Feelin' Kinda Laos-y

HAHAHAHAH. Another solid pun. I wasn't actually feeling lousy at all until a few days ago I was the victim of some debit card fraud. The series of events is probably the most frustrating and discouraging thing to happen on this trip (which I guess shows how fortunate I've been). Hopefully I can pull things together this weekend and make it to Bangkok in time to box the bicycle and get my flight to San Francisco.
But sour topics aside, I do have some entertaining tidbits for you.
Let's start with Luang Namtha, over a week ago, high in the mountains. There I had the pleasure of meeting and riding with one of the craziest guys I have ever ridden with (and I've ridden with some pretty crazy dudes!). His name is Pablo and he comes from Argentina, although he's been riding the bike on and off (mostly on) for about 8 years. You can read about his adventures from the link on my front page.
Anyways, Pablo and I decide to ride the next leg together and set out upon the 107km ride from Luang Namtha to Oudamxai (which included something like 1200meters of climbing). I had originally planned to break it into two rides but upon arriving at the base of the big climb around 4pm, Pablo convinced me we should just go ahead and knock it out. Bad choice. The climb ended up taking us until just about dusk. At this point, the prudent thing to do would be to stop in a village and ask if we could camp nearby. Of course, Pablo, being insane, said we should continue down. After all, its all downhill so how long could it take? Poor choice. The worst 25 km of my life. Dark, sketchy deteriorating road the whole way. Probably the worst road conditions I have seen. Anyways, we did survive and it made a good story, so my thanks go to Pablo for pushing the envelope.
So Pablo decided to go towards Vietnam while my path lay southwards towards Louang Prabhang. Another series of challenging climbs. At one point I finished one ascent and was greeted by a guy selling ice cream out of a cooler on the back of his motorcycle. This was probably up around 1200meters. On the way down to 600 meters we must have passed each other 15 times as he would stop, sell some ice cream, then come past me. It was pretty funny and we were both having a good laugh by the bottom. Another fun aspect of riding that day was my discovery of a little game I like to call "Tag-a-Falang" whereby all the village kids run out screaming, giggling and shouting "FALLAAANNNNGG!!!" (which attracts more kids). Whichever children can wrest the prize of a high-five from me as I fly past is ensured the envy of his or her mates. It is rather entertaining, for me probably even more so than them!
On that uplifting note, I must head out into the city. I've crafted up another hobo sign looking for some money, so hopefully I can get something going for lunch. I'll drop you an update as soon as possible letting you know how the outlook for making my flight next week looks. Wish me luck, I'll need boatloads of it!