Motorbiking in Laos – may be hazardous to your health

Being stuck in Vientiane for a week dealing with visa shit isn’t what I call a vacation. The place is teeming with embassy, UN and NGO workers and the whole town seems to cater to western tastes. We couldn’t wait to get on the road to see the real Laos. It just so happened that our friends from back home, Nikki and Joyce, were in the SE Asia on vacation, and were willing to make the trip up from Cambodia to visit us. During our travels, we’d heard about afour-day motorcycle trip called “The Loop” from two different travelers. Both said it was a highlight of their trip to Laos and not to be missed. Once our friends met us in Vientiane, we headed out to Tha Khaek.

The second day into the motorbike trip and we were in high spirits. The previous day we had a blast zipping around on Chinese knockoff Honda’s, taking in limestone cliff scenery and exploring caves. Part of the loop passed through a massive internationally funded dam project, so the roads were the best borrowed money could buy. Fifteen minutes after we left in the morning the immaculate road we had been cruising on was replaced with a primitive rocky track. Carrying a lot of speed and taken off guard, Joyce took a gnarly digger off her bike. We rolled up behind her and immediately stopped to survey the damage – she had cuts and road rash all over and a deep gash on her right arm that was gushing blood. We busted out the first aid kit and began tending to her wounds. Luckily, there were no broken bones but the gash on her arm was really deep and needed stitches. With both driver and bike broken, we flagged down a passing SUV hoping they could at least call someone for us. The passenger happened to be an English-speaking French engineer working on the dam project and agreed to take her 50 kilometers back to the dam project’s clinic. Once at the clinic, Joyce had her wounds cleaned and stitched up, ate a hot meal and even received pants to replace her torn ones. In a country mostly without basic health care, we were pretty fucking lucky that this guy stopped to help us.

It was a hard decision to continue but Joyce said she would be fine and urged us to go on without her. She would wait for us in Vientiane for a few days and got follow up treatment at the Australian embassy, which for some reason provides the best health care in Laos (sad). Our final two days on the loop delivered on the promise of a great experience – we swam in a secluded turquoise spring, took a 7-kilometer boat ride through a massive cave and spent a night in a beautiful village with a Laos family. It was great time but it wasn’t the same knowing our fellow comrade was missing out. In the end, we couldn’t wait to get back to Vientiane as fast as possible to collect Joyce and continue on our adventure together.