crossing the "Saisombun special zone" (17-22 march 05)

After a week of rest in Vientiane, recovering from our various viruses and fatigue, we head north on road 13 with, once again, a little adventure in mind. How about a little side trip east into the "Saisombun special zone" (as the Lao government calls it)? This special zone has remained closed to foreigners and tourists for many years. Some parts still aren't accessible. But we finally manage to find one person who lives in Laos who rode the road in january this year. We decide to try it, keeping in mind we may have to turn back. So off we went, without really knowing what was expecting us...

On the first day, leaving Vientiane, we ride 135km north on a nice sealed road (road 13) to Ban Tha Heua. Road and bridges are in very good shape: China (but also Japan, Australia, but mainly China) builds roads in Laos... in exchange for logging, mining, or else (contrary to other countries in South East Asia, Laos still has relatively intact native forests; massive logging is only fairly recent, but fast!). Very quickly, we find ourselves, at last after some 4000km, in the mountains! We won't leave them for quite a while... But what pleasure it is to meet with the mountains again! Sure, it makes our days a bit more difficult on the bikes, but we are so happy! The scenery, ridges, down and up hills, surprises around the corner... all of these make us feel comfortable with our surroundings. It is so good to be once again surrounded by mountains, after 3 years in "flat" Australia...

The following morning, we head east into the special zone: and there we are, back to rocky, unsealed, challenging roads, with 12 to 13% grade uphills (for those who like numbers). No part of this road is flat: you either go up, or down. We are extremely slow going up hill, and very slow going down hill because of the challenging road surface. But already, we get a glimpse of a few isolated villages and their inhabitants, the Hmongs (north of Laos is populated by dozens of different tribes). The views from the hilltops offer us a nice spectacle: a forest of small rugged mountains going in all directions. At km 12, after a small bridge over a river, a big whistle blow puts a halt to our slow progress (actually 2 whistle blows since yvoine - we are not sure how - missed the first one and carried on riding like nothing had happened, ignoring the officer in his army green uniform telling the 2 cyclists on the road to stop...).

The man with his army cap explains to us in his best lao and "hand & body language" that we cannot go any further: "turn back, not allowed to go further, you are going to get shot at". His tone is firm and quite absolute. There does not seem to be any alternative. Getting shot at? This Saisombun zone is a special zone because it was, for many years, at the heart of the "secret war". From 1964 to 1975, the United States, North Vietnam and China have all breached the Geneva treaty of 1962 granting Laos its neutrality and forbidding the presence of military personnel on its territory. Kennedy was putting into practice his domino theory, and North Vietnam & China were working for the revolution cause... CIA sent agents to Laos to train, equip, supply and of course finance a clandestine army made of Hmongs mainly (but also Laos and Thais) in the biggest para-military operation the States ever conducted. They were supported by US Air Force officers operating under "civil" cover. Long Chen, in the middle of the Saisombun special zone, became the US secret head quarters, with one of the world's busiest air traffic at the time! In 1973, the US-Hmong-Thai forces had done 580944 air sorties, ie an airplane full of bombs every 8 minutes, 24 hours a day, non stop for 9 years! On the other side, the North-vietnamese & Pathet Lao front (Pathet Lao is the Lao communist party that ended up winning the war in 1975) was also fighting hard. From 1969 onwards, an entire division of the North-Vietnamese army was based in the Saisombun special zone, ie around 70000 troops... As the war was getting to an end in Vietnam, it sadly gave the US more capacity to increase the bombing intensity in Laos. Anything went, from bombs, to landmines, to the infamous "Orange Agent"... By the end of the war, Laos became the most heavily bombed nation, per capita, in the world.

The special zone was created after the war, by the Pathet Lao, to control the Hmong insurgents... The "military density" of the zone is therefore high. And so there we are, under a sun that is starting to get quite hot, facing the man with his army cap and uniform, telling us to turn back. We try to smile a bit more, and a bit of body language... Nothing will do. And then Mike throws himself into it full swing. He shows to our officer our map world with our route marked on it, and he pedals with his hands, and he smiles, and explains how important this road it to us, so we can get to Paris. And he smiles a bit more and tries to soothe our officer, who is starting to smile! Behind our officer and his whistle, there is another army man trying to get reception on his cellphone and get a radio signal so he can listen to music at work. The signal is weak and bad. Mike shows him how to arrange the headphones in order to get a better sound. We are slowly winning. We go from "you cannot go there, you're going to get killed" to "we'll find a solution". Our officer asks for Yvoine to follow him with the passports, she obviously obliges. They walk 20 m together before the officer asks her to sit down on a wooden chair (outside), 20 m away from the checkpoint... Our officer leaves her there, gets on his motorbike and disappears with our passports. Good. But an hour, 3 small dollars and a strange permit hand written on a piece of paper (photo below) later, we get our passports back and start riding east again! First obstacle over.

After that, the road is but difficulty and challenge: rocks, steep slopes... We have to sprint, push, ride harder. But what an amazing road! Surrounded by very rugged and steep mountains, we go from one small valley to the other, follow the ridges, ride along terraced rice paddies, cross beautiful little rivers. Every time we hit a small flat surface, there is a Hmong village and the welcome is more than fanstatic: it is a real party! The children start dancing, jumping on one leg, screaming or singing "sabaidi falang!" ("hello foreigners!)... Incredible! We honk our horns so that the buffalos leave us a bit of room on the road (thanks again Nick for this fantastic horn: very efficient). There is very little in those villages, no running water, no electricity. The food is very simple: noodle or rice soup, rare meat, rare fruit. We eat what's available, with horses' appetite! But these people who have nothing don't want us to pay them! Like this young woman who gives us 2 big plates of sticky rice (the staple diet in Laos) but refuses our kips (the lao curreny). In fact, it is the opposite rather. After the sticky rice, another man, attracted by our bikes (as usual, when we stop, we attract 90% of the village population), and gets us to share some lao lao whisky with him (rice alcohol). In a small wooden glass, our host spills the first one on the floor: the first one is for the house spirits. Second one he pours is for himself. The third one is for us... And here we go, he explains to us lao lao is the secret for fast pedaling...

We get back on the road, and go through some country that is so remote that people watch us as if we came from another planet. Here and there, we come accross Hmongs, working: small harvesting in the native bush, slash and burn agriculture... But above all, we are surprised by the amount of work done by women and children. They are the ones we see carrying the water from the rivers to their homes, they are the ones carrying huge loads of wood along the road, or whatever food they have collected. The men generally follow, a towel in their hand (they have just gone for a swim in the river!). Life from one village to the other is pretty similar: people washing their clothes, or themselves, burning the hill side, and everywhere, children running a few meters along the road with us. "sabaidi, falang!" We pitch the tent and immediately attract a small crowd. Some of them invite us to their village, but we generally prefer the tent. They disappear soon after dark. We cannot tell whether it is the tent or the cooker that gets them most intrigued...

Following morning, we get caught in a thunder storm. It stops for a little while so we decide to get back on the road. But not even an hour later, it comes back, for the whole day. The rain keeps on falling... Our road, which was already hard to ride on, becomes virtually impossible: a mix of rocks, mud and small streams. A tuk tuk passes us, it will give us a ride for 10 km or so, where we can wait for the storm to pass. Following morning is clear, so we head off. The road is a bit muddy, but ride-able. The hills are now 22% grade. But we are full of energy and we slowly get over those hills! After an exhausting 80 km day, we find a nice little camp, looking down at the valley we have just climbed out of.

And finally, after a 10km descent, so steep, rocky and unstable that we cannot go any faster than 12 km/h (somewhat frustrating!), and after crossing a river on a swing bridge with a few boards unattached or missing (enough that you can straight into the river - photo above), we get to Tha Viang. We are semi-heros. The locals cannot believe it: you are coming from there? on your bikes? Smiles, victory signs, high fives: they congratulate us. After that, we get to ride another 50km on unsealed roads, before we find some seal again. It is so good to go a bit faster, and feel the wind on our faces as we get some speed descending. For 3 days, we ride between 500 and 1500 m above sea level, from village to village, ridge to ridge, river to river. A truck passes us and stops. The driver gets out of his truck and comes towards us: "take these lollies, you'll need them, you have another 16km to climb to get to the top of this one!". Nothing is flat, but we enjoy the ride! A short stop in Phonsavan to visit the Plain of Jars, an archeological site, where, on top of the jars, you can admire the craters left by the American bombs during the war... And we can only wonder how a nation can justify to have bombed so many territories around the globe? One can always find a good reason: the communist threat yesterday, the axis of evil today...

At the end of this week, we get to Luang Prabang, a charming town north of Laos, where we decide to rest for a couple of days. 300km to go, and we will be in China.