Pictures & Information From Long Tieng

Whilst the Vietnam war raged on, across the fence in Laos the CIA were running a clandestine war in Laos. Long Tieng was an air field, one of the most busiest in the world at that point, some 30,000 people lived and worked there. today some 2000 people inhabit the small town which was closed to the public until recently.

For the last 6 years I’ve been able to visit Long Tieng many times and explore the whole area. We’re pretty sure more secrets are hidden within, so a tour of Vang Phao house is quiet an experience, walking the runway or checking out all the old building is always fun too, the King’s Palace is quiet something to walk around high up on the hill. On a warm day there is no better place to sit and ponder what went on here.

Hope you enjoy the pictures……

For tours and information……..

I had never heard of this Cave in Oudomxai, which is a little surprising when you consider how big it is. I’ve put its detail at the end of this text, which is well worth the reading.

Our story is we were in the area looking for a camp site, when we saw the Cave on the map. We rode in its direction, not expecting anything more than a cave. On arrival we found a very impressive facility, including information and toilets. The whole site has been developed, including a new access road from Route 13, which should be finished in late 2020.

We camped there, although the Village of Ban Chom Ong has a Homestay. There is another homestay being built much closer to the Cave, but camping is allowed so overnighting is not a problem. Toilet facilities are clean and tidy, and they even have a disabled toilet. There are no showers, but we bathed in the handy river nearby.

The people working at the Cave organised meals as we wanted. You can do that yourself, but it was too wet to BBQ when we were there. Once there you can look around the Caves by yourself, or take the 2-day Trekking Tour that is on offer. The Tour means you are shown everything, get to sleep inside the cave, and trek back the next day.

There is a ‘wet cave ‘ and a ‘dry cave’. We looked at the dry cave which has had much work done to it, inside and out. The whole place has been fixed up really well. It’s great to see the daily cleaning of toilets, emptying of rubbish bins, and sweeping of walk ways. All for the the benefit of customers unfortunately now few and far between, as we all know.

For you guys who like camping and hiking life, you’ll love this great weekend trip. It’s only 15,000 Kip to get into the Cave, but it’s guided Tours are more expensive, details below for that.

Getting there from Udomxai is easy. Just follow Route 13 North towards Luang Namtha, and there is a sign for the Cave about 25 kms out. Follow the road to the Cave, which is sign posted ‘en route’.The internet signal was pretty poor, which we didn’t mind. All in all, this is a great place to visit.

Chom Ong cave Info

The system stretches along a 4 km long mountain ridge, with parallel running and interconnecting fossil and river passages. It was explored to a length of about 18kms with some small, unpromising side passages remaining. The typical passage dimension is 20-25mtr wide and 20-30 mtrs high. Its two overlaying passages, a river and a fossil passage, are linked in a huge 100×30 mtr hall, that is 30-50 meters high.

The cave is a trough cave, that can be entered with exploration equipment near the small stream inlet in the north and left at the outflow in the south. A full traverse takes 5 hours, with an additional 1 and 3 hours respectively, return walking time to Chom Ong village! But this traverse is not recommended for tourists, as several climbing parts and slippery river walks are unavoidable.

The cave is not only one of the longest caves in South East Asia, but in the opinion of the cave exploration team, one of the most beautiful and interesting. With its two very different passages it has a diversity that is very rare. It impresses with several huge stalagmite and stalactite formations as well as vast glittering parts, sinter basins but also geologically interesting parts (shields, floe calcite etc.).

It’s said that Chom Ong cave is the most beautiful and diversified cave in Lao PDR.

Enquiries can be made on this number, Lao & English. Mr Thonkhan +856 2098553473 Whatsapp.

Bike No. 4 – 2015 Honda Maintenance – 88,000 km

In January this year, maintenance to the bike included: piston rings, barrel, cylinder head refurbishment, rear hub, chain sprockets, tyres, front brake disc, fork seals, and throttle cables. Following that, the bike was used by an agent of mine for nearly 6 months. I haven’t seen it since ‘lockdown’ began in March. Recently it was returned and needs to be brought up to the same standard as all the other bikes.

So I began with the frame. As it looked terrible, I took the whole bike apart. Everything was removed from the bike for a tear down to check the parts over. The frame underwent some cosmetic surgery at the paint shop. After checking the bike over, I needed to replace the steering head bearings which were pretty worn.

The frame came back from paint shop and looked great. Time to get going on rebuilding the 250L. After about 8hrs, she is back together and running nicely. I changed the oil and filter, added fresh coolant, and she seems happy enough. Appearance wise, it’s looking much better. I need to order some new plastics, other than that she’s in great shape ready to take you wherever you want to go in Laos.

Although no4 has done some serious miles, the bike still runs great. We still have 15 year old Baja bikes selling here for $2000.00 with a lot more miles than this one. New bike imports are slow and tax’s are huge on new bikes. We pay $3000.00 more than in Thailand where they are made. I keep the old bikes in good condition and rent them out at a cheaper price. I would have no problems jumping on this bike and riding it for 3 weeks. Loaning out a bike that is not at 100% is not how I do business. I don’t want to drive 100’s of K’s to fix something that should have been done already. Prevention is better than cure….

After the Maintenance

In fact, I’m thinking of doing just that. Heading off on a trip, that is. We’ve been sitting around since they closed the borders in March. From this page you can see we try to keep busy, fixing bikes etc. But I want to go back to the fun part of work, hitting the road. Now that No4 is ready to go, it seems like time to test her out! Maybe I’ll get a chance to head down South to check out some of the trails we run on our sister tours on the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

I got away by 7:15am on a nice, cool, dry morning. My final destination of Boulapha in Khammoune Province, was 900km away. I was planning on riding Route 13 to Phoukhoun, then switching to Route 7. That would get me to Phonsavan by lunch time, with a very tidy 270km under my belt. A great morning, good roads, and good weather, what more could you ask? I arrived at Phoukhoun about 9.30am and things needed refilling. One was the tank and the other was my stomach; petrol for the first and noodles for the second.

I by-passed Phonsavan and headed down the 1c to Lak So. Arriving there about 6pm, I was surprisingly still in the mood for riding so carried on. Thalang is where I threw in the towel. It was 7:30pm and I had ridden 758km in a day. Despite having ‘numb bum’ the rest of me was fine. I woke up in the morning feeling good with a bonus of only being 140km away from my final destination.

Another beautiful morning with the prospect of a fun ride across the Nakai Plateau can’t be bad! So off I rode, enjoying the countryside around me, arriving at Boulapha a couple of hours later.

How good is the CRF250 Rally?

Is it comfortable? Yes, with the additional bonus of its big windscreen giving you great protection from the weather. The sitting position was also just perfect for me and it’s suspension is much better than the CRF250L. The CRF250 Rally’s suspension is softer with more travel on the rear, while the front feels the same as the CRF250L.

With the bike being so well balanced, riding it slowly is no problem. Speed wise, is it fast ? No, not really. It’s average speed has increased by 15-20km per hour compared with the L. It has more power than other models, but could maybe do with a bit more ‘beefing up’. Is it thirsty? The 10 litres took me 360km before the gauge started flashing, but the juice ran out very quickly after that. Luckily I was in a village where they had fuel. Overall, good fuel economy. Looks wise the bike is great.

Time though to get back home and I decided to do some off-roading. I had dodged the rain for three days, but it got me back with a vengeance. It just poured down, stopped for an hour, then poured down again. I went home the way I came until Tatom on the 1C where I stopped for the night. In the morning, I went through Anouvong, Nam Gnon to check out the ferries, and then around the lakes to Vang Veing, over Kasi which was a mess, and finally home.

Off-road, the bike works well. That huge travel of its suspension easily dealt with terrain . The bike dealt with all the on-road and off-road problems equally well. With a set of Ohlin’s, and a bit more power, it would be great for us here in Laos.

Overall verdict: A great bike!

Rent one here….https://www.laoadvtours.com/rentals/

When I first came to Laos to ride, river crossings were plentiful, mainly by small canoes, today it’s a bit different, many have been forded and many new bridges are being constructed leaving the old bridges to nature.

The crossing I talk about here is The Xe Bangfai river crossing, It’s about 20 km South of Ban Langkhang which is on route 12 near the Mu Gai Pass, part of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. There are 2 big crossings, in the dry season there no problem but during the rainy season they become much harder to cross..

Ban Saenphan is the first crossing which looked like this in 2010.

These little boats are not stable when you’re on them, they rock from side to side, very uncomfortable on a big bike with all your gear on, if you fall in you may not come out alive, especially if the bike snags you. I know of one guy who fell in, he was fine but it took them 12 hours to retrieve the bike and make it work again. I think it was 2013 when the Forded the river.

We have crossed this many times, I prefer this to the Canoe, it’s safer but if you fall over the bike will get drowned, better than you drowning I think, some places its quite deep, slippery rocks make it harder, some big rocks, by no means a smooth crossing. We had a lot of fun here in the past, the big BMW’s were the funniest.

Now crossing is much easier, the ford is still there, but ferries run there now which are very cheap, 20,000 kip, so no need to get your feet wet anymore, suits me. Around 2017 major works started on the new bridge, 2018 saw it get damaged by a lot of water, the locals tell me the water knocked the spans of the Bridge, after the Dam collapse near Attapue.

Once you get passed this a little further up is the next crossing, just as big, with canoe options as well, I always ride it, dry season it’s easy, after the wet season depending on when you come, it can have a lot of water going through it.

March 2020 this is how it looks at the upper crossing.

Laos is changing fast, gladly not fast enough. Projects like this seem to take years to finish, this one has been work in progress for some time, once that bridge is finished, it’s the end an era on the trail. We will keep looking for different ways to go south…..

https://www.laoadvtours.com/motorcycle-adventure-tours-in-laos/14-day-tour-the-road-to-freedom-ho-chi-minh-trail-with-virginia-morris/

Major Lee Lue was a fighter pilot in the Secret War, he flew over 5000 missions and was highly regarded as one of the best, he came up in conversation with a pilot i know,who knew of Lee Lue, he asked me could we go look his crash site in Northern Laos.  Yes was the answer to that, some research done and we head out to find the places. Captain Ruidi and me.

First place we go is to Muang Soui, which is about 50ks west of Phonsavan and home to LS108, not much to see now but it was a busy site back in the war, we asked  few questions and got some directions to a rather remote little village to the south, about 25ks away, time to go take a look.

The Village is very remote and we’re unsure we had arrived in the right place, we found an elderly gentleman and asked him, he knew what we wanted and summonsed 2 villagers to take us to the spot in question, about an hour away.

First leg is on the bike, then its walking up some rather steep hills for about 40 minutes, when we arrive at the correct hill, the guys showed us a small area where they say Major Lee Lue’s plane hit the ground. All around us where bunkers, fox holes and trenches, lots of UXO around as well, not a safe place to walk around without the locals.

It seems that when he crashed the Vietnamese army where all over the site, basically picked it clean, he was not liked by the NVA army, he bombed them many times, so his death was a cause for celebration and mementoes were taken from the site by the NVA.

The Special guerrilla forces, General Van Pao and the US Pilots mourned his death, he was a hero amongst his fellow pilots and soldiers. When i returned home my neighbour asked me where I had been for 3 weeks, I told him about Lee Lue, he knew all about him and praised him, remembered him from his childhood.

Just west of Xepon, there is a tunnel complex along the Ho Chi Minh Trail built by the NVA (Northern Vietnamese Army) that runs between 2 mountains. It served as a base on the Trail among other things. Inside the tunnel has collapsed. So it still holds a few secrets which we will try to uncover.

It’s a short run down to Xepon from Villabuli, where we head next. I have been here before, but wondered about a second entrance. So the plan was to try and find it. We arrive in Xepon and checked into the guest house I always use. Just off the main road, it’s friendly and pretty cheap. Plus, we know the owners so it’s always nice to return here. Today we rest and get cleaned up, fix the bikes, drink some beer, and plan tomorrow’s events.

Hitting the Trail, Finding the Tunnels

Bright and early in the morning we set off of for the short drive along the trail to the Xepon NVA tunnel area where we will locate our guide and head into the bush. We found our man easily and of we went. On arrival at the sight, its clear to see its been busy here. Apparently the Vietnamese have been here checking out the site. The trail is big and well trodden, easy to get to this time.

The Tunnel has caved in about 10 metAbout 10 meters in is the where the tunnel has caved in, but we must be careful looking around as the the site was mined back in the day. However, we did see signs of small digs so maybe the Vietnamese checked the site for UXO. It’s a really remote area which makes me wonder how they choose locations?

I initially found these in 2016 with help of the Vietnamese army which we have contact with. Looks like we need to get in touch again and find out more if we can. We will revisit at some point, want to join us? Our tour on the trail “The Road to Freedom” goes to this site, check it out.

https://www.laoadvtours.com/motorcycle-adventure-tours-in-laos/

Seems like every day is ground hog day: clean the bikes, clean the filters, check the oil, chain, tyres, bearings, brake pads, lights, indicators, body work! We have a simple check sheet that documents what we did and when we did it.

Having worked on these for so long we pretty much know all the in’s and out’s of the CRF250L, we carry a lot of Honda service items that we have on the shelf, things we don’t have we order from Thailand and can get them within 24hrs if its urgent. Prevention is better than cure so we try to ensure we catch things before they break.

When we buy a second hand bike we check everything, including steering bearings, swing arm and linkages, everything gets checked and put back together if deemed fit, if not its changed, that includes things like Stators, they let go without warning about 40,000 km.

Crash Damage is always a part of the tours/rentals, if you break it we replace it, if we don’t replace the broken and damaged parts the bikes soon start to look rubbish, if you pick up a bike with broken parts it just looks crap, so best to keep it all looking best we can, scratches we can live with.

Refurbishment on the older bikes is a total strip down with the frame being painted and the motor checked for wear, these bikes may have some big k’s but with some effort they can be made good again so we replace many parts such as Ignition switches, fuel pumps, radiators, the engine will get stripped and replace things like timing chains, valves, guides, piston and rings and anything else that is worn, normally this results in a great bike that will do many more ks with out incident.