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Starting Point: Tad Lo
Destination: Tad Hua Khon or Attapeu (depending on progress)
Distance: 81km
After a morning of watching the locals dry chillies, fishing and playing with cardboard boxes we left Tad Lo to continue on our journey. Getting back onto the main road we started making time as we drove though countryside unspoilt but for the road itself. Every few miles a cluster of tradtional houses would appear, accompanied by one that would have a fridge and some chairs, advertising the possibility of a drink stop.
As I leant the bike in to coax it around a small pothole in the road the bike veered hard to the left...
Jonathan: `Eleanor! Don`t lean to look at something without telling me! What are you doing?`
Eleanor: `Nothing`
(Bike starts to veer to the right and then fishtale)
Jonathan: S*** (that word is, of course, sugar)
We realised that the tyre had blown...fortunately on a straight allowing me to guide it to a stop okay. That meant walking time - after about 5 minutes we saw a bike coming at us with two Western people riding it - salvation! Except it turned out to be two grumpy German folk we had seen in a restaurant the night before complaining about something. They decided not to bother stopping to help. Thankfully, we finally found a small cluster of huts and, it turns out, that if one has a tyre nailed to it then that person can fix your bike! Great stuff, a little old guy has called across by a group of very friendly locals who proceeded to jack up the bike and re-seal the inner tyre. While we waited we noticed that we had interrupted the locals de-husking a mound of corn with big, long and nasty knives - helped out by a little girl - no more than 3 who also brandished one of the swords...
Saying our thanks we left and took a turning onto what, we were warned, was an unsealed dirt road about 38km leading to Tha Theng. The road was wide but deep in red dust leaving us and our clothes acquiring an ever-redder hue as we progressed. The scenery was great as the road cut a deep red scar through the forest. Every now and again we came across large animist villages - very traditional Laos communities with their own religious beliefs. You know which they are by the carved wooden coffins under some of the stilted, wooden houses. These don't actually contain bodies, yet, but are `gifts`to the people who live in the house who, when they die, will be buried in the forest in the coffin which waits under them for much of their lives.
As the red road opened into wide tarmac we found ourselves in Tha Theng where we had a delicious Vietnamese style fried whole fish smothered in chilli before continuing our trip. Within twenty minutes, just as we got into the middle of nowhere again, the bike violently hissed and veered. Again, slowing down, again a puncture, we trailed to our second pit-stop of the day.
We got going again, slowly, and made it a further 20 mintues before we got another repeat burst. This time we took the bike to the next tyre adourned house and waved our arms around until the guy understood to take the whole tyre off, for an inspection...to discover that the outer tyre itself had actually blown out - with none in stock and miles from the next town our makeshift mechanic found an old tyre and cut out a piece to fit in ours, protecting the thrice fixed tyre from the open road until we could find a proper garage. Finally we got to one and had the whole thing replaced in front of a gathered crowd (including the local police man). Shiny and grippy new tyre purchased we decided on the closeby Tad Hua Khon for the night with no idea what to expect.
Getting to a small turn off past a bridge we turned onto a dust path maybe 2 metres across as best, I doubted Eleanor`s navigation skills but pressed on. As we went slowly down the path it opened up into a village with yet more kids screaming `sabaidy`with grins plastered across their faces. We drove to the back of the village and into the forest, edging the river and found some small and basic huts for rent. The friendly owner got us a beer before we walked back to the village, trailed by kids seemingly and unintentionally playing musical statues - scattering or freezing whenever we turned around. Two of only three tourists in the village we had a night in a true Laos village - eating bbq beef, watching the locals playing petanque and falling asleep with the sound of the river in the background and trying not to think of the history of the place, the waterfall was the site of a Khmer beheading of Laos soldiers, their heads were thrown in the river and left to float downstream...
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