he distant from Muang Phu Khoun to Vang Vieng on highway 13 was around 120 km. Highway 13 was the main route connecting Vientiane to Luang Prabang with a lot of vehicles traveling up and down the highway. With all the vehicles, it wasn’t as enjoyable to ride compared to the roads further up north.
Vang Vieng was basically a stop over town for travelers journeying from Vientiane to Luang Prabang, its main draw being it’s natural surrounding beauty. We visited here a year ago while filming Season 1 - this time we’re just staying the night and will be moving on to Vientiane the next day. That night we lighted up a few floating lanterns to commemorate the completion of the first half of our journey. We stood there by the river and watched as the lantern floated into the dark sky.
The following day we traveled 150 km south for the capital of Vientiane. Once down from the mountains the first thing I noticed was how all of a sudden it got really hot. I started sweating profusely and was not looking forward to the kind of weather, I think, we’ll be facing during the second half of our journey.
We checked into a nice little guesthouse overlooking the Mekong River in the old part of Vientiane, on the other side of the river lays Thailand. I took a quick shower and went for a quick stroll around the old town. Most tourist probably enjoyed visiting all the Wats throughout Laos, I on the other hand enjoyed looking at the old French colonial structure/buildings and imagining what life must have been like back then. On the way back to the guesthouse I stopped in an ice cream shop and ordered a banana split, a first in a very long time! That night I stayed up watching “SAW III” on pirated cable TV and ended up sleeping around 2 am.
After only 3 hours of sleep I was awaken at five in the morning by one of our crew. Today we were to meet representative from CARE at the morning market to go grocery shopping. CARE has a restaurant/school, which take children off the street and train them in every aspect of how to run and operate a restaurant. Every employee of the restaurant was a former street children and the restaurant was called “Makphet.”
Things got off to a rocky start when one of the boys from the restaurant, who was to take us grocery shopping, got to the market an hour late. I found out later he’s an aspiring hip-hop dancer and wasn’t use to getting up so early in the morning. Anyway, we spent an hour buying all the groceries needed, loaded it into a Jumbo (Laos equivalent of a tuk tuk) and headed back to the restaurant. At Makphet we unloaded the food from the jumbo and carried it into the kitchen. I was trying to be helpful and volunteered to carry the huge sack of rice. What I didn’t know was the storage room was on the 4th floor. The sack must had weight about 100 pounds and I ended up carrying it on my shoulders all the way up the narrow staircase: why the heck store it on the 4th floor - I had no idea!
We spent the whole day with the children preparing the food in the kitchen, setting tables, serving the customers and cleaning up. On the second floor there was a classroom where children are given lesson in English. Most of the children are from up-country, they come into the city in search of work; however, most of the time they end up on the street with no where to go. Makphet was to be a training ground for these children, giving them the support and training needed so they may acquire the skill to earn a livelihood.
By suppertime we were hungry and decided to order some of the dishes prepared by the children for ourselves. Overall, the food was pretty good, in particular the pumpkin custard. Our waiter was the hip-hop boy who took us grocery shopping earlier in the day. I asked him if he knew any Thai hip-hop artist and he told me his favorite was Joey Boy. I told him Joey Boy was once signed to our label Bakery Music, which he didn’t believe, so I called up Joey and had him speak to Joey on the phone. After that he thought I was pretty cool!
By now it was getting pretty late and we decided to call it a rap. We bided farewell to the children of Makphet and thank them for allowing us to spend a day with them. Having been up since 5 in the morning I was very tired and wanted to go back to the guesthouse for a rest. However, the director told me we had some more shooting to do since he had no footage of Hui and I entering Vientiane the day before. They also needed stock footage of us driving around the city. We shot the whole night and finished around midnight, it turned out to be the longest day of shooting, 18 hours total, and we weren’t even going anywhere.
The following morning was a short ride to the Thai/Laos border. The immigration was very fast and took us less than 45 minutes crossing back into Thai soil. I had mix feeling being back in Thailand. A part of me felt good that we were back home. Yet, another part of me felt like Thailand was just a transit, a pit stop on our way to Cambodia. I knew we still had a long way to go before completing our journey and being back in Thailand felt a bit premature.
However, for Hui (my riding partner) it’s a complete different story. Hui is from Phu Rua, Loei and this part of our journey was somewhat of a homecoming for him. We rode from Nong Khai to Sri Chiangmai and on to Chiang Kham on highway 211, which runs parallel to the Mekong River. The ride was gorgeous with mountains on one side and the Mekong on the other. At Chiang Kham we headed south on 201for Loei and then west on 203 for the mountains of Phu Rua.
Riding up the mountains the weather began to get cold and as we were approaching Phu Rua, for some odd reason, I started to fell nervous for Hui. He left home three months ago after being discharge from the army. Now he’s coming home as part of a TV reality show. I wondered how his friends and family going to feel about this. As for myself, I’m looking forward to meeting his family and learning more about Hui, my riding partner for the pass month.
Next week we spend time with Hui’s family in Phu Rua. We then continue our trip across Isan to the province of Ubon, where we come across one of the most stunning place on our journey.
BACK TO TOP
