Jinghong – Luang Namtha

The last few days have seen me doing some more jungle riding down to the Laos border! Here’s the story!

After a few days off the bike in Jinghong it felt pretty good to get moving again, once I got over the inertia of a multi-day break. I crossed back over the Mekong- there’s a pretty decent sized bridge over what is a big river.

I turned right across the bridge, and followed the river downstream. Pretty much straight away I hit some roadworks and found out what the dirt roads around here can turn into with a bit of water on them! There had been a bit of rain over the previous few days, and it just turns the dirt here into this thick red mud that sticks to everything! The bottom half of my bike got covered in it, flicking up all over the place even when I rode slowly. I had to stop and clean the mud off my wheels so that the brakes would work properly. Made me glad I didn’t hit the dirt roads I rode when it was wet!

I followed the Mekong downstream for a while- the road was sealed, but traffic was moderate- lots of trucks and cars racing past. Some nice fleeting views of the river though.

There wasn’t much climbing this day, a little 200m climb away from the Mekong towards Menglun. Most of the riding was through banana and rubber tree plantations.

I rolled into Menglun and after a few attempts found a hotel that would take me (including misidentifying a night-club for a hotel). It was right across the river from the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanic Garden. It cost a little bit to get in, but it was well presented, and a nice walk around looking at the different plants.

The next morning I saw a dog with hardout eyebrows, that was pretty cool..

I had a big day next- 100kms and 3 moderate climbs totaling about 1800m of climbing. Being reasonably fresh from the days off it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I’m hoping that this is a good sign for the big days of climbing I’ve got ahead if Laos, as long as I take my time.
On the way I noticed a lot of tree branches on the road. I wondered what had caused it, eventually I found out!

Here’s some photos from the day.




This is a pretty common sight in China- piles of half-burnt rubbish on the side of the road. In towns and cities you don’t see a huge amount because they have public bins (including recycling) and people cleaning the streets. But out in the country it tends to get thrown everywhere. I often wondered if part of the thinking around throwing the rubbish everywhere is that there’s often someone else to pick it up. In restaurants etc people would just throw their rubbish on the ground, making a hell of a mess- something your wouldn’t consider doing in the west..

I found a hotel in Mengla, the last big town before the Laos border. I had an un-nerving moment when the woman at the desk tried to tell me that my visa had expired! I couldn’t work out how to explain that she was looking at the “Enter By” date rather than the expiry date, but she eventually gave up and let me stay!
Behind the hotel was a big covered market.

It was an early start the next morning- on the road before dawn. I stopped for some tasty noodle soup on my way out of town.

I started so early because I was heading for the border! It was my first ever land-border crossing (of any significance- EU borders don’t count), so I wasn’t quite sure how long it might take.
It was a quick ride to the border.. Here are some (somewhat blurry photos)..

I don’t have any photos from the border area- they don’t seem to like you taking photos there. But the proces was pretty painless- people speaking English at both sides. I got my 30-day Visa on Arrival into Laos without issue- that’ll at least get me through till after New Years in Laos. Still working out my timings for where I need to be when to get my ship from Melbourne to NZ in March..

It was a quick 20km ride down valley to the junction town of Na Tuey where I stopped for a super-tasty noodle soup lunch.

From Na Tuey I decided to push on another 40km to Luang Namtha, an increasingly touristy town. Again it was a good ride. The roads are vastly different to China though. There the roads had nice shady trees alongside them, here it’s all open and hot with no shade. The poverty is noticeably worse too- concrete house construction is much rarer and most seem to be almost woven.. I’ll try and get some good photos of them for future posts.
One thing that’s noticeable is how friendly the kids are- I feel like a rockstar riding along and having these kids running alongside waving!

Here’s a very short video of a couple of them- I’ll try and get some better footage in future!

Lao Kids waving from Dave Collett on Vimeo.

So yeah, now I’ve been in Luang Namtha for a couple of days. It’s taking a bit to settle in. I got quite used to being the only westerner around for the last 3 weeks from Dali south (other than in Jinghong). Here it seems that there’s more westerners than locals! And apparently this is a relatively quiet town on the backpacker trail!

I’ve update my Actual Route page with the complete China route, so check that out. I’ll try and get my China Summary post up sooner rather than later too!