Friday 2nd July 2010

Our first mission was market shopping to top up the larder.

With some asking we found the meat section ‘out the back’, and with farmer Michael selected 2 kg of some kind of good looking meat. Some for tonight and some frozen for a later date. Bananas, nice fresh bread, tomatoes, cabbage etc.

But we gave the ells a miss.

Now in karst limestone country with striking vertical walls and caves.

Budda cave or Tham Pla Pa cave was only discovered in 2004 by a farmer looking for bats to eat. To his surprise it contained Budda images, hundreds of them. It has been estimated that the images were over 600 years old.

The ladies had to dress in local sarongs respecting Budda. And no photographs...of Budda!

Our next cave, Tham Xieng, was more difficult to find in the jungle of vines. A young girl about 10 years old appeared from the local shop and led us to the cave. Then into and through the cave to the other side of the hill.

Travelling by much lesser roads, thunder storms were looming.

Whilst checking out a camping spot for the night Michael became stuck. No 4WD a

gain.

The Fuso front hubs do not engage. He is getting pissed off with this because this is the second time. Some locals stopped to see the action as we pulled him out. One was a restaurant owner, his premise only a kilometre down the road. That was a plan.

Nice place overlooking the lake. With the vehicles parked up by 5pm we ordered some Loa beer and dinner.

And waited, and waited.

An hour and 15 later we went to check what was happening. The guy was asleep behind the bar! Apologising we thought all OK now.

Then nothing 15 minutes later he was asleep again. Eventually our meals arrived.

Papaya salad and BBQ’ed pork ribs. It was the most disgusting meal we have had. The pork was not from a pig, the sticky rice – sticky like Clag glue and tasted about the same. Lyn did the Mr Bean thing and buried her papaya salad in the sticky rice containers.

Camp 32:  Camp Nodiff on the Lake

N17* 50.688 E105* 03.138    

Distance Today: 292 Kms

Total Distance: 5658 Kms

Saturday 3rd July 2010

Moving earlier than usual this morning we did not effort ourselves to thank our host.

Travelling dirt roads winding through the backbone of Lao, we buy pass small villages.

The road/track is very muddy from the start of the monsoon rains.

In the creeks and sometimes beside the huts are boats made from the discarded fuel tanks from the American Viet Nam war era.

Arriving at a cross road , we are only 30 Kms from Viet Nam, but turn West on bitumen towards more karst country.

The 48Kms drive out of Bam Khoun Kham to Kong Lor Cave was the best.

Vertical limestone cliffs line the valley, while the road winds between rice paddies that are in full planting activity

The Kong Lor cave was discovered in the 16C but only explored in 1977. What makes this so amazing is that a large river follows the cave floor for 7.5 kilometres through the entire mountain. Travel by boat was first achieved in 2002.

We set off in 3 long boats and two navigators each. Soon we are pitch black following the navigators head along the snaking walls.

Sometimes the roof is 100 metres high and the waters 100 metres wide, other times we are close to the roof and walls.

Sometimes the long boats must be dragged over rapids as we walk, often they manage...just.. to scrape the bottom of the tree trunk long boat along the gravel floor. We climbed a section that did have some good formations but what continued to impress us all was the expanse and length of this entire structure.

Eventually day light appeared as we punched out into the sunlight and continued along the now jungle canopied stream. Following a short stop we returned through the cave again. This time downstream, riding most of the rapids. The return trip still took ¾ hour.

Our camp was in a grassy area that had been constantly grazed by the water buffalos.

Dinner stir fry with that meat – It must have been from an old bullock dray buffalo!

Camp 33:  River through the Mountain Camp 

N17* 57.550 E104* 45.065

Distance Today: 175 Kms

Total Distance: 5833 Kms

Sunday 4th July 2010

We pulled Michael’s Fuso hub off and apart at least nine times. Replacing it with my hub and he has 4WD but with his not. We dismantled both side by side, twice, and can see absolutely no difference. Even the two internal spring rated we measured – so very annoying.

Two small girls were fishing in the buffalo wallowing holes nearby finding small fish, frogs and yabbies for dinner.

The colours of the return road are vibrant in the early morning, normally as the days heat intensifies the colours of the mountains and surroundings become very milky and washed out.

At Namitheum a turn left puts us following again the dirt roads along the Lao backbone mountain range. A new bitumen road soon turns to a construction road and the first new bridge unfinished necessitating crossing the river on an old barge powdered by two of those long boats. (K40,000/ vehicle)

Very soon the road starts to deteriorate, thick oozy red wet clay. progressively getting worse.

We are in 4WD but Michael, as trip leader for Laos is well ahead and eventually finds himself very stuck – without 4WD.

Two vehicles trying to pull him backwards proves impossible. We reverse about 500metres back along the track to then reverse back the 500metres to snatch him out dragging him in reverse. It was impossible to turn around anywhere as the knee deep ooze just flowed over into deeper canyons of bottomless slop.

Even the 6WD ex Chinese army truck would not go anywhere other than the track centre.

Michael is really pissed about his Fuso hub, because it now means a 400 kilometre bitumen round trip to our next destination.

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We broke our camera lens a few days back and decide to drive this evening into Vientiane to try and find a replacement so will catch the group up later tomorrow evening North of Vientiane at Vang Vieng

Camp 34:  Chanthapanya Hotel - Vientiane

N17* 57.982 E102* 36.

Distance Today: 409 Kms

Total Distance: 6242 Kms