January 13, 2015
Let's Go On and See How Far We Get
Mystery Towns
Chanuman to Khemmarat 26
Khemmarat to Hat Salung 26
Hat Salung to Kong Chiam 52
Dear little friends,
Zipping along the Mekong like this (zipping being a relative term, for us, this is zipping) with few rest days to stop and think about where we just were and how our day went means that something has happened. We are getting fit. I know this because uphills are not generating the pissing and moaning they used to, but admittedly, these are not the hills of Northern Thailand or Laos either.
This is no small thing for me personally because I never really quite believed it would happen. I climbed a steep sand bank on the river a couple of days ago and while there was still some huffing and puffing, it was not because I was tired, and it was considerably less huff/puff than would have been engendered three months ago. I feel fabulous. And I'm not the only one because now it is Bruce who says in the morning, "Let's go on and see how far we get." Bicycle travel, while perhaps not as rich in experience as lingering for four days somewhere, is rich in other ways, the interaction with locals as we pass by, the sounds and smells of where we are, all this other stimuli, this birdsong, that stop at the temple, being pulled into somebody's coffee place or resisting being pulled into an already raucous wedding at 8:30 am.
We handed back the room key to our guesthouse in Chanuman to the smiling boy who had made a beaded necklace and bracelet for us, and headed on to Khemmarat. I had spent every day that we had Wifi access trying to figure out what to do after Khemmarat. We wanted to head south to the Chong Mek border between Pakse,Laos, and Ubon Ratchathani, Thailand. Khemmarat (also spelled Khemarat) seemed to be a cipher. Lonely Planet ignored it. Other cyclists have been there but they all seemed to have routed to or from Ubon Ratchathani and we didn't want to go that far "inland", we wanted to follow the Mekong. Satellite maps showed what seemed to be a vast wilderness after Khemmarat, with one highway that was reported to be hilly and in poor condition and with few towns. We felt some apprehension, and started stocking up with plenty of peanuts and such. You can buy peanut butter here but it's approximately the same price as caviar so it's peanuts instead.
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So when we arrived in Khemmarat and tooled around, it seemed an odd mix of Thai tourist town (walking street, crap for sale) and a "not happening" town. We finally found a "24" place that was actually very nice, with the comfiest bed and sparkling-est clean bathroom we'd had in ages. There was a night market with delicious tray food that we brought home in their plastic bags and ate out of our bowls. There had been a horrible road into Khemmarat, potholed and gravelly, the wind had been very strong in our faces much of the day, we were wiped out. We fell asleep in our comfy bed and lazed around in the morning, thinking, "rest day".
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Maybe it was the clouds parting, maybe it was courage returning, at some point late in the morning we packed up and hit the road. We might as well face the wilderness than avoid it, right? We had one lead on a resort area on the Mekong called Hat Salung, satellite images showed it to be an extreme narrowing of the river with all sorts of rounded flat rocks, it looked very intriguing.
Thus began the 2112, the mystery road. We would like to formally announce to anybody traveling this way in the future: do it. Yes, the road has many rough stretches or poor asphalt stretches, but the majority of it is new smooth asphalt loveliness. Yes, there are some hills, one of them steep enough for us to walk partway up, but most of them are graded nicely. There is a shoulder. There is beautiful scenery, with those rock formations and some awesome native forest in the hills. Bringing plenty of water and peanuts is always a good idea but there were villages, places to eat (sometimes very far apart,however), very friendly and helpful people, and best of all? NO traffic. I mean, a car every half hour or twenty minutes. Few trucks. A couple of buses a day. All the way to Kong Chiam, where we bid a fond farewell to the 2112, a mystery road no more.
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But first we had to stay in Hat Salung, which was a bit confusing because where we were was actually a town called Song Khon. The sign on the road says Hat Salung, so that's what I'm calling it. There are a couple of resorts that we saw, perhaps there are more we didn't see. Ours was a real dump, quite overpriced and run by people of unsavory nature, but the location was to die for, overlooking amazing rock formations and a short walk from the deep narrow channel where the water must be a hundred feet deep. The resort itself has kind of wood-structure garden charm to the eating areas, but our room was seriously bad, and it takes a pretty bad room for us to say that. The wind was whistling through the dining area as we ate our cold rice and overpriced kraphao, the owner or manager, we couldn't really say, has a tramp stamp and is missing her front teeth, we'll let you build your own story on that information. She had great taste in music, however, as she hovered over her computer and worked the gorgeous morlam playlist. Sometimes a little Tai Orrathai will soften a lot of rough edges.
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The rock channel in the Mekong is well worth a visit though, and is just spectacular, far more than the very developed "tourist attraction" places we have seen in this area. There are many things to see that we are too tired to go off the beaten track to visit, waterfalls, rapids, caves, ancient rock paintings, national parks. I hate to say it but maybe we'll have to visit again on a motorbike or in a car or small camper. We are also running out of visa time.
We stole away from the bad resort without buying a bad breakfast from them. We had 52 miles to chug through to Kong Chiam but now that we knew we were certainly not in a wilderness, we didn't worry. The lady we bought coffee from gave us tamarinds from her tree, and these other little fruit she called chomphun (I am butchering that spelling, I'm sure) and ice water and conversation about her friend in Wisconsin. She also directed us to a really good soup place, we were set for the day. And it really was a good day. The wind was mostly at our backs, the hills not terrible, the forest and stone features amazing, the road quiet and serene. Seriously, it was one of the best cycling days ever for us.
We rolled into Kong Chiam in the afternoon, found a pretty nice place with another comfy bed, and are hanging here while we catch up on rest, writing, iced coffee drinking, laundry drying, chatting with my kids in the states, and listening to some barking frogs in the tiny pond at my feet. There was a mad interlude last night where Bruce suggested catching a night bus to Bangkok, getting an Indian visa, and flying to Chennai on Air Asia. Today that plan seems a little far gone, even for us. Perhaps he was dreading re-entering Laos, but I'm not. There are islands in the stream ahead for us, and the wonderful Mekong hasn't let us down yet.
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Today's ride: 104 miles (167 km)
Total: 1,074 miles (1,728 km)
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