Thursday, December 9, 2010

Fishy and bricky hitchhike...


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Exploring caves.
In Thakek I decided to take one day off for me and for Lisu. After quite a few nights I got to my bed and finally there was no light on during the night!!! In the dormitory I met other travelers: Spanish and Italian that were canoeing down the Mekong, and Mr. Vik, Indian-Australian long-time traveler, who is searching for his own place around the world. Next day we went to explore neighbouring caves with Vik and in the late afternoon we split, Vik went back straight to Vientiane and I carried on in direction of Konglor Cave.


In this neighborhood there were already some mountains, so I decided to do partially biking and partially hitchhiking. And again amazing thing happen that at the sun set I waived one time... And the first truck stopped giving me a lift much longer then I expected to cover that day. When I got out from the car, the driver also got out to help me with Lisu. When we said goodbye, the driver realized that his truck with his engine on and keys inside is locked! Luckily one of the windows was gently open. With the help of a stick we manage to get it fully open in ten minutes.


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Artificial lake.
The next day I knew that I should have expected a very bumpy and hilly road. And indeed it was a case. But the views were very beautiful. Part of the road went through the region of a freshly made artificial lake for newly build water power station. This artificial lake was huge.


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Fishers.
In early afternoon I was tired with biking on this hilly and bumpy road. The problem was that there were not to many cars. This time it took me some time to stop a car. When it worked it was a small, old lorry caring fresh fishes from this artificial lake. This time I waited too long for the lift to say no. Generally, when I am hitchhiking I really say no. But there is one exception that I promised myself. After one of the traumatic hitch in Poland many years ago, on the round about of Gdansk, I drove with 18 years old girl in a sport car, who was not fluently in changing gears and was racing with another sport car... She even was overtaking two cars at once, so we were for a moment on the side way of the opposite line! This was quite scary. So, my promise is not to get to the sport car if the driver is younger than me. Here in Asia there is no sport cars.
Coming back to Laos' story, despite of strong fish smell I got with Lisu at the back of the truck. There was not too much space there. I sat on the plastic container with fishes on ice and Lisu was standing aside. After few minutes I realized two things. First that every my cell and every single item of my equipment is already soaked with the fish smell and they would keep it for at least few more days. Secondly, that it would be the most uncomfortable ride in Lao, not only in Lao, but ever. The road was very bumpy, the truck was driving not more then 30kmh but I was dreaming  that the driver would drive even slower, and on the other hand I hopped that the ride would have finished as soon as possible. This car was driving on the bumpy road for the last 30 years, so the suspension was completely damaged. I was sitting at the back of the truck with one hand holding Lisu and with the other holding myself. Every bigger hole that we came across me and Lisu were bouncing like a ping pong ball up and down. Few times I was afraid that one of us would fall down from the truck. The repeating movement and the overwhelming small of the fish made even my, already kind of iron stomach a bit dizzy, but luckily nothing followed it ;) Finally, we reached an asphalt road and shortly after the crossroad where I was going in other direction than my truck.


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Bricky hitchhike.
I rested a bit and I managed to get a short lift on the truck with some Buddhist monks. The last lift was one of the weirdest ones. The truck full of  bricks stopped. Those bricks look unstable and there were already five people sitting on top of it, and they stopped to give me and Lisu a lift! I hesitated a bit but I could not say no. I knew that they would be driving slowly since bricks are a very valuable building material. Outside the cities I have not seen  many brick buildings. I knew that I also had to be very careful not to accidentally kick off one of the brick. At the end the it was a very comfortable ride. In comparison to the fish ride, the brick ride was like a business class.

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