"The road is horrible. Take a boat around or put your bike on a truck." I had been warned. Two of my Harley-Davidson globetrotting friends had pitched their bikes on a truck for the 120-mile section between Luang Nam Tha and Huay Xai. Several other motorcycle travelers avoided the bad road by loading their bikes on boats for a 6-10 hour float down the Mekong River to Pak Beng.

Leaving the "Land of Smiles" (Thailand) to ride the jungles of Laos just across the Mekong River was not easy.

Going from Thailand to Laos gave an indication of how "horrible" can translate. From Chiang Khong I paid $12.00 for a motorized canoe and six men to lift my bike in, then out again once we crossed the Mekong River to the Laos side. Water filled the leaking boat faster than the owner and I could bail. His solution was to speed across the river to the opposite side before the boat submarined.

The bottom of the canoe had holes big enough to stick a finger through. When I asked why it did not sink, the owner told me he pulled it up on the beach when it was not in use. Once in the water it had a "float time" of about 15 minutes, which meant five minutes to get it loaded and 11 minutes to race across the Mekong. If we bailed fast enough he said we could add a few minutes, in case the engine stalled. Upon inspection, the holes looked more like bullet holes than rot.

Once in Laos I asked about the road ahead and was told all "OK-OK, no bandits, bus running." I thought that if a bus could make it, so could my motorcycle and me as its pilot. I am a biker, not a piker, so how bad could some gravel, mud, dust, and river crossings be?

Not bad, actually. Five hours later found me in Luang Nam Tha, just as the sun was going down, which was good, because riding at night in this part of the world is suicide. What was bad was my malaria had kicked up again. I had gotten the bug in South America, or maybe it was Honduras, years ago. For some unknown reason it likes to come back and run me to ground for a couple of days once or twice a year.

Something else hammered me that evening; bad food ingested in the morning. The night was made more memorable by having to hunt for the toilet in the dark seven or eight times because the Laos government shut off the electricity to the city each night at 10:00 PM.

In the morning I was melting with fever, my brain felt like a Nazi had probed it, every joint ached, my lower digestive tract was bubbling and I was dehydrated. The map showed a solid line for the six-hour ride ahead, which meant maybe it was paved and in good condition, and it was, in places. In other sections the potholes reminded me of a Bureau of Indian Affairs road on an American Indian reservation when the tribe had not kissed up to Washington, DC bureaucrats or politicos for the last 20 years.

By 3:00 PM I was physically beat up, and started falling asleep while trying to dodge potholes, chickens, piglets, water buffalo, dogs, ducks, geese, goats, cows and people while passing though villages where dark brown children ran naked and waved crazily when I rode by.

Laos and parts of Africa have naked children waving at motorcyclists in common. They run along the road or out of bamboo huts to yell and wave, which I try to acknowledge. Their waves are not the clannish ones motorcyclists in the USA pass back and forth when bikers are passing each other, waving as if to say, "Hey, you’re alright, because you’re riding a bike I like." For Laos’s children, and some grown-ups, a motorcyclist riding through their village is the biggest news of the day or week. With no electricity, or money to buy a newspaper, your riding through their village is like seeing a messenger from Mars. A simple wave back gives them acknowledgement, and something they can share with the rest of the village.

The road consistency varied from dust to pavement. My rear tire chose to blow out on a curve with powdered dust nearly six inches deep. Stopped on the side of the road I was being covered with the brown powder from any car, truck or bus that went by. I looked like a jungle gnome to the passerby’s. My sweat was making dust stick to my face, arms and upper body. Everything around me, including the motorcycle, was covered in the fine dirty stuff. It’s no wonder nobody stopped.

The tube had worn a small hole where it had rubbed against an inner spoke. It exploded when the air inside rushed through the hole causing the tube to rip. This often happens with synthetic rubber tubes, which mine was. As I examined the tear I realized no amount of global motorcycle traveler ingenuity was going to make a roadside repair to the tube. It was ripped beyond repair.

Sometimes I do have luck. One of my lessons from numerous motorcycles rides to distant places is to always carry spare inner tubes, a hand pump, adequate tools and tire irons to change a tire on the side of the road. The tube patch kit I carry can repair most small punctures, but on this day what was needed was a replacement tube, and I had one, and the tools to do the job. Where I was playing dirt gnome in Laos was in the jungle, 100 kilometers from the nearest motorcycle shop, which would have no replacement tube for the size on my motorcycle. Had the same puncture happened on a big motorcycle it is doubtful that a repair could be made. Just to remove the bead/tube without a bead breaker (which few people carry) would take an afternoon and the strength of a large gorilla. The jungle I was in had no gorillas. Nor did I have all afternoon before the sun set and other two and four legged uglies came out. An hour later I blessed what my critics call folly for carrying too much in weight with tools and tube, and was back riding.

I would not want to try this tire change on a Gold Wing. With 95-degree humidity and heat, the only water was my own sweat. No roadside assistance plan from AAA was going to answer my call for help, and I was entertainment to the passing buses and trucks as the covered me in dust.

Passing through the villages of Laos I noticed the lack of trash. While Laos has one of the lowest Annual Average Incomes (1998 - $370.00 USD), their villages are not trashed out with plastic bags, bottles and garbage like I had seen in other poor countries around the world. I concluded that the villagers, while being poor, had a sense of pride and cleanliness that exceeded other poor people, possibly having something to do with Laos being predominantly Buddhist. The second fact may have been they do not have the money to purchase things that generate trash, like plastic bottles of Coke or plastic bags filled with groceries and junk food. Finally, there were no places selling the plastic packaging. There were some small stores, but nothing more than bamboo huts with small items like noodles and chips wrapped in plastic, the synthetic packaging eventually being burned for cooking, a Laos local recycling program. Empty Pepsi cans would be cut and flattened, then used for roofing material or crafted into a local arts and crafts object. I wondered about used condoms, then realized there were none, which explained why every woman over 16 was carrying a bundle on her back or hip.

I whacked one chicken. The rooster committed suicide when it ran in front of my motorcycle, did an about face, darted back, then changed direction again. I first thought it might have been a hen by the crazy decisions it was making, but realized it was a cock when the feathers exploded and saw the exploding colors of the rainbow, not henish browns.

I had been told that if you killed a chicken, you must stop and pay, about $2.00 for a hen, but significantly more for a rooster.

Running over a large rooster with a 21-inch front wheel on a motorcycle is like running over a slightly deflated football. First the front wheel turned to a full lock position to the right, then the back wheel tried to pass the front wheel and pitch me in the air at the same time. With both feet off the pegs and well above the seat, I put on a clown show for the gaping villagers.

Next the back wheel landed and the front wheel went to a full lock position to the left. With legs still flapping, this time the motorcycle tried to throw me off the other side, but at a greatly reduced speed. My privates banged onto the gas tank, but before the whiteness blurred my vision and I screamed, I yanked the handlebars into a straight position and my extended right leg kept the bike from flopping over. Then I screamed. Not screamed, more like a red howl mixed with a yellow high pitched death chant.

All of this was very entertaining to the villagers, so I decided since they had paid no price for their admission to the "Dr. Gregory Frazier and his Wild Indian Show," the price I would levy was the flopping chicken in the road. I did not stop and pay the road-kill fine. The villagers were probably talking about that show for the next week, or longer, since they would not have fresh eggs until another cock could be found.

My contact with the chicken, and resulting bell-ringing when I landed on the gas tank, were enough to keep me awake until I rode into Laung Prabang, a falling-down-being-built-up small town on the banks of the Mekong River.

Riding down the main street I saw a Honda Africa Twin motorcycle. Any motorcycle in Laos over 110-cc size generally means it is owned by a foreigner, and most likely a traveler like myself, so I stopped to exchange travel information. I was surprised to find the owner was one of my adventure friends and fellow authors, David Unkovich. Known as the Golden Triangle Rider, Unkovich was in Laos mapping roads for a new map he is soon to publish.

Unkovich and I are two of the three founding members of the North Thai Tea Drinking Society, the third being Don Duvall, known as the High Thai Rider. Duvall I knew had just sneaked into Vietnam and Unkovich was supposed to be back in our home base of Chiang Mai in Thailand representing the Tea Drinkers at local swilleries.

Reprobates in disguise. To the ordinary passerby Unkovich (on the right) and I could have passed for tea drinking jungle runners.

The "High Thai Rider," Don Duvall, smiles before swilling snake wine (snake is in the bottle).

For the next two days I medicated and healed while catching up on Internet newspapers and correspondence. During the day Unkovich and I also did photography in the area along with his mapping. Each afternoon at High Tea we would meet at a two table restaurant on the eastern bank of the Mekong River to watch the sun set across the slowly moving brown muddy water as cooking fires on the western bank replaced the reddish glow of the dropping sun. We would celebrate another riding day and the fact that members of our secret society do not drink much tea.

Unkovich had discovered a cheap source for Glen Turner whisky in Laos, a bottle of which we easily dispatched the first night with the help of American probationary Tea Drinker, Robert Hiekel. BMW R1150 GS mounted Hiekel, like me, was wandering around Laos with little more than a pack sack on the back of his bike. In this land of small people (5 feet tall is large) and small motorcycles, Hiekel was a giant. At six feet seven inches tall, riding the largest dirt bike in the world (the BMW weighing slightly less than a Burmese elephant), Hiekel would turn heads wherever he rode or walked (he had to fly in size 13 ½ shoes from the USA as none were in Asia). The two Tea Drinkers and the giant Hiekel chased the fifth of Glen Turner with a dozen Beer Lao (local beer), then stumbled off to a disco to show the locals how to dance.

Hiekel and Unkovich have a mid-day summit to determine why none of us was able to win the dance contest the night before. We concluded Unkovich earned First Place for doing the "Upside Down Turtle," (where you lay on your back and pretend you are a turtle, while Hiekel got First Place for the "Jolly White Giant."

The next day the Tea Drinkers realized the $12.00 Turner booze was probably fake, most likely smuggled into Laos from China. A close inspection of the packaging showed it to be perfect in appearance, but beering it with Beer Lao proved it to be watered down swill as none of us were able to win the boogie contest. That night we switched to JB Scotch, which we again beered with Beer Lao. As the Tea Drinkers parted the next morning we had a new Tea Drinker’s password, "Don’t Beer Lao with JB."

Hiekel and I decided to explore the area around Phonsavan. One of my BMW F650 acquaintances had been afraid to try to ride to Phonsavan so had parked her bike and booked a roundtrip flight instead. Hiekel and I, filled to the gills with Beer Lao and JB, jointly decided to ride the road, saying "Posh, we can do it. We’re bikers, not flying pikers."

The area around Phonsavan is known for two things, the military battles over the years, and the Plain of Jars. The second offered more interest than the first, although the amount of UXO (unexploded ordnance) still in and on the ground kept me on alert, especially when walking or riding through tall grass, off paved highways.

Spread over three sites about 10 kilometers apart there are nearly 500 large stone jars, most weighing from 1,000 to 2,000 pounds. No one knows where they came from, or what they were used for. What is known is each was carved from stone, not indigenous of the area. The jars are estimated to be 2,000 years old. The biggest weighs six tons and can easily hold up to a dozen people standing up inside. One popular speculation is the jars were used to make wine, a theory I discount. I can see no solid reasoning behind carving huge jars, carrying them untold miles, spreading them over three different sites, merely to ferment wine. It would have been much easier to stew the brew closer to home.

As the sun set over Site Number 2 I looked from the top of the small hill where the jars were strewn about and thought I felt a semblance of energy coming from the ground. A hasty ride over to Site Number 1, where the sun was setting on 250 of the jars, and again I felt something cosmic.

Some of the jars scattered about on a wooded knoll at Site Number 2. One I looked into was home for several hundred spiders. I quit peering into the dark recesses when I realized they could also be home for snakes.

I do not know if other American Indians have visited these sites, but my sense as I left was the jars were not there for making wine. Instead, I think each area was a vortex and the huge stone jars were coffins brought to the area carrying the bones or bodies of a people wishing to move from this zone to the next assisted by the outgoing energy of the vortex. This would explain why the jars had tops made for them and why the tops were taken off and laying about. It would also explain why there was no residual human matter like bones and teeth in the jars, they having turned to dust over time and blown away.

When I rode away from the Plain of Jars I could feel the slightest drain of energy. The feeling might have been from the fact that the government was at the same time shutting off all the electricity to that grid and the lights soon went to black, or a cosmic flow from the vortex.

I am not one to travel with other motorcyclists. Too often I worry they are going to do something stupid and disaster my adventure, as I have often seen done. Either crash, run into me from behind or be incompatible as in a nagger, wimp or whiner. Critics say I am self-centered, not wanting to share my adventure, and in a sense they are right. Some of my worst nightmares on long rides have been the result of going with someone else. My best adventures have been riding solo, solving problems my way, and finishing. I do not submit to the theory that problems can be solved in time. Instead I submit the theory that thinking things through will lead to a quicker solution, and thinking with a knowledgeable base leads to an even faster solution. Two (or three) heads are not always better than one when solving problems on the road, especially when one head is whining or nagging.

Hiekel and I were both aware that days before a bus had been shot up and grenaded on the road ahead of us. Two Swiss bicycle riders peddled into the mess before the guerrillas or bandits finished their business, and they too were killed. What Hiekel and I were debating, with each other and ourselves, was would it be better to ride through the hotspot alone or in tandem.

One line of thinking was to go together, with my quieter Yamaha bike in front of his BMW with its loud exhaust. I would stealth by first, and before the gun guys realized one of us had passed the other would slip through.

A second line of thinking was to let Hiekel blast by in the lead, and while guns were being focused on his broad back and bike the size of an elephant, I would quietly ride past. Before they could decide whom to fire at we would both be gone.

A third plan was to stay far enough apart so that if one of us were shot, the other would have enough time to stop and reverse direction if he saw what was happening.

A fourth option was to pitch the bikes on a truck and hope the bad guys were not interested in some local truck and more interested in another bus full of tourists and locals carrying money.

In the end, the "We’re Bikers, Not Pikers" won out. We knew the stupidest way to cross the killing zone was on a slow moving vehicle, especially a bicycle. The second stupid way would be in a slow moving bus with a bunch of unarmed tourists and locals going to the next town. The truck made some sense, but after four rides around the world I am not much for tossing my motorcycle into the back of trucks and paying for a ride, nor was Hiekel.

As we sat on the top of the mountain and looked down into the free-fire zone of the valley of killings we had to pass through below, Hiekel smiled over at me and said, "Let’s go ride the gauntlet."

As he pulled out in front on me I wondered why there are not more wonderfully foolish men like him riding motorcycles around the world. Then I realized he had probably never been shot at, robbed at gun point, or bleeding by the side of the road wondering who would come along and save him or strip off his clothes to try and get the dying quivers on him like happened to me in the jungle of Brazil. I smiled, blessed his adventure virginity, and my knowledge that he made a much bigger target in his red jacket on a huge motorcycle than did I on my Yamaha in hard-to-see black shirt and pants.

Over the next 100 miles we saw 40-50 men carrying guns, mostly AK-47s. Some were in military camouflage clothing while others wore nothing more than a pair of thongs and ragged pants. It was unclear if the latter were good guys or bad, but most seemed only interested in the size of our motorcycles. Once a rifle came off a shoulder as we rode by, but that was to shift its weight to the other shoulder.

One suspicious looking burned place on the side of the road could have been where the bus and the Swiss were shot up. Broken glass and charred pavement, with some torn clothing and a child’s stuffed animal, seemed to point at more than a rest stop. As I passed I thought about the two Swiss bicyclists who had been killed as they rode up on the site. Bad joss for them that day. Peddling a little slower off the mountain for two or three minutes would have saved their lives, as would have staying home or sleeping later that morning. For them it was the wrong time to be in that place.

I stopped in this village to take a photo of the houses. The only "friendly" that came out to meet me was the child. I took a few photos, then noticed I was being watched by two male villagers back in the trees, both with rifles. I quickly got back on my motorcycle and rode away, zigzagging out of town. My cameras, motorcycle and personal belongings were easily more than the Gross Village Income for this spot in the road.

Hiekel and I booked into a nice $10.00 hotel for the night that had hot water and electricity 24 hours a day, a change from our previous night with candles and cold water. There we met another BMW rider from the USA who joined us for an evening of reflection and beering, which eventually landed us in the local dance emporium. There the American met a local lady and at closing they agreed to go back to our hotel for some physical manipulations. As we arrived in the lobby an English woman in her late 20’s, who we had met earlier at the hotel, was sitting, after having had a spiff with her boyfriend who was upstairs asleep.

The next morning, when the American was packing his motorcycle to leave he found a scribbled note jammed into a pocket of his tank bag. It was filled with anger and called him a bastard for having been with a woman half his age and size. He wrote a note back to her saying he had "lived in this part of Asia for several years and most of the local population would appreciate it if you would take your dirty feet, smelly back pack, spiked hair and bad attitude back to Great Britain where they would be more compatible with the winter weather." Sadly for him she had checked out of the hotel in the early hours.

We wondered if she was just upset that he and his lady were happy in finding each other for some pleasure for the night while she and her boyfriend were having a spiff, so took the action of "If I am having a shit day, so you should too." A second theory was she was upset that he had given his attentions to an Asian instead of her. Another scenario was she was trying to change his actions by chiding him, which we cast off. A final suggestion was she was merely another sick Western woman jealous that a local lady had been successful in capturing the attentions of a Western man. The sick woman theory got the most votes.

As the American began to ride his motorcycle he noticed he had two flat tires. Nothing serious, just deflated enough to force him to have to stop and pump them up. The hoteliers and local Laos people all agreed it must have been the English girl who had deflated the tires because none could imagine a local person doing so. After airing the tires back up and pledging to do serious physical damage to her if their paths crossed down the road, the BMW rider said, "Yep, had to be the dingy English girl. It’s women like her that make life miserable for the British men, and now she wants to do all of us Westerners in."

The hotel manager said, in a rare moment of diplomacy, "We like the money, but not the attitudes of the Western women. If they would send us their money and stay home themselves it could do much to improve the lives of our women. The way it is now, they look down on our women, as lovely as they are, then through their actions and comments, try to make both the men and women miserable. "

The American thought for a few seconds, then offered, "Yep, having something physical with one of ‘em like her is a giant step towards becoming gay."

As the American rode off I wondered for a some seconds who he thought less of, the pretty Laos woman who had shared pleasure with him for the night, or the Western woman who left her hate note on his motorcycle. It took those few seconds to realize why he had abandoned the Western world in favor of the Land of Smiles and its neighbor Laos.

The next night I was enjoying High Tea on the bank of the Mekong River again, this time in Vientiane, looking across at Thailand. Hiekel commented on how it would be nice to get back to civilization across the river in Thailand. I knew what he meant, things like all-day electricity, Burger King, 24-hour gas stations and a road system void of potholes and gun guys. Then I remembered a war that was taking place in Thailand, a 90-day government War on Drugs. On an average day 42 people were being gunned down, either by the government or the drug people, and there were 60 days for that war to continue. I next thought of Los Angeles, California, known as the "Killingist City in the world" where two people a day were being gunned down in the streets. Next came visions of military warfare in North Africa, Afghanistan and other "hotspots" on the globe.

I choked the cold neck of the Beer Lao I was holding, looked across the Mekong, and said, "Robert, civilization might just be a state of mind. Let’s stay here another day."

We did.

Looking across the Mekong, towards the Land of Smiles.

END