26/4/25
We were still very tired when we woke up. Somehow we’d set ourselves another lofty target for the day; getting to the border with Vietnam. We stopped to try and get coffee a couple of times but they kept pointing us down the road. A strong easterly wind was pushing us back making a tough start even tougher. At least the golden light, draped over the forest covered hills, gave us something to look at.
The road weaved around the hills. Occasional lorries barraged past us. Scoring some coffee was proving impossible. We tried to spot it by looking for stacks of condensed milk cans. In a small village at the bottom of a bank we waited patiently for a woman to return. Her house was surrounded by rubbish. Mostly carnation cans. Her coffee was premixed with condensed milk too. We sighed and got back to pushing through the wind. It was perplexing why they were so obsessed with it.
It was actually possible to call it ‘cold’. It was below 30C. It was relieving. We were still making painfully slow progress. Eight miles an hour. It was lightly uphill too. As we approached a group of cows a cacophony of cowbells was blown into our ears. Along with the sporadic plume of smoke from burning rubbish.
Vangkang was just one of the many stilt house built villages we went through. There were a couple of newer style homes going up on the fringes. Children poured out of their homes to wave at us and shout “Bye bye!” It was still puzzling us how they knew we were coming past. They seemed to sense when something different was happening. They knew we were leaving though. We noticed less phones in their hands.
We felt drops of rain. The desire for coffee was getting ever stronger. We must be addicted more than we thought. Jonathan spotted a muslin coffer filter. This was our chance. We could indicate and gesture towards it. Frankie went off and bought a soya milk. We eased their horror at us ordering black sugarless coffee by pouring in the white good stuff. They didn’t look amused.
It was suddenly weirdly hot. We’d been tricked into a false sense of security by a microclimate. The Sun was starting to unleash itself. The road had headed north for 20km but we now returned back east at Nabo. An influx of lorries appeared out of nowhere. We were pushed to the edge in a tiny shoulder. Dust blowing up around us. The next town, Xepon, blurred with the last.
We had made just about managed to make arrangements to meet a guy from Wales called Ben. He was on the group chat but had been slow to respond. We’d almost left without hearing from him. When he evolved from his room it was obvious he’d been asleep. It was almost 10am. We’d never have guessed he rode a bicycle from looking at him. He lit up a cigarette as he described himself as being on a “party trip” and having peaks and troughs of drinking. He was keen to establish a social media presence. Currently with 3000 ‘followers’ he was after “50k”. He expected to get branding deals. Amusingly, he concurred with our opinion that people shouldn’t travel while begging for donations.
He handed us stickers with QR codes on. Then plugged his appearances on podcasts. Including the time he fell off while holding onto a Tuk Tuk. Then said he’d met a guy with 130,000 followers. We’d heard of him. He’d started off on a cool adventure and now came up with rubbish reasons to make more and more videos. The problem is when they stop running around like idiots. Why would anyone continue to follow them?
As we left Ben filmed us for his vlog. He’d also filmed ‘b-reel’. Zooming in on our bikes. It wasn’t the side of bike touring we particularly favoured. We crossed the river Xe Bang Hiang, 4 days after we’d seen it the first time. The road went up and down as many times as the Sun came in and out. The gradient was 7% in places. The road was sporadically overrun with lorries. It was the rutted tarmac that made it dangerous. It was several inches deep. As they moved in and out to overtake each other they would swerve haphazardly.
A huge plume of black smoke was rising from the jungle ahead of us. It was a wildfire visible on the air quality map. We could hear a loud crackling sound as it burned through the undergrowth. It was perplexing that anyone would light it on purpose. Bags of melons were next to a stall. 25k a kilo. When we asked for just one it was 20k. We sat beneath the smoke, looking and listening. The woman was solemn. It was an odd experience.
As the road continued to take us up and down, Frankie noticed her front derailleur wasn’t shifting properly. It wouldn’t move into the largest chainring. It wasn’t fixable by the roadside. If the shifter was broken it would be a bit of a problem. We’d chosen a stupid place to stop. Large lorries passing us closely.
Several bridges had large metal boards bridging the heavily deteriorating surfaces. Large curls of ash were falling around us. Haze covered the hills ahead. We went to a guest house called Milk. It had reasonable reviews. Talking to the young man was like an augmented dystopian future. He didn’t take his headphones out and just held up his phone for translation. It was negotiation to get our bikes in the room. He thought they’d damage the tiled floor.
We tried to fix the green Surly. We thought the bar end shifter was loose. Suddenly it made a loud pinging sound. On investigation we found the outer sheath underneath the handlebars had actually popped open. A completely unforeseeable problem. The spare piece of outer we were carrying wouldn’t cover it. Frankie would only be able to use her small chainring the next day.
We tried to put it to the back of our mind and went out to get food. We’d seen a small market on the way in and popped back to it. We managed to secure a kilogram of peanuts. Skin on. Not the nice split and roasted ones we’d found since entering Laos. We had to negotiate hard for some fruit. It was twice what we’d been paying. We hated to dispute the price but it was more expensive than home.
We walked back past the hotel and tried to find something more substantial. Somewhat infuriatingly, we found a larger set of stalls. Those first stalls were situated next to the bus station, and were a rip off stop. We managed to secure some papaya salad and a good amount of green vegetables. Plus sticky rice.
When we got back we covered the bed in towels. We were trying to adhere, as best we thought reasonable, to the strict no food policy. We had to eat somewhere. We weren’t overly worried about getting to sleep early. The border didn’t open till 7am and we were only 2km away.
Surly They Won't Make It 