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Saturday 1st December

A bit of a set back this morning, I had seen and done what I wanted to do here and was ready to move on. But, I noticed my front right fork seal was leaking again. It had done this up in China and with the help of Chris, I cleaned the seal and it has done another 5,000kms. So, I slipped around to Fuark’s shop after breakfast to see if he was open, and he was 🙂 But only for another hour or so, but they did get a chance to clean the seal for me. I discussed the installation of a new seal, which I have 3 spares of in my kit, and he said yes we can do it Monday morning.

I was going to go and test this cleaned seal on some bad roads to see if it would last, but decided that as I was in no big hurry, I would wait until Monday morning, get the new seal installed, then ride south as far as I can go before dark. There are a few options along that way at different towns, so it would depend on how long the seal would take to replace, most likely around 1-2 hours. I headed off and a bit later went looking for some lunch. There were a lot of noodle soup shops, but you can get sick of the same fare all the time. Today I found a different place, it was a food hall, similar to ones I have seen in Thailand. This one is called Mea Kai [ N17 58.349 E102 35.888 ]and is just around the corner from my hotel on the main drag.

Inside this large area are a lot of seats and tables in the middle, while around the outside are speciality food, like noodle soup but this one also had a smorgasbord, which is the one I chose. For 35,000kip or $4AU you can fill your plate from a whole stack of different dishes, noodles, meat, veggies, rice, steamed or fried, brilliant idea and sooooo cheap, I did not go hungry 🙂 Probably the only downside is that all the stainless steel covered dishes with the food in it are not warmed like a Bain Maree, even though it looks like they could be, so the food was not the hottest, but that is the way Laos is!

When I got back to the hotel I saw a stack of dirt bikes parked up, but nobody was around. I then realised these were the bikes that had been rented by Pounce and his group and when I checked his email again, it seems they would turn up late tomorrow. So, because I have decided to stay to get the bike sorted, I will end up meeting them 🙂

That evening I decided to do something different. I had been in email contact with a chap called Eric a while back, I ever so nearly signed up with him to do a Myanmar bike tour. In the end I backed out as the bikes supplied were all too tall for me, so I would not have enjoyed it. Anyway, he owns a chook shop here in town, so I grabbed a TukTuk and headed on over for some dinner that evening. It is actually called the House of Chicken [ N17 56.599 E102 37.609 ] and was quite easy to find, it has very bright colours inside.

Eric has the only tour company at this stage that can legally operate motorbike tours in Myanmar, it is called Ride Lara clicky. So I met up with Eric, had a few beers and some chook dinner and had a good few hours there.

Eric has lived here for quite a number of years now and has a wealth of knowledge not just about the bike rides, but about the people as well. He had some interesting observations which he has picked up or learnt over his time here, which I will dish out as I recall them, in context. 🙂 The one that comes to mind is the eating alone thing I mentioned the other day, we are quite happy to be alone, Asians are not. So after a few hours chat, I scabbed a lift with one of the workers and was dropped off at my hotel where I polished off a few more beers outside in the garden 🙂

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Sunday 2nd December

Sunday was a lazy day, did a bit of blogging and some more lying around 🙂 Check out the shower in my bathroom here. Work place health and safety would have a field day in this country, but this one scared me for a while, but as I was mostly not sober when I have a shower, I sort of got used to it. The main power switch is right next to the shower head. The water runs all over it. The shower head is screwed to the only bit of wood there is, the post, as they must not have a hammer drill to mount it anywhere else on the hard brick wall!!!!

Later that night as I was blogging with a beer in the yard, a group of riders turned up, it was Pounce and co. After they booked in we had a few beers together and eventually I got a shitty photo from the wrong side of my phone. Here are in no particular order, Pounce, Mike, Kate, Tommy and Carl, the other chap Ash was somewhere around 🙂

After a few coldies, they invited me down to dinner with them, they had been told about a Falang pub owned by some Kiwis, so I checked it out on my GPS and showed them where it was, as I was the ‘local’ 🙂 It was not far from the Spirit House actually and sort of hidden away, but it turned out to have a nice menu and as it was Sunday, it seemed it was session time, that suited us 🙂 It is called Kongkhao Restaurant and Bar [ N17 58.041 E102 35.675 ]

I chose the Lau BBQ, which ended up being shish kebab, with all three meats, chook, pork and beef, a nice filling meal 🙂

High finance as we try and sort out the bill, with 7 people sharing, KIP was flowing everywhere 🙂

Some of us stuck around for a beer back at the hotel, but this group were heading off in the morning with a 6am breakfast call! They are basically doing a ride off the beaten track, with Pounce having done some of this before, he was the leader. They had been advised some of the route he had chosen would be impassable, so using my laptop, we quickly sorted out a diversion. It was nice meeting you guys 🙂

Cheers from Vientiane
TravellingStrom