Living Laos by riding it

Hav­ing lived in Laos for all but a year since 2009, I real­ise how little the gen­er­al vis­it­or to the PDR takes home with them in terms of exper­i­ences and memories. 

Per­haps that is because ever since I star­ted liv­ing in Laos I have wanted to explore my new home on a motor­cycle. And now that I have done so I know what I missed. It is why I would encour­age adven­tur­ous vis­it­ors to con­sider explor­ing Laos on two wheels.

After six years of think­ing about it and doing research, in 2015 I made the decision to buy a three-year-old bike in Bangkok, Thai­l­and and import it into Laos. My 200-cc KTM Duke, includ­ing import duties and all the offi­cial paper­work, cost the same as if I had bought a 25+ year old Honda in Laos. 

The inside track

Dutch nation­al Chris Mulder is the GM of King­fish­er Eco­lodge in the Pathou­mphone dis­trict of Cham­pa­sak Province in south­ern Laos. He also foun­ded the KTM Laos motor­cycle club. 

“GT” Des­tin­a­tion Part­ner We Are Lao invited Chris to share this “GT” Travel Experience.

And so my jour­ney of own­ing and enjoy­ing a motor­cycle in Laos began. I have doc­u­mented much of it on the KTM Laos Face­book page. I wish I had star­ted soon­er than 2015 because my life in Laos has been so much rich­er since.

I real­ise that travel of this style will not be for every­one, but those who try this way of dis­cov­er­ing Laos will take home with them memor­ies that will last a lifetime.

In the West there is lots of talk about sup­port­ing loc­al com­munit­ies, buy­ing and eat­ing loc­al, and sleep­ing at loc­ally-owned places. Alas, in real­ity, this is sel­dom followed. 

How­ever, this is anoth­er good reas­on why I am sup­port­ive of motor­cycle tour­ism in Laos: In my exper­i­ence, bikers spend money wherever they go, con­trib­ut­ing dir­ectly to loc­al com­munit­ies, vil­la­gers, and mom and pop businesses.

Indeed to boost to com­munit­ies through­out the coun­try as tour­ism recov­ers from COVID, I hope that the Lao PDR gov­ern­ment will make it easi­er for the large num­ber of Thai, Viet­namese, and Cam­bod­i­an bikers and biker groups to ride into Laos.

On your explor­a­tions of Laos for the first time, you will of course want to see the head­line attrac­tions: The karsts of Vang Vieng, the old cap­it­al of Luang Pra­bang, and per­haps even the mod­ern cap­it­al of Vien­tiane. But these rep­res­ent, in my opin­ion and exper­i­ence, not even 10% of what makes the PDR worth vis­it­ing again and again.

For­tu­nately, motor­cycle rid­ing affords you the free­dom to stop and go when you want, eat and stay where you want, and see and exper­i­ence what you want. Per­haps you would like to explore the far north bor­der­ing China and Myan­mar, the far south near Cam­bod­ia, or see if there are Thai and Viet­namese influ­ences along the west­ern and east­ern bor­ders respectively. 

Per­haps you will explore the hills around Phon­savan and her Plain of Jars; Kham­m­ou­ane and her karst form­a­tions; Savan­nakhet with her wet­lands and charm­ing colo­ni­al bor­der town; the Bolaven Plat­eau, with more water­falls than you can ima­gine, and her cof­fee and tea plant­a­tions; Si-Pan-Don’s most volu­min­ous water­fall in South­east Asia; Cham­pa­sak with her Khmer ruins; or the hills of Sayabouli. 

Per­haps you have time for all of it.

All of these place will have you fall in love with this part of the planet.

Rid­ing a motor­cycle allows you to exper­i­ence Laos as she reveals her­self to you; and on your own terms rather than what travel agents want you to see.

There are a few travel ‘loops’ or routes oft-fol­lowed by mod­ern back­pack­ers — the Thakhek and Bolaven loops and the most recently added Savan­nakhet loop — that make great start­ing tem­plates for your own adven­tures, espe­cially if you have lim­ited time or are an inex­per­i­enced rider.

The loops are enjoy­able on auto­mat­ic or semi-auto­mat­ic scoot­ers. For longer trips, a 200-cc or 250-cc motor­bike is bet­ter suited. Rent­al shops are found at the start of all of these routes and are rel­at­ively inex­pens­ive giv­en the flex­ib­il­ity bikes offer.

All loops offer vari­ous nat­ur­al attrac­tions, poten­tial adven­tures, and cul­tur­al exper­i­ences — caves, water­falls, hot springs, view­points, zip­lines, nature parks, temples, ruins, rivers, ponds, tracks, towns, vil­lages, carving, weav­ing, paper mak­ing — and the pro­spect of wind­ing down at a gues­t­house or homestay some­where; by a fire, sip­ping a cold drink, and sampling the loc­al food.

In some places it is advis­able to look for a gues­t­house or homestay that you like and book it for a few days; use it as your base for explor­at­ory day trips. 

Pak­sé, Savan­nakhet, Phon­savanh, and even the 4,000 islands are great loc­a­tions from whence you can ven­ture out on your bike in the morn­ing, vis­it one of two sites, return to your accom­mod­a­tion to soak in the town vibes, drink a fruit-shake or Beer Lao, eat at a mar­ket­place, or grab a pizza.

Giv­en that most Lao gues­t­houses and homestays are not lis­ted on any online book­ing plat­forms, nor even have a web­site of their own, none of your funds are wasted on mar­ket­ing, or fees for the ‘sup­ply chain’.

Sev­er­al loc­al accom­mod­a­tions offer out­ings that you will not find on estab­lished tour pro­grams, such as a lake boat ride in Nakai, a jeep safari at Mys­tic Moun­tain, a hike on the Moun­tain of Shive in Cham­pa­sak, and a kayak tour at Spring River Resort.

If you would like to travel Laos by bike, but would rather do it under the guid­ance of a loc­al, there are sev­er­al reput­able motor­cycle tour com­pan­ies and guides, such as Mad Mon­key in Thakhek, Miss Noi in Pak­sé, Laos-Adven­tures in Luang Pra­bang, or Laos GPS Maps in Vien­tiane, to name a few.

In any case, motor­bike rid­ing in Laos is rel­at­ively safe out­side of Vien­tiane if you ride defens­ively and take it easy. Wear­ing a hel­met (abso­lute min­im­um) and a good pair of gloves will reduce the like­li­hood of a dis­ap­point­ing end to your travels.

Dis­tances are mostly very doable for most riders. Rides of more than 300 km on any giv­en day are unnecessary. 

Dur­ing the months of Novem­ber through to March it is wise to bring a warm jump­er, espe­cially in the north as tem­per­at­ures may drop to 5℃. You may also want to pur­chase a loc­ally-woven shawl .

To keep hydrated dur­ing your adven­tures, buy a reusable drink­ing bottle, read­ily avail­able at vari­ous loc­a­tions in the lar­ger towns. Down­load the Refill-not-Land­fill app to see where you can refill your bottle for free.

Except for Luang Pra­bang, Vang Vieng, and Vien­tiane, most places in Lao PDR nev­er get over­run by tour­ists (even before COVID shut down inter­na­tion­al travel).

For example, des­pite Vat Phou Cham­pa­sak being added to the UNESCO World Her­it­age list in 2001, the 2016 vis­it­or num­bers were 120,000. This com­pares to Cam­bod­i­a’s Angkor Wat, which saw more than 10 times that num­ber; almost 1.3 mil­lion vis­it­ors. (To be fair Angkor is far more extens­ive. But Vat Phou Cham­pa­sak is 700 years older.)

If you get to the site early — the inde­pend­ence afforded by a motor­cycle will help you do that — there is a fair chance you will be the only per­son there. This will make your exper­i­ence much bet­ter than those of the hun­dreds of massed selfie-shooters.

In short, Laos by bike is worth the ride and it will provide you last­ing memories.

Where is this?

The author, Chris Mulder, is the gen­er­al man­ager of King­fish­er Ecolodge.

King­fish­er Eco­lodge
1605 Pathou­mphone, Ban Kiat Ngong, Laos
Tel: +856 20 5572 6315.

For the “GT” Travel map pin that rep­res­ents this “GT” Travel Exper­i­ence, Chris sug­ges­ted the coordin­ates for Heuan Hinh (the Stone House) “an inter­est­ing ruin that few will have heard of, free entrance, and a nice little ride just out­side of Savan­nakhet city”.

Where next?