29th December 2107
Luang Prabang – Kiu Kacham (82.1km)
Elevation of our ride today.
Before we start our ride early this morning, I went with our leader, Melissa Wong, and Yvonne Chan, to Mekong River to shoot some pictures. Same time to take a closer look at the beautiful bamboo bridge that located at the intersection of Nam Khang River and Mekong River we saw yesterday. Today’s ride will be tough. According to our leader, Melissa, today will be the toughest ride of our journey, we have 2 steep mountains to conquer. Following will be all down hill and flat land. Though we were little doubt of what she said but still, we have to believe our leader.
The bamboo bridge looked so beautiful at aerial view from a distance yesterday, but when came near, it looked disappointedly run down and dirty, and a fee of 5000 Kip will be charged to cross the bridge.
The first 5km was pleasant, traffic was eased as we left the city of Luang Prabang. When we headed to south, rode to the mountain ahead of us, houses along the way faded slowly. The road became deserted, only 7 of us with our bicycles were on the road.
We saw this small shop after 7km ride, stopped for breakfast. Knowing that there will be no more shops or restaurants once we enter the ridge of mountains, we store some dry food and drinking water from this shop.
Laos, mostly covered with mountains and rain forest, from point A to point B, no tunnels or bridges to shorter the distance, the only link is the ridge. Hence, we were actually riding on the ridge of steep mountains to get over to the other side. And the mountains that we encountered today, were the two lofty mountains that I saw from the plane when landing (See 1st day post). According to information, it’s almost 20km steep slope, only ride up, never a down hill, until reaching the peak.
Today’s also Pei Yi’s birthday, we celebrated her birthday at the 1st hill top. A mini pumpkin cake sponsored by one of us bought the night before as her “energy bar”. (Point A)
Endless of beautiful sceneries kept us going….
The one and only look out point and rest area were located halfway of the hill (Point B). A small grocery shop selling limited food such as small pack of biscuit, small piece bread… I doubt if it could even fill our hunger… We just grabbed the most important thing, the source of life – Drinking water!
After a short rest, we continued the steep gradient self-tortured ride. We paddled until we saw stars flying above our heads; hearts was at the edge of bursting out from chest; wandering along the junction of heaven and hell… then we saw a row with 4 or 5 wooden houses… A TRIBAL VILLAGE!!! YES! WE MADE IT! To the first peak (Point C). Hallelujah!!!
We parked our bicycles at one of the house and just sat at the chairs at the corridor to catch our breath, without even asking for permission, we were half dead, no strength to even ask… The mistress of the house are kind, she allowed us to rest at her place, not only that, she also offered us some hot sticky rice and gesture us to eat with our only communication channel – sign language.
It was after 2pm when we reached this first peak, a few kilometres away from the 1st peak. Considered of we haven’t book our stay for tonight, and the night will fall in 3 hours, also heavy fogs in the mountain, mostly won’t be able to make it to Kiu Kacham before dark. Our leader decided to arrange with the husband of the mistress, who offered us rice, rented his pick-up van, send some of us to Kiu Kacham to scout for guesthouse. Some good mates sacrificed their challenge and took the mission.
After the pick-up van took off, four of us continued on for the 2nd challenge. The 2nd hill was worse than the 1st, but the beautiful sceneries was our rewards. Even boars was spotted.
The satisfaction of conquering the mountains are beyond words description. Following was the 20km of downhill. we were flying down like superman, except we were not wearing red underwear outside and cape around our necks. Immediately after the downhill, another hard steep slope awaits us. We hadn’t had lunch, and the previous climbed drained most of our energy, our pace was slow. After almost 2 hours, our leader noticed it was getting dark, we still have another about 10km to go, no confidence that we could make it, she decided to hitch hike a car (Point D). But from where can we get a car in such suburb place?
Miracle happened! Out of nowhere, a small fruit truck stopped right in front of us, Hallelujah!!! God is good!!! This truck just nice to fit 4 bicycles, Laotians are simply kind, they helped us without expecting any return from us. At last, we still paid them a little token though they refused to accept.
When we reached Kiu Kacham, our mates already booked us guesthouse. According to them, there were only 3 guesthouses in this rural town. The night was chill, the 1st thing we did was rushed in to hostel and grabbed a cup of hot tea to revived our body, and order good food to celebrate our survival!
Crazy Old Horse 