"Scoot-ouring" Around Laos.... with Funk.

After doin' the LOOP. Jasper, Kimbo, and I were on the road making our way up to the capital, Vientiene where Funk decided to meet us for his first tour outside the US of A.

BTW... Scoo-touring around Laos is the way to go. The roads are nice, not much traffic, and for better or worse you don't need a licence. We saw tons of kids riding scooters around town.. how old could this kid be? And to all the folks disappointed in us for not getting a push bike... well here's some of the reasons we opted for the scooter:

• Scooters come in one size (easy to sell and buy)
• We had a lot of distance to cover
• We didn't have any bike gear... you only need Helmet (5$), and gloves (1$ for cheaper ones, 2$ for leather) to ride.
• You can throw 2 people on it or ride it solo.
  

We wanted to visit Lao Vegas, but alas... Funk was calling our name.


We did make a few stops on our way up to break up the 150+ km days.


That is a nest of red ants...


Lao is not only blessed with kids that love to say "Sabaidee" to every farang (foreigner)... but it's share of amazing waterfalls and caves. There are so many waterfalls in this country that we were the only ones at this one during our 3 hour break.


The road out from Tad (Waterfall in Lao) Xae


Near the waterfalls, we stopped to eat some noodle soup... and the locals invited us over for a few drinks of the Lo Lao (Homemade whiskey)... it was past noon... so we figured we weren't braking any rules.


Farm animals run amok everywhere in the Laos countryside.


You can tell buy Jasper's enthusiastic face that he's stoked to be peer pressured into eating a lettuce wrapped.... rat tail (as best as I could tell)... they kept calling it "squirrel"... but regardless it was pretty gross... so I encouraged Jasper to try it too, and our Laotian hosts helped me pressure him into it....


Unlike Central America, the dogs here are friendly (for the most part) and the puppies are much cuter.


And Finally! After a flight from LA, an overnight train from Bangkok, and a tuk tuk across the border... here's the one and only... Funkster...


Here Jasper is showing him all the problems of "Nice." We actually had a shop in Vientiane put a new seal around the engine and add a new clutch. A 4 hour, 2 person job... for 1o$. Another reason scoot-ouring in Lao is fun. Scooters will break down, but there is always someone that can fix the problem near by... for very cheap... and you can practice your Lao.


In Vientiene we had an amazing pork, noodle, lettuce dish... don't know what it's called, but probably the best thing we ate in Lao... then we went bowling for the first time in 2009.


The broom seller?


Funk's Helmet Cam...


A quick break dancing break on our way up to Vang Vieng...


Vang Vieng!!!

Lao - Doin' "The Loop"

We entered Laos on Nov 24th with a mission of purchasing used scooters for our duration here. Without really knowing how to go about doing such things in a Communist country, we found a tuk-tuk driver who understood no English and somehow asked him to take us around all day to look at used scooters.


The first place we went to...


And from the last place we went to... shop # 5 maybe...


And so 4 hours later... our mission was complete... 2 - 100cc scooters with Chinese engines, 3 helmets, some repairs and all for under 550 USD... we'll tell you how hard or easy it is to sell these back... and see if it was worth it later.


We hit the road the minute we got the bikes... and got a taste of rural life in Lao soon enough.


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Now we're on the "Loop". From Tha Khek... a popular scooter side trip has been done for the last few years that visits some spectacular scenery, caves, local life, and lots of adventure. At 475 km, most folks take 4 days to do (we took 4 too) ... some have done it in under 24 hours (to get the one day rental rate)... and we saw that a Tuk Tuk did it in 12 days. Here is Jasper at one of the first caves on the tour.


Me at the second one. We skipped a few caves here to make up some time...


Lots of farm animals on and off the road in this area.
i

... goats...


The first guesthouse on the Loop.


Before we got dinner, we decided to walk around town for a bit... followed the music and found some locals.


Who fed us a bit, but gave us lots of Lo Lao... the homemade rice whiskey prevalent in all of Laos... we escaped after learning a bit of Lao, and before we lost the ability to walk back to our guesthouse.


Sunrise the next day... went on a quick run around the area to "freshen" my brain.


Here's our neighbor... with a litter of 10.


This next section was the roughest... with logging trucks rolling by... and going 20 km max speed...


That's why I dressed up like this.


Group shot.


The old sickle and hammer is the second most common flag you see after the Laos flag.


Laotians love their umbrellas too...


A typical bridge.


... on the way to this swimming hole.


Bomb Boats... made from the empty fuel canisters from old US B-52s after their bombing raids...




Typical scene on the Loop... this one was take out by the Kong Lo cave. Limestone Karst, like Rai Leh jutting out of the rice fields.


Very serene..


Kids headed to school


Some more village life...


On the way to Konglo... we encountered our first problem... a flat tire... which led to an oil change, a new drive train, and brakes...


So we didn't get to the cave in time this day...


But stayed in the area and went back in the morning. This was definitely the highlight of the short trip. Kong Lo cave is a 7 km tunnel with a river running through it. You take a long boat over to the other side and back and takes 2 hours for the trip. Some of the rooms open up to more than 100 ft high and wide.




Jasper thought this was slightly better than the Oregon Caves...


The area surrounding Kong Lo had many reminders of the "American War." From 1964 to 1973, the U.S. dropped more than two million tons of ordnance over Laos during 580,000 bombing missions - equal to a planeload of bombs every 8 minutes, 24-hours a day, for 9 years (according to this article). And there were bomb holes everywhere.


We stayed at Kong Lo two nights... mainly for this.... as this piglet took a day to prepare... this was in the mornin'


When we got back...


So the Aussies we just met the night before and I made the executive decision to stay another day for the piglet. Plus... it was Thanxgiving... and one of our scooters has a Pooh emblem on it.


Both mornings in Kong Lo, I went on an early run in the area and came across 1000s of bomb holes. The devastation to such remote areas were still fresh, 45 years later.