Atapeu to Da Nang to Hong Kong

I knew this was going to be a long day. Waking up at 6am in Attapeu, I had to drive back the 360km to Da Nang, repack my bag and catch my 6pm flight to Hong Kong.

Since I couldn’t take any chances or delays with the borders or roads, I went back the same way I came, via Bo Y.

I am not usually one to get up too early but whenever I do, it’s always worth it. The sunrise and morning fog make for some great photos, especially when driving around the mountains.

Despite being in a rush, I did stop to take quite a few photos on my way to the border. I figured that should I miss my flight at least I’d have some nice photos to show for it.

Crossing the border was again no problem at all and very fast, not many people that early in the morning and the border guards were all friendly. Well, aside from the guy at the exit of the border area who was a bit grumpy so it seems they always find the grumpy guys to put there on the Vietnamese side.

I made good time, despite taking photos but to avoid any delays, I didn’t take that many photos once I crossed the border and focused more on driving.

I made it back to rainy Da Nang just after lunch, a bit later than I would have ideally liked but it gave mea time to freshen up, get some rest and lunch before heading to the airport.

The flight was pleasant enough and arrived early in Hong Kong so that was nice as it gave me some extra time to take some photos on my walk to my hotel.

I left my hotel booking for the last minute so I ended up staying in a nice enough hostel but it must be the smallest room and most expensive room (given the size) I stayed at in Asia. Still, it was located right in Mong Kok so ideal for what I had in mind for my Hong Kong trip.

It will certainly be a nice change again to walk everywhere and take photos instead of taking my motorbike everywhere.

Road 18

Today was a lesson in what happens when ‘shit happens’ on a road trip and also what the best bike for such a trip is.

We started off in Attapeu and decided to take road 18 to get back to Pakse and avoid having to backtrack via the Bolavean Plateau.
Before starting the trip however we tried to fix a broken rear light on the Honda Click but after even the local Honda dealer said they don’t have the part (although they could change the full dashboard on the Honda Wave in no time), we decided to just get it fixed in Pakse.

Road 18 is supposed to be quite a difficult and bad road in Laos where a few people struggled with. Having been on many bad roads and roads that were supposed to be bad but turned out to be just a bit bumpy, I didn’t worry much.

The beginning of road 18 is not great and very bumpy with lots of small stones on it but if you drive fast enough over it it’s actually pretty easy.

We made it without issues to Sanamxai, where we stopped for coffee and met the very cool owner who gave us a tip for a interesting new road to Paksong.

After enjoying our coffee and a small detour, where we were doing slaloms around big and small puddles, we were heading to Ban Mai. This is where things started to get a bit difficult.

Due to the heavy rain last night parts of the road were flooded, the first section was no problem for the Wave or the Click, it was the 2nd section that meant our journey ended sooner than expected. The Click fell in the water and refused to start up again.

After pushing the Click with the Wave to the next village and being rejected by the only mechanic since he couldn’t fix it, we found some people with a truck to drive the Click back to Sanamxai and get it fixed there.
Before the locals agreed to take the bike however some money and some Lao Lao had to be exchanged. They would also only take the Click and I had to drive my Wave back to Sanamxai.

So back through the flooded sections without any problems and arriving in Sanamxai, the local mechanic was at least confident he could fix the Click.
About 2h later and after taking the whole bike apart they figured the piston was bent and they needed a new part but the nearest place to get a new part was Pakse and it would take 2 days.

Some negotiations later, they agreed to have a friend pick up the part in the morning and drive it to Sanamxai so they could have the bike fixed by tomorrow afternoon.

Without anything else left to do, we decided to take the Wave and go back to Attapeu for the night with the knowledge that no matter how new or good the bike is, if you can’t get parts for it you’re stranded when ‘shit happens’. This is why for these kind of trips a Wave is prefect since everybody can fix it and they have parts available in every village but definitely every city.
There is a reason you mostly see Honda Waves in small villages and rural areas.

Da Nang to Attapeu

Since I finished what I had to do in Da Nang and did want to continue the Laos road trip, I got up early and started driving to Atapeu.

This time, I had my Laos visa already so I decided to try a different border crossing. I went from Da nang to Thanh My via road 14B to join the HCM Road and head south on it.

This was the first time I headed south or Da Nang on the HCM Road so it was a good experience and nice to see something different.

The views are as always on this road amazing and there’s not much traffic so it makes for a nice relaxed drive, although the road condition here is not as good as further north.

There were quite a lot of road works going on so it made progress a bit slower, I had enough time however so wasn’t in any rush.

The border crossing I selected this time was in the town of Bo Y and to get to it, you can take a new, very wider and completely unused road.

The border crossing itself was easy and no problem at all on the Vietnamese side, on the Lao side, they offer visa on arrival (so that’s good to know) and they did say something about customs form for my motorbike but the guys at customs didn’t really care so I crossed into Laos and continued with my drive to Attapeu.

The road on the Laos side is not that great but the views are stunning, you can see very far in the distance at times and there is nothing but jungle all around for most of the way.

The road winds along the mountains so it’s not as quick to drive and some landslides have made certain sections very bumpy (mostly in a corner you can’t see well).

Once you pass by the new Attapeu International airport, it’s not much further to go to make it to the city. Attapeu is a quiet and pretty small town but has it’s charm and if you want to experience Vietnam in Laos it’s probably the best place.

There are a lot of Vietnamese here so it was no surprise I ended up in a Vietnamese coffee shop and even ordered in Vietnamese.