wooden boat: Cycling Laos for charity
17 May 2006
Anna Chalmers pays a lot of money to sweat it out on a cycle ride through Laos. But it's all for a good cause.
Thirteen out of 14 managed the short distance from the Mekong riverbank to the boat waiting to take us to Laos. Not only did I miss, but I ended up ankle deep in mud that stuck like glue.
To a backdrop of laughter, I wrestled my foot free, but there appeared no hope for my jandal. I had to fish for it. Battling against the Mekong mud, the humiliation grew till I defeated the brown sludge.
I was thankful no one was there the previous night when the aging wooden veranda at our Thai guesthouse gave way and my foot thundered through.
It was not the best way to introduce myself to the 12 Kiwis and one Australian I would sweat it out with over the next 10 days. Our common bond was that we'd spent months fundraising and training to cycle 415 kilometres through Laos to raise money for charity Oxfam.
Loading the boat took far longer than the ride. Within minutes of leaving Thailand's shores we docked in Laos - a big moment since we had focused so much time on this place we'd never seen before.
Nights and weekends were consumed with raising the $5500 needed to take part in the event, with proceeds going to Oxfam's work in the area, which is mainly small-scale irrigation and sustainable agriculture projects.
In a frenzy of fundraising, I barely sat on my borrowed mountain bike before Christmas. There were pub quizzes, sausage sizzles, a raffle, garage sale and garden party crammed into the five months before the December deadline. Trip notes posted on a website recommended a minimum 12-week training programme. On New Year's Day, I began a strict training schedule. It started well, but as the departure date drew nearer there were obstacles galore - mainly social events, I admit, but my good intentions were sunk.
Laos is one of the most mountainous countries in the world. We passed through part of the Golden Triangle, named after the once infamous opium trading areas of Myanmar (Burma), Laos and Thailand. It is made up of steep, broken mountain ranges, some towering more than 2800 metres.
After arriving in Laos, getting visas sorted and our heads around the money - $NZ20 buys a stack of kip (local currency) - we spent the day on a
wooden boat gently gliding down the Mekong. Women squatted at the river edge panning for gold, while young children played in murky waters among the tall rocks left bare by the dry-season drought. By late afternoon, thirst-quenching Beer Lao was the perfect accompaniment as the sun set, before we docked in Pak Beng, where our cycling began.
Rising before dawn the next day, we were on our bikes shortly after 7am in an attempt to escape the heat. It was late winter but the humidity was high and the temperature about 30 degrees celsius.
Immediately we were greeted with our first hill and I could only think of the hundreds more kilometres ahead. But the slog was relatively short and we were soon soaring through a small village, bustling with people going about morning chores. Throngs of children on their way to school lined the road, shouting "sabadee" (hello) and waving at this odd-looking group of tourists.
by bicycle provided a magnificent view of the countryside. By late morning we had cycled through a river valley with thick-forested mountains and a rural plateau with villages dotted with bamboo huts on stilts. Every 20km we had a rest stop - and soon an audience of fascinated children. At lunch our tour leader Jason delighted a group of more than 100 kids when he performed an impromptu show. His ability to balance a three-metre pole on his nose and walk on his hands provided great delight. It also demonstrated how best to overcome the language barrier.
After travelling in Vietnam and Cambodia I expected terrible roads, but I was wrong, and we had sealed surfaces all the way. According to our Lao guide, the Chinese paved the route from Pak Beng to Luang Prabang in the late 1960s as communist forces combined to fight the royalist ruling faction.
Like its neighbouring countries, Laos has a bloody history, particularly following French colonisation and the subsequent "Secret War", involving United States and Vietnamese forces. About 200,000 Laotians were killed and three million tonnes of bombs dropped before the Pathet Lao (Laotian communists) took control in 1975. The monarchy was abolished and the Lao People's Democratic Republic formed, which still exists.
I was in awe of the sights, but exhausted by the end of the first day. It was hot work, especially the undulating terrain - up and down, up and down - though none of the hills was much over 100 metres.
This was, after all, billed as a challenge and, thankfully, it did not get much tougher - bar the day when I had been up the previous night with a stomach bug and faced the longest (7km) and steepest (1.2km) climb of the trip.
From Pak Beng to Vientiane, children called out and waited eagerly to slap our hands as we rode by. Cheeky schoolboys raced us on their bikes, sometimes not giving up till they were a long way from home.
At times Laos appeared to be swarming with children, particularly during the day when adults worked the fields and they were left to get to and from school, or carry out village tasks.
The beauty of Laos is that it has not been overrun by tourists or development. It is a quiet place, inhabited by gentle people who genuinely appeared interested in us, not just our tourist dollars.
We spent a day off our bikes exploring the Unesco World Heritage town of Luang Prabang, scattered with crumbling French colonial architecture and wats (Buddhist temples). At dawn the streets were electric orange as robed monks collected their daily food offerings. Hand-crafted quilts, pillows and silk wares were on sale, and French-influenced coffee and cake were walked off with a 300-step climb up Mt Phu Si.
We did not see any Oxfam projects but we witnessed the need for foreign help. In rural areas, where most people live, life is incredibly basic. Huts stand on stilts with pigs, chickens and dogs underneath.
Our group's first aid kit was pulled out on more than one occasion to re-dress a wound that had gone septic. After helping an eight-year-old boy in pain at a Hmong village where children ran half naked and two-year-olds lapped up the most basic attention, I left feeling despondent. How many lives could you save travelling in Laos with a medical kit, I wondered? It was good to hear that our group had raised $60,000.
On the final day of cycling, as we neared the capital of Vientiane, most of us felt sad. We had grown close, encouraging one another in the sauna-like heat - sharing the highs, the odd low and plenty of laughs.
Awards go to fellow Wellington participants Paula Cody for continuing to cycle despite vomiting episodes, Ruth Hill for surviving her encounter with a leech, and to Hagen Hopkins for flying off his bike, fracturing his shoulder and being evacuated before finishing - and smiling all the while.
Getting there: Flights depart regularly from Thailand to the Laos capital, Vientiane, or there are border crossings from Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia. A visa is necessary.
Basics: Travel is largely by bus or river, with limited connections. Travel times are slow due to the lack of highways and modern buses. There are no ATM machines.
Staying there: Accommodation includes comfortable guesthouses in tourist areas, and hotels in larger cities such as Vientiane and Luang Prabang.
Oxfam: It's an international non-government aid organisation, which largely works to get basic infrastructure in place in developing countries.
Oxfam charity challenges: Fundraising trips by charities are hugely popular overseas, but in New Zealand they are a relatively new phenomena. Participants fundraise to go on the trip, with a significant portion - in Oxfam's case just over half - going to the charity and the rest covering the challenge's cost. The next cycle challenges are to Vietnam and Cambodia next January; to Thailand and Laos next March; and to Yunnan, China, in September next year. Trek challenges are planned to Ladakh, India, in June next year; and to Machu Picchu, Peru, in August next year.
Website: www.oxfam.org.nz
