and the people like none other. As soon as we were passing children on the road they would always give us the biggest smiles, wave and say hello or sabaidee (hello in Lao). If we stopped the children would come running to us, those who knew English would always try to practise it and the others would just chatter on in Lao. Animals roam free on the roads and the fields,being so used to the cars and not moving until you are stopped right in front of them and beeping frantically.

Anyone coming to Laos should definitely try to do the loop. It's a great experience and takes you away from the tourist part of the country and shows you the real Laos.