Der Taxifahrer weiss nicht genau wo es ist, die Karte im Reiseführer verhilft ihm wenigstens zu einer groben Idee. Und dennoch, zwischen den Wolkenkratzern der Metropole winden sich die Straßen wie Gewürm im Kompost und selten ist Geradeaus die richtige Richtung, wenn man etwas erreichen will, was in Luftlinie vor einem liegt.

Ich versuche, anhand der beiden höchsten Gebäude, Twin Towers und dem Fernsehturm, irgendwie auszumachen,wo wir gerade unterwegs sind, als völlig unerwartet die Abzweigung auftaucht, die uns ans Ziel führt: Lake Gardens und darin die ehemalige Residenz des britischen Gouverneurs zu Kolonialzeiten. Heute ein Luxus-Hotel, inmitten einer Parklandschaft, Ruhepol im Chaos.

Eine feste Burg ist mir meine edle Residenz…

Prachtvoll-dezent, kein Widerspruch an diesem Ort, es wird einem immer Grandesse vermittelt, das ganze jedoch zurückhaltend, Understatement ist das Schlüsselwort. Die Veranda des Speisesaals öffnet zum Park hin, links und rechts zwei Separées, in der Mitte zwei Gruppen von Korbsesseln, wir nehmen Platz auf der einen Seite, auf der anderen residieren bereits zwei Damen mittleren Alters, die sich im Schwedisch der feineren Stockholmer Gesellschaft unterhalten.

Die Karte wird gereicht, das Menü, die Zeremonie ist immer die gleiche. Wir wählen unsere Teesorte und bitten um die Tee-Tafel aus Sandwiches, Apple-Crumble, süßen Kleinteilen, die umgehend auf einer Etagère gebracht werden, danach folgen Scones, eine Art Hefeteig-Muffins, die von einer Erhabenheit sind, dass sie jeden Bäckerlehrling in die Knie gehen lassen. Dazu gibt es zwei Sorten Marmelade sowie Sahne, die so punktgenau geschlagen ist, dass sie eben gerade nicht Schlagsahne ist, sondern immer noch cremig.

Rechts im Bild Kollege Thorsten K., der dieses Kleinod aus den Tiefen des “Lonely Planet”-Reiseführers hervorgeholt und am Wochenende bereits einmal angetestet hatte.

Wir genießen, parlieren und lauschen dem Geplauder vom Nachbartisch, während im Park der Spätnachmittag-Regen niedergeht und die Kellnerin dafür sorgt, dass unsere Teetassen gefüllt sind. “May I?” und “Do you want some more…?”, alles sehr vornehm, dabei ausreichend relaxed, dass es auch Spaß macht.

Zu Gouverneurs Zeiten wäre unser Benehmen vielleicht nicht durchgegangen (Isst man Scones mit Messer und Gabel? Oder bricht man sie mit der Hand auf? Fragen über Fragen….). Leckere Kekse runden das Mal ab – und: eine Erdbeere.

Die Rückkehr in das, was sie hier Zivilisation nennen? Leider sei es gerade nicht möglich, ein Taxi per Telefon heranzurufen. Vermutlich ist es zu kompliziert, dem Fahrer zu erklären, wo er eigentlich hin soll. Uns wird angeboten, im Personalbus mitzufahren, um dann am Bahnhof umzusteigen.

Unsere Kollegin Heidrun klärt uns auf, als wir am Frühstückstisch davon berichten: “Da lässt man sich ja auch mit dem eigenen Wagen vorfahren und abholen!” Die beiden schwedischen Damen fanden das wohl auch. Den Personalbus lehnen sie höflich, aber mit Nachdruck ab, um sich per Handy jemanden heranzutelefonieren.

Wir klettern in die landesübliche Rumpelkiste, sehr zur Freude der Mitreisenden, ein letzter Blick auf die Terasse, die freundlichen Schwedinnen winken erfreut (und wohl auch erleichtert) zum Abschied, zwei Strassen weiter: das Chaos hat uns wieder.

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• Der Pfarrer von Paraty
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• Im Norden

• Die Schweden, die Schweizer, der Beckenbauer
• Durch die Alborz-Berge zurück nach Teheran

Riding south from Luang Prabang? Bring enough time, we were warned. First of all because of all the curves, the mountainous up and down of the N13 between this centre of the Laotian north and the plains around Vientiane. The road cuts off the long western curve of the Mekong between the two cities and leads right through several mountain chains. Making time to take pictures and enjoying the landscape was another good advice we got.

The idea had been born last year returning from a day-trip out of Vientiane on a Honda 250 dirt bike. Already then it was clear that we would be coming back this year to work in Luang Prabang, and that we would have to travel from Vientiane to the north and back as we had business to attend in the capital before and after.

Flying up to Luang Prabang had been a pragmatic decision: The long-haul flight from Germany through Bangkok to Vientiane had left us exhausted, plus being jet-lagged doesn’t cater for a relaxed trip. But in between working for two weeks in the north and another week in Vientiane, the weekend would be perfect for this two-day trip.

Leaving Luang Prabang

We left Luang Prabang Saturday morning after a last Coffee and Croissant at the notorious JoMa bakery, a stop at the gasoline station and a short trip to the market next to the radio house to wave a last good bye to the girls who’d been selling fresh Lao coffee to us during our breaks for the last two weeks.

Temperatures had finally gotten to where you’d expect them in this region, somewhere in the lower 30′s (that’s Celsius) after more than a week of cold, cold temperatures and cloudy skies. Still we put on long sleeved clothes – after all we were heading for the mountains.

Luang Prabang is not a big town. Past the stadium, past the chinese market, past the southern bus terminal, a last goodbye from a rusty billboard and off we were.

The long and winding road

Driving through villages, kids are waving, huts look like they were built a thousand years ago, chicken are crossing the road, followed by cows and goats, seeds are dried in front of the house, children and older people alike roll long leaves to make raw material for the roofs. Curves and curves, rolling hills and mountains, the landscape in shapes of green and blue rolling into the glazing sunlight.

Another road side attraction

Riding like this takes all your concentration. The road is good, but any mistake might send you flying over the edge. We stop again and again to take pictures or just leave the camera untouched to take in the landscape whenever we felt it’s larger than life. The concentration and density of impressions can make you forget time, but when our stomaches indicated noon, we stopped at one of the many road side restaurants. Instant noodles, hot broth and an abundance of fresh vegetables are served for the perfect lunch, juice and ginger tea round off the road side feast.

No discussion about who’s doing the dishes in this joint…

Speed can be measured in meters, miles or kilometers per hour – or also in a bigger scheme. As we drive south, both the vegetation and landscape are changing. Green is the prevailing colour from the deepest valleys we drive through up to the mountain tops left and right of our route climbing up to above 2000 meters altitude. Often the road climbs up along the slopes for miles and miles, crosses over the ridge and winds down again on the other side. The ride is playful, a symphony of the landscape, the road cutting through it, the motor between our knees and our ability to lean through the serpentines. Brake, bend into the curves, release, pull the gas and accelerate into the next turn, hours and hours, almost like dancing.

The altitude log of the first day from Luang Prabang created using a GPS enabled cell phone

Down to Vang Vieng has us speeding – we have called and reserved the last two rooms at The Elephant Crossing, one of the few hotels in this backpackers stopover, but they will be held only until five in the afternoon. Vang Vieng looks with its abundance of neon lights like a Lao version of Las Vegas, only for backpackers, where eating burgers and fries while laying in front of a TV-set running US-american dailies like “Friends” is the favourite and widespread “activity”.

A good place for a sun-downer

The Elephant Crossing is quite a water-hole in this place with its beautiful terrace and the panorama on the other side of the river. While we’re having our first beer, backpackers float by on tubes, another favourite past time in Vang Vieng.

Next morning sees us on the road for the second part of our trip. No need to hurry. The distance between Vang Vieng and Vientiane might be the about same as Luang Prabang to Vieng Vang, but the road is, well, straight forward. In some places actually to the extent that there’s no curve or bend for more than a dozen kilometers. But before we reach the plains of the Mekong we are treated to what best could be described as flying-carpet-style riding. The countryside is just a series of rolling hills with the road as if built by passionate motorcycle fans.

Vientiane is not a good final destination for such a tour, as the city greets us with its endless string of workshops, houses, truck-stops, companies, dirt and dust and mad traffic. Well aware of what’s awaiting us we decide to take a long enough break at a fish farm with restaurant to get one of the typical “surprise yourself lunchs” that are the rule in rural Laos as long as you don’t speak enough Lao to tell people what you want – and maybe don’t want. Grilled fish, vegetables and the notorious sticky rice send me sleeping afterwards, dreaming my way back into the mountains…

What does it look like?

You can have a look at what the trip is like using Google Earth. For this, download the files behind this two links (using you right-click menue) of the trip from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng and from Vang Vieng to Vientiane and open it in Google Earth. To see the pictures of the trip displayed in Google Earth with the exact position where they where taken, you want to do the same with this link to my Photos of the trip from LPQ to VTE.

You’ll find all my pictures from the trip also on my Flickr-page.

How to do it yourself?

The bikes we organised through remoteasia.com. This company is owned and run by Quynh and Jim, where he seems to have the motorbike and travelling competence and she run’s the office. Both of them are not only very professional but also very friendly and fun to deal with. We booked by e-mail, made a down-payment to secure the reservation using Paypal, met them on our stop-over in Vientiane to talk about the trip beforehand – What would the road be like? How do the bikes work, etc.? Everything of importance (see my list below of things to think of when going on a motor bike trip in Laos).

Remoteasia also organised the transport of our luggage from Luang Prabang to Vientiane house to house while we were riding the bikes with the light pack we needed for the overnight stay in Vang Vieng.

As this was a one-way trip only, our bikes were shipped up from Vientiane to Luang Prabang on one of the many buses (how this is done remains a secret of Remoteasia and there business partners…)

Good to know

• Make sure you get the right size of bike. The usual dirt bike you can rent in Laos is a Honda Baja 250 cc. These machines offer enough power to get you anywhere. Some of them are quite high, so if you are less then my 1,90, you might not feel safe getting on and off if you get a bike as high as the one I had…
• Make sure the bike is in order. Renting a bike like this involves a number of people. There is the owner of the bikes, most of the times Mr. Fourk in Vientiane who also maintains them. Jim of Remoteasia will check the bikes if everything is in order. Then the bikes will be shipped up to Luang Prabang on the bus and handed over to you at the office of Green Discovery. They are the ones who pick up the bikes at the bus terminal. So even if they should be ok, as they go through quite a few hands, you want to make sure they also are
  ok. If not, there is a workshop in Luang Prabang willing to fix anything if necessary.
• When renting, helmets and other security equipment will be provided. Make sure you give an indication of the size of your head beforehand so you don’t end up with a helmet to small or to big.
• You might want to bring a washable inlay for the helmet or use one of the tube-like scarfs as the helmets have seen a lot of sweaty heads during their life…
• Get the Laos road map published by GT-rider.com. Not only is it the best road map available in Laos, it is also laminated, so it will last long enough to get you where you want to go and back. GT-rider.com also features a very helpful online forum.
• If you don’t speak Lao, a no-words-dictionary like this one from Langenscheidt is a good thing to have as in between the tourist-spots english speaking people are few and not always at hand when you’d need them…
• Sunglasses, sun protection, long sleeved jacket, gloves and enough warm wear, as the road goes upt o about 1300 meters in altitude and even if it doesn’t get freezing cold, you still want to feel comfortable even after several hours of riding…
• A good idea is to get the bikes a day or several days before so you can get accustomed to them before hitting the long road. It will also allow you to day-trips out of Luang Prabang.
• Bring a camera.

• Best Internet in Luang Prabang
• Motorcycling Katmandu Valley II
• Luang Prabang, Mekong, Wasserfälle
• Sleepin’ in the radio…
• Zen and the Art of maintaining a good mood about my motorcycle

As I have to keep in touch with my homebase and also work on internet related projects while I am here in Luang Prabang, getting on to the internet is crucial. After several trials, the one place I found to be the best overall is the LasiCuisine on the main road, next to the Green Discovery Office. The food is good (try the chicken sandwich!), the drinks are good, the staff is friendly, the wireless just works (!) and the bandwidth is acceptable and most importantly pretty stabile compared to most places. Downsides: The coffee is weak, and they seem to only have one CD, so if Whitney Houston, Celine Dion and Lionel Richie are not your favourites for a day long “repeat all”… Apart from this the LasiCuisine is just the right place to call Office while in Luang Prabang.

Pou Monthira, the boss at LasiCuisine, where the WiFi is as good as the top special dishes on the menue…

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Walking around Luang Prabang and making excursions into the area, taking pictures. You might like to switch to “Satellite” for better imagery, the maps aren’t really accurate.

Unterwegs in Luang Prabang und Umgebung. Die Karte lässt sich auf Satellitensicht schalten, dann werden die Bilder genauer verortet. Viel Spaß!

• Best Internet in Luang Prabang
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• Radio in Laos

Just arrived in Vientiane, Laos, where I will be training journalists of Lao National Radio for the next 3 weeks. We, my colleague Helmut and I, are accommodated right next to the current radio house in the historic broadcasting house now turned into the “Day Inn” hotel. If you ever dreamt of sleepin’ in the radio, this is probably as close as you can get.

• Training at Radio Sagarmatha
• Zigzagging for the next 4 days
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• Radio in Laos
• Cut-man-do!

This time around, I was lucky: I had found a dirt bike, a 185 cc Honda. Much more comfortable for my size and also feeling safer in the traffic of the Nepalese capitol as you generally sit more upright. I started off from the hotel and payed a second visit to the Boudha Stupa, the huge Tibetan-Buddhist sanctuary on the north-east of the city. From there it was back on to the infamous ring road. After almost a half circle around the city, I turned right onto a road leading into the mountains. Immediately traffic died down to the occasional motorcycle, car or one of the notoriously overbooked overland busses with people riding on the roof. The road was in a state comparably well to what I had been riding on the week before: Few potholes, good tarmac. Beautiful views and quiet interesting encounters…

Turnaround point was a fish farm by the side of the road. Using the water coming down the mountains the “farmer” was breeding rainbow trout. He showed me around the steep arrangement of basins with the fish in different age and size. He hasn’t done anything like it before, but returning from the US and Canada, where he had lived for many years, he got interested in it and started his own business. Not an easy undertaking, he confessed, as the road conditions make transportation a real challenge: It is still easier to wait for people finding the farm, the fish, and the lunch that can be enjoyed on the nice spot than bringing the fish to where the people are.

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• Riding on a train

Kids flying kites along the street out of Katmandu Valley. It was the time of the annual Dharsein festival in Nepal which is traditionally greeted by children flying these handmade kites. You could see them literally everywhere, flying from rooftops or here, from the side of the road. While handmade, these kites are comparably cheap, so loosing one isn’t to much of bad luck. What’s pricey are the spindles at about 20 times the amount you’d have to give for a kite.

• Motorcycling Kathmandu Valley…
• Motorcycling Katmandu Valley II
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• Training at Radio Sagarmatha
• Luang Prabang to Vientiane on motorbikes

“Was ist denn der Hauptunterschied zwischen einem Schuhmacher in Deutschland und hier in Nepal”, wollte Deepak wissen, der mich auf seinem Motorrad mitgenommen hatte zum Schuhmacher in Patan. Na, am meißten vielleicht, dass unsere Schuhmacher nicht mehr auf dem Boden sitzen. Und vielleicht auch, dass der Beruf des Schuhmachers am aussterben ist. Und vielleicht auch, dass bei uns eine 20-minütige Reparatur inklusive komplett Politur und Aufarbeiten der Schuhe nicht nur 60 €urocent kostet? Schumacherpreise sind am unteren Ende der Preisschere in diessem Land. Manche Dinge sind fast so teuer wie bei uns in Europa, vor allem Güter und Dienste, die sich die Oberschicht und die Besucher leisten wollen. Andere bleiben bezahlbar für die Allgemeinheit, als Besucher bezahlt man dann eine Art Ausländer-Aufschlag, siehe meinen Besuch beim Friseur, für den ich fast das 10-fache bezahlt habe dessen, was man im Allgemeinen dafür bezahlt. Oder die Taxipreise, die für uns gerne mal ein ungenau vielfaches dessen kosten, was ein Nepalese bezahlen würde.

Eines allerdings war genau gleich: Die Art, sich über den Schuh zu beugen, den Leim einzustreichen in den vorher aufgerauhten Spalt zwischen Sohle und Leder, einen Faden mit einem scharfen Spatel abzutrennen, der Geruch in dem kleinen Raum, die gelbbraune Farbe, all das erinnerte mich an den alten Schuster in meinem Heimatdorf.

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