sam neua, vieng xai july 27-29

this one's a bit long. written end of july:

this recent bit of the adventure really emitomizes laos:
the next day we went to sam neua. again, many hours on a bus. but no one vomited! there was a basket of chickens on the roof and a little basket of live frogs inside the bus. and a crazy man in the back of the bus smoking and coughing like he had emphezema. looking ahead at the two no-smoking signs on the bus. we got to sam neua (where i am while writing this). we met a french boy named julien and we've been hanging out with him. near this town there is a place called vieng xai, which was really heavily hit by the US bombing in the vietnam war. government officials and soldiers and many more people lived in caves there for the 9 years that bombing happened. they're called the pathet lao caves. so yesterday we woke up and met the french boy at 7am to go rent motorbikes to go to the caves. there are english tours of the caves at 9am and 1pm. we got to the motorbike place but it was raining a little so we thought we'd take the bus instead. we started walking to the bus station we came in at, but then we asked someone and he said that the bus to vieng xai left from another station three kilometers away. and he pointed us in a direction. so we walk that way, and get to an intersection. to the left, the paved road we are on continues, and forward and to the right it is dirt road. so we go left thinking that's the way a bus would go. after 10 minutes or so the road ends at a creek. and people are crossing to go work on fields on the other side. the bridge across? there is a rusting i-beam lying across the creek that people walk across. amazing. so we turned back and wandered around the dirt roads for a while, and we went to see two monuments of the town which were supposed to have good views. so the first one we walked and walked the wrong way (but we followed the sign) and eventually got there. to a locked gate. we saw another monument and walked there, only to find another locked gate. and then we went to the tourist office which opened at 8. they gave us a map! thank goodness! so it turns out that the bus station we want is indeed 3km away, but in a different direction. we set out at 9 or 9:15. at about 10:15 we get there, because it's actually 4km away. vieng xai is about an hour away in the bus and the buses leave every hour. and the tour was at 1pm. the next bus (which is actually like a small pickup truck with two rows of seats in the bed) is supposed to leave at 10:30. no problem, we waited. at 10:30 a man who works there told us there weren't enough people to go at 10:30, so the next one would leave at 11:30. which was fine, we'd still make the 1pm tour. so we waited. and we were sooo hungry, and there were no restaurants, only bus station food. so foo and i bought these cheese flavored crackers, which actually were sweet and only vaguely cheese-flavored, and also a pack of dry instant noodles. there was no hot water so we ate the dry noodles and crackers and the french boy bought a mystery food wrapped in a banana leaf. we sat down to eat and he opened it and it was fish. a whole fish. the head, the tail, the bones. cooked in some spicy sauce. he ate some parts but i think gave up after a minute because it was really spicy and many parts seemed to be unidentifiable. and eventually 11:30 came around. we sat in the bus with two lao women and no one around spoke english. at 11:45, the lao women were leaning over a giant box and looked like they were taking a nap. so at 11:50 i found someone who spoke english and asked when it was leaving and he said 12:30, still not enough people. if there were actually enough people by 12:30, which was no guarantee, we would miss the tour anyway. so after an hour walk and almost two hours of waiting, we walked the hour back to the center of town and ate lunch. where foo and i both found worms in our food. not the best day ever.

we decided to give it another go today. so we met the french boy at 7am again and walked to the motorbike rental shop. the guy from yesterday wasn't there, and the guy in the shop just looked at us and continued working on a bike. after about 10 minutes a woman came out and we asked about renting a bike and she sort of told us/indicated in limited english that the guy wasn't there. then walked away. so we were just left standing there. and after 40 minutes of waiting, finally the guy came back. he rented us two motor bikes and three helmets. but one was out of gas so the woman left and came back a minute later with gasoline in a soda bottle. they poured it in the gas tank and we were off. we stopped at a gas station on the way and foo and i got gas but the seat wouldn't open for the french boy to get gas in his bike. so foo and i went on and he went back to get it fixed and said he would catch up. so foo and i left, with her driving and me on the back. the french boy caught up with us and said that they just hammered a screw driver around in the lock on the seat for a while and 'fixed' it. the road to vieng xai is like other roads in laos, windy and full of hills. they're mountain roads but not very safe ones. you have to be in a super low gear going up hills and really downshift/brake going down hills. we got there in a bit less than an hour and found the cave tour office. we walked in at 8:50. victory!! a whole day of trying and we finally got there! no one was at the desk so after 5 minutes or so foo yelled 'sabaidee!' down the hall and someone came out. we signed in and then he told us that the one guide had to take someone to the hospital and the other one is busy, could we come back at 1pm? well, if that's the only option, i suppose so. what to do til 1pm? it was 9am. he was really nice and drew us a map of a bike tour we could do on our own to take around there seeing rice paddies and villages and rivers and caves and mountains until the 1pm cave tour. two hours on a bicycle, but less with motor bikes. then he said 'are you happy to do that? does this bike tour make you happy?' oh, cutest nicest man ever, no i was not happy but with no other choice, i was going to do the bike tour. we had breakfast at a restaurant in the market. we wandered around the market and oh my goodness there is some crazy food eaten here. huge bugs and worms, cockroaches, flattened rodents (with hair still on) skinned whole baby cow, giant bull head, sort of a jello made of blood from some animal. i opted for the more familiar fried noodles dish.
we started the tour and i took a turn driving the motorbike and foo was behind. first we were going up a really steep hill and the bike was really struggling so i shifted from 2nd to 1st and almost threw foo off the bike. oops. then we went down this seemingly endless really steep hill. it was a gravel road and there weren't too many other people/vehicles around. and the back brake of the bike didn't work so i was using the front brake. and the hill just kept going and going, so i shifted from 4th to 3rd. the brake seemed to not be working as well after a while, so i downshifted to 2nd, and i felt the brake working less well still, then it just gave out. and foo and i were on this motorbike going downhill with no flat ground in sight and no brakes. and it was going faster and faster and i couldn't slow down. we passed the french boy going really really fast and i didn't know what to do but going that fast was not a good option so i shifted into first gear to try to slow down which almost threw us both off because we were going so fast, and the engine was screaming really loudly and i was panicked and i know foo was wondering what the hell i was doing going so fast down this gravel road super steep hill. but the bike slowed down a little and the hill briefly got a little less steep, and i put my feet on the ground to try to skid to a stop. and finally the bike stopped. my whole body was shaking. and i got off and was all panicked, and foo and the french boy thought i was just trying to drive fast for fun. by the way, that is not a thing i do. speed is not a thing i'm attraced to. so i was shaking and telling them that the brake didn't work, we were just going down this huge hill with no way of stopping. then some people who lived on the side of that road came out and sort of looked at the bike while we tried to show them that the brake didn't work. so foo and i switched bikes with the french boy because we couldn't walk the bike back and the brake seemed to be working a bit more and it's easier to stop one body than two. so after that we continued on the trail and saw lots of this amazing beautiful country. lots of people in their little homes on stilts on the side of the road, with weaving looms underneath. and lots of rice paddies and corn fields. we got to a stream with a woven bamboo bridge and had to walk the bikes over. then got to another bigger creek with no bridge so we walked the bikes through. and this was probably an hour and 15 minutes into it, maybe more. we were thinking it wouldn't take more than an hour. it started raining so we stopped for a bit under an overhanging rock. some kids with giant cows passed us and laughed. probably not a lot of white folks go through there.
it wasn't raining too hard and we had to be back for the 1pm tour, so we continued in the rain (oh yes, foo was driving since i almost killed us going down the hill) we finally got to the fork in the road where to the left was vieng xai and to the right was the road to vietnam. and we were going up and up the hill and the french boy was ahead of us. and then our bike died. i yelled for julien but he couldn't hear. so we walked up the hill a bit and started it again. it went for a minute or so and died again. we started it again. and it died a minute later. we were out of gas. the french boy realized we weren't behind him, thank goodness, so he came back and then went off again to buy some gas and bring it back. about 5 minutes later he returned with a glass bottle of gas. we put it in the tank and drove about two minutes to find this little roadside shop with about 10 glass bottles of gas. i suppose lots of people run out of gas around here. but turns out we were only like 1km from the town. so we got into the town and to the gas station. which, of course, was out of gas. then the woman gave us plastic chairs to sit on. and we were all thinking 'of course, nothing here works. this is the hardest day of tourism ever' and then a pickup came with two barrels in the back. they siphoned out the gas into the big tank, and we got our gas and were on our way to the cave tourist office again! we got there at about 12:55. success! we got a guide and went to see several caves which were people's homes for 9 years! amazing! all hidden in the mountains. they had bedrooms and living rooms and dining rooms and kitchens and emergency rooms with air pumps and offices and meeting rooms. like a home but in a mountain. that was pretty cool. and all over the area (and the rest of the country) there are huge bomb craters in the ground. so the caves were interesting but really not so exciting compared to the adventure getting there. we headed back at about 3:30pm for the 30km ride to sam neua. of course, it started raining on the way, but not too bad, thank goodness. we got back at 4:30 in one piece. and here we are now, going to hop on another bus tomorrow at 8am. 12 hours to the next stop then about 6 more til we get to china!