Changing Gears…!!

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Laos has its own version of the Arc de Triomphe...!!

A taxi driver insisted that he use my camera to take my picture...

After sorting out the little niggles with the bike, I sat thinking about the various riders I had met, and comparing my thoughts and plans with theirs…

Many of my fellow travelers were riding to a clock that seemed to tick a lot slower than mine…

I thought about all the places I had missed in an effort to keep to the deadlines I had set when I left South Africa more than a year ago…

I had certainly not factored in the time it would take to keep my journal updated…!! This alone took up perhaps a third of days I had spent on the road…!!

I recalled that the places I had slowed down and spent more time in, I had enjoyed the most… Cyprus springs to mind, and Kenya, and Palmyra in Syria…

I realized that on reaching a particular destination, I usually immediately began thinking of the next one I would be heading to…

I seldom gave myself the chance to spend time experiencing the places I was in…

I thought of the goals I had set myself from the beginning and how many of them I had achieved, and while this pleased me, I couldn’t help thinking about the places I should have spent more time in…

The large water feature in front of the Victory Gate sports an intricate system of fountains...

And I think seven gecko's to keep the sign free of bugs is an overkill...

The internal dome of the gate is decorated with figures of Buddha in various forms and guises, but are so high up that very little detail can be made out...

But time is money, as they say, and my resources are limited… I have not had an income since October 2009, and it felt like I was carrying a bucket around with a small hole in the bottom, through which my funds had been steadily leaking since I left on this journey…

Trick was to get home before the bottom of that bucket showed up…!!

It was costing me about $85.00 a day, all in, and when I say all in, I mean ALL IN…!! Which I thought was pretty good going, until I met a biker who told me his average was about $35.00 a day, all in,

Which I thought was pretty good going, until I met a biker who told me his average was about $35.00…!!

But then he was using something called a “tent”, and looked on the verge of starvation…!! And his bike looked as though it was ready to be scrapped…!!

I had been a little stressed out of late, as the ride through South East Asia was taking a lot longer than I had expected it would…

The reasons for my stress, was the thought that I had planned to be in Australia by the beginning of April, so that I could get to Alaska in July, well before the road to Prudhoe Bay was shut for the season…

Lying on my bed here in the SNK Hotel in Vientiane, I finally admitted to myself that I was not going to make it…

I needed a change of plan…

Not to mention, mindset…!!

Inside the upper chambers, there are three floors of souvenir shops...!!

View towards the Mekong River...

I studied the weather patterns of the world for a few minutes, looking for the best “windows” to be in the northern and southern-most tips of the Americas…

I knew that Australian weather patterns were much the same as those in South Africa, so decided not to concern myself with the vagaries of that continent’s weather…

I re-read a few emails from other bikers who were in touch with me from various places on the planet, and thought about the advice I had received from Simon and Lisa, and many others…

I ran my eyes over satellite images of weather patterns in both North and South America, and made a number of mental calculations… (I am still capable of mental calculations, for those who might think I have gone soft in the head…!!)

I needed a cunning plan to avoid frostbitten appendages and such like, and believe I have come up with one that will see that I get home with all fingers and toes (and a few other important bits…!!) intact…!!

I will spend the next two months here in South East Asia, get to Australia sometime in May, spend three months riding there, then fly to Chile in August, and make my way slowly down to the southern tip of South America…

From there I will head north on one of my “drunken snake rides” and try to get to Alaska in July 2012, then ride back into the USA and see which way the wind blows us… If there is time and money on hand, I might fly back to Europe and ride down the African continent as far as Ghana, and fly home from there…

With that decided, I went down to the Big Fella, and went for a ride around town, explaining the new plan to him as I went…

His reply of “I go where you go, Buddy…!!” settled it…!!

I went to take a closer look at the “Big Concrete Thingy” as the “Victory Gate” had been dubbed by Lisa Thomas…

This spiral staircase leads the the 7th and top floor of the monument... Notice the unfinished concrete walls...!!

It is Vientiane’s very own version of the Arc de Triomphe, and was built to commemorate the liberation of the country from the French colonialists… Problem is, it was never completed…

Eleven years after building of Patuxai, as it is known locally, began in 1957, it was decided that the money would be better spent in other areas of this, one of the poorest countries on the planet…

The monument was built using American funds and in the 1960’s cement actually intended to build an airfield during the Vietnam War was used in the structure…  The United States had given Laos money to build a new city airport in return for Laos allowing them to use the country as a base to attack the Viet Cong from.

However, the Laotian government of the day used the money to build the monument instead. As a consequence, the monument is sometimes referred to as the Vertical Runway…!!

Very little is manufactured here, and most goods are imported via Thailand and China… Timber, tin and coffee are exported in small quantities, and tourism is taking on an important role in foreign exchange earnings…

Development in Laos has been retarded by wars, drought and floods, over the last fifty years, and it is only now, with the help of its northern neighbour China, that development is picking up…

Wherever you go in the country, the flags of China and Laos flap side by side in the wind…

I was glad that I had taken the time to visit the monument, and wondered how many people had never bothered to climb the many flights of stairs that take you to the top for great views of the city…

Looking in the opposite direction from the upper deck...

I ate a hamburger at a small street vendor on the main walking street of the city, and sipped a soda while I listened to the chatter of backpackers around me…

By the time I had finished eating, I was sweating from every pore… I needed to get some wind on me…!! I rode along the banks of the Mekong for a few kilometres to cool down…

The best burgers in town are served from this roadside stall...

I passed the tiny restaurant where Daniel Rintz, a German film maker and his cameraman friend Nico, had filmed and interviewed Simon, Lisa and I for a documentary that Daniel was putting together… We had sat chatting to them over a beer, answering their questions about our respective journeys…

Daniel had also ridden his motorcycle on extensive trips on various continents, and was “in between rides” here in Laos, where he was working on a project for the tourism industry I think… He would soon be returning to Germany to plan his next long ride…

Two road signs which Willi almost always ignored...!! Following him through traffic usually gave me heart palpitations...!!

Over the next three days, we would enjoy more meals together, exchange downloaded movies from our respective “collections”, as well as information we had collected along the way…

Daniel had some information about getting the bikes into Indonesia, using the various boats and ferries he had taken advantage of on his ride down to Australia the previous year…

Back at the hotel, I met Fritz Sprieszl, a Canadian winemaker of Hungarian extract, who had checked in the day before we had…

Fritz and I head off to town on his trusty scooter...

Fritz makes wine from wild berries, and is based in British Columbia… He is considering the possibility of setting up a winery here to make wine from strawberries…

He has been here for a few months and knows the city well… The night before we had zooted into town on his scooter, to meet Daniel and Nico for a drink… It was Fritz who had introduced Simon, Lisa and I to Daniel in the first place…

Fritz invited me to attend the Hash meeting later that afternoon… The Hash Community can be found all over the world… It is a social gathering of mostly ex-pats that meet a few times a month, to go for a run or walk, and then retire to a place to have dinner and a drink…

“You want me to go on a five kilometre run in this heat…??” I asked incredulously… “You gotta be joking…!! I might look and act crazy, but I do have a few working brain cells that reject the notion of running anywhere when I have a perfectly good bike and a full tank of fuel that could take me there without raising a sweat…!!”

Daniel Ritz poses with Simon and I... He had interviewed us the previous evening for a documentary he was working on...

I retired to my air-conditioned room and began planning my escape from Vientiane…

Later that evening, my mobile rang… It was Mark Baldock, our Aussie friend from Chiang Mai… He had hooked up with Willi the night before in Oudon Xai… He had reached the town well after dark, as a result of an overturned truck that had blocked the road for hours…

“G’Day Mate…!! I’m in Luang Prabang and have just run into a few friends of yours…!!”

“Oh… Simon and Lisa…?”

“No, no…!! Someone else who knows you…!! Here speak to them…!!”

I wracked my brains for who it might be while he handed the phone over…

“Hey Ronnie…!! Where the hell are you…?”, came a voice down the line…

I had a temporary brain freeze…!! It couldn’t be…!! Could it…??

Trevor and Chenty Wilson, my Canadian friends from Palmyra in Syria…!!

One of the two main shopping, walking, gawking streets in Vientiane...

I had known that they were in Thailand but was not sure of their route, and now here they were, just 400 kms up the road…!!

It was great hearing Trevor’s voice again, and I pictured the big bear of a man while we spoke…

They were staying at the same guest house that I had checked into in Luang Prabang, and were making their way down to Vientiane from there, as was Mark…

“Slow down and we’ll catch up to you in a few days…!! ” they suggested…

“Funny that you should suggest that…!! I have been thinking about slowing down myself, so see you soon…!!”

It looked like I would not be spending my next few days and weeks riding alone…!!

I decided to spend yet another day in Vientiane, so that I would not get too far ahead of them…

©GBWT 2011